The hundred-year obsession with geopolitics and the deserts of the Middle East is about to fade quite fast. Why?
The obvious answer is because the golden era of oil, although not over, has peaked and the era of renewables, distributed around the world, has begun. Using solar power and wind located nearer our big-city energy demands is much better than dragging finite oil and gas all round the world. But this is only half the answer.
The second half is a result of the inevitable melting of the Arctic sea ice. It doesn’t matter how well we do on the environment front in the next two decades, the sea ice will melt. Eight nations are already active in the Arctic – Canada, Russia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Norway, and the USA are already gearing up to the economic opportunity there. After all, 22% of the world’s oil and natural gas lies in the Arctic, if we ever wish to use it. Minerals also abound, and Greenland holds 10% of the world’s fresh water. There’s plenty of fish, and there will be even more as the ice melts. No wonder Trump offered to buy Greenland.
But there’s more. The melting Arctic sea ice is creating massive new trading routes for the world, and that will mean that the Suez Canal will become much less important, as might the Panama Canal. The North West passage and North East passage will open across the top of Canada and Russia. Trade from Japan, Korea, and North China to Europe and vice versa will boom across the much shorter North East Passage. And other small countries in the path of the new trading route – Scotland, Estonia, and Latvia – can join in the boom if they are smart.
China is already planning for these routes and is investing in Russia’s vast natural gas fields in the North. It has taken a position in Greenland’s mining industry and is active in sponsoring scientific research in the Arctic. Germany will, no doubt, gear up to exploit its own advantages in machinery and industrial supplies. The military focus on deserts, khaki uniforms, and land-based warfare will be turned into an attention on white military suits, submarines and naval warfare. The Russians, worried about security with neighbours to the South, West and East, will be adding North to its defence interests. This, according to UK Defence Strategic thinking, is the biggest change to come in world dynamics in the next 50 years.
Unless Brazil, Africa, and India really get their act together over this period of time, the Northern Hemisphere will once again drive the world economy. The Antarctic is much more difficult to deal with than the Arctic.
And so, the race is on. The Arctic will become the New Middle East. Melting ice is the future, not searing hot sand. Let’s hope the Arctic, unlike the Middle East, doesn’t turn into a new environmental and military disaster. At least, there is no conflicted Jerusalem at the North Pole, which might make for a better starting point.
Featured image credit: William Bossen