Climate change in the Arctic: Security implications and consequences for military operations – a MCDC project (CLIMARCSEC)

Climate-change occurs at some of the highest rates in the Arctic regions resulting in both emerging risks and new opportunities.

Themes

Climate-change occurs at some of the highest rates in the Arctic regions resulting in both emerging risks and new opportunities. The opening of the Arctic provides Arctic and non-Arctic states/actors with easier access to the Arctic Ocean. In combination with changing geopolitical-/strategic conditions and growing political and military tensions, climate change makes the Arctic strategically important for Multinational Forces (MNF) but also exacerbates an already challenging field for operations. So far, various capability and governance/coordination gaps (e.g. insufficiency in resources and modern equipment, missing joint command structures) restrict MNF abilities to address the current and future challenges adequately.

CLIMARCSEC's main project aims were to define the governance and capability gaps in military operations against the light of climate change and new environmental and geopolitical conditions of the Arctic and to propose multinational solutions for the use of any nation's defence establishment in mitigating those gaps. The project focused primarily on the command, control, communications, and governance/coordination capabilities necessary to direct effective MNF Arctic operations. Of the many military challenges and operational areas applicable in the Arctic with which operational planners will have to deal, CLIMARCSEC has identified military Arctic Search and Rescue (SAR) as a particularly important one. Therefore, while the multinational concept that has been elaborated within the framework of the project (“Multinational Military Search and Rescue (SAR) Capabilities in the Arctic”) offers some background relevant to the planning of a wide range of military operations, it pays special attention to the case of SAR and related challenges in the Arctic.

The SAR challenge in the Arctic regions is likely to expand as the implications of climate change are realized and as activity levels as well as the number of actors across the wider region continue to multiply. The number of operations will increase due to an expected growing number of emergencies, becoming more complex and costly. While still a national responsibility, Arctic SAR increasingly becomes a joint endeavour of several states and organizations because of the often transnational and cross-border character of incidents, the extreme distances and weather encountered in the region, and the lack of Arctic capable SAR assets available to any single national SAR organization.

The project’s main question has been how both national and multinational state and nonstate, including military, SAR capabilities in the European and North American Arctic regions can be extended and improved in an effective and coordinated way, closing relevant capability gaps for example related to C2, coordination and governance, communication and information sharing, against the light of climate change and related challenges. It has been concluded that, as for all military operations in the Arctic, successful and effective SAR operations require a sound, tangible, robust and sustainable policy, governance and coordination framework, which is at the same time adjustable to new changes and new developments in the operational environment, stable command and control structures, solid infrastructure and logistics and functioning robust communication systems.

In addition to Norway, 10 MCDC member countries were participating in the project: Canada, Finland, France, Poland, Romania, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany, the United States and Austria. Australia, Brazil, Spain, the Netherlands, South Korea, NATO-ACT and EU-EDA/MS acted as observers.

The project was funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Defence.

The Multinational Capability Development Campaign (MCDC) is a program with a partnership of 24 countries and international organizations (IGO) designed to develop and assess non-materiel (non-weaponry) force development solutions. This is done through collaborative multinational efforts, to meet present and future operational needs associated with conducting joint, multinational and coalition operations. It contributes to multinational interoperability by identifying and evaluating potential solutions to multinational capability gaps.

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