Arctic FONOPs in the Northern Sea Route
Abstract
Melting sea ice in the Arctic has created two important opportunities: increased access to Arctic resources and improved seafaring and shipping ability. The Northern Sea Route (NSR) is a network of passages north of Russia connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that Russia claims as internal waters. As such, Russia asserts it right to require shipowners request permission and pay a fee to transit the NSR. The United States and the majority of the international community dispute Russia's territorial NSR claim, yet, currently no state is challenging Russia's claims with freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) such as the United States does routinely in many other areas of the world. This paper describes the strategic importance of the Arctic and NSR, analyzes the current capability gaps preventing the United States from conducting FONOPs in the NSR, and provides recommendations to mitigate these gaps.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 18, 2018
- Accession Number
- AD1087382
Entities
People
- Kenneth J Smith
Organizations
- Naval War College