In view of geographical and climatic characteristics of the region, less attention was paid to the North Pole; but today, global warming and the possibility of exploitation of huge resources of the region have caused countries to pursue the definition of their security and economic influence there.
Countries located in the North Pole region like Russia, the U.S., Finland, Denmark and Norway have close competition on the modality of their presence in the North Pole. So far, efforts were made to establish close cooperation among these countries within the framework of environmental protocols. Because all of these countries put emphasis on the point that any effort to exploit huge resources of the North Pole bed may leave considerable environmental impacts.
Having regarded the rising tension among Russia and other adjacent countries to the North Pole in the past decade, efforts for military presence in the region have increased.
Russia has a number of large military bases in the region and Western countries in the North Pole border like the U.S., Finland and Norway that have security cooperation with each other, are making effort to have a stronger and more sensible military presence in the region.
Sweden and Finland application to join NATO is one of the movements that may escalate tension in the North Pole; the countries that tried to adopt a neutral policy and to have balanced relations with Russia.
Now, that relations between the West and Russia is defined within the framework of security and threat concept, we witness a military, political and economic array between the West and Russia, tension in the North Pole between Russia and western countries will also rise to pursue these developments. It does not seem that environmental protocols can serve as a good instrument to control and manage the tension anymore. For sure, the countries involved in the North Pole region will make efforts aimed at exploitation of huge marine and sea bed resources of the North Pole. Every effort has, so far, been made to preserve the marine resources of the North Pole region but with rising tensions, efforts to economic exploitation of these resources will also further strengthened.
One of the measures can be the transfer of a part of economic influence sphere of the North Pole countries to countries beyond the region that may wish to economically exploit the marine and sea bed resources of the North Pole. From this point of view, China is looking for economic exploitation of marine resources of the North Pole more than other countries. Close ties of the country with Russia will provide a suitable opportunity for broader presence of Beijing in the North Pole.
This is the case while the European Union has always tried to keep a kind of balanced ties with Russia within a defined border. The policy will make those countries that support a more offensive approach towards Moscow to moderate their policies because of their dependence on Russian energy. But after the Russian invasion of Ukraine all political, economic and security equations of Europe with Russia after the fall of the former Soviet Union will be subjected to changes and developments. Almost all European countries are now aligned in pro-military and economic confrontation with Russia. In the meantime, the policy of Russian containment within its borders has turned to become the clear and serious stance of Brussels against Moscow. While before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we used to witness a profound gap among European countries on how to deal with Russia.
As the North Pole is a demarcated region between Russia and western countries at present, it has been subjected to changing relations between Russia and the European Union after its attack on Ukraine.
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