Category Archives: Extreme Environments Security

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Strategic Thinking in the Russian Arctic: When Threats Become Opportunities (1)

This series of two articles focuses on the current development of the Russian Arctic region, while explaining and demonstrating the importance of using strategic thinking for governments as well as for business actors. Indeed, the international dynamics of geopolitical and environmental changes, including their interactions, are becoming so rapid and powerful that political and business actors have …

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The Warming Russian Arctic: Where Russian and Asian Business and Strategies Converge?

In this new article about the current development of the warming Russian Arctic, The Red (Team) Analysis Society studies how Russia is currently devising an industrial and business grand strategy. This strategy is created through new oil and gas exploitations and the constant opening of the Siberian Northern Sea Route. These new activities are made possible by the rapidly intensifying climate change, which is transforming the Arctic into a continental attractor for energy, business, shipping, land transport, from everywhere in Asia (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The Russian Arctic meets the Chinese New Silk Road”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, 31 October, 2016). The Russian Arctic power of attraction can be identified from the fact that numerous Asian countries are attracted by the …

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The Russian Arctic meets the Chinese New Silk Road

In this article on the development of the energy, business and military nexus of the Arctic by Russia, the Red (Team) Analysis Society studies how the Russian Arctic is becoming a new crucial business and strategic “centre” in the world, through the creation of numerous energy and infrastructure projects and operations, which attract Chinese companies …

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Russian Arctic oil: a New Economic & Strategic Paradigm?

This article is the second of our series on the Anthropocene and security. Previously, we presented the larger dimensions and general elements framing the new (in)security. Here, we shall focus on latest developments regarding Russian Arctic oil. Between April and July 2016, the current Russian energy conquest of the Arctic led to the shipment of more than 230.000 barrels of oil from the Russian Arctic. They came from two recent on-shore fields, and from the Gazprom Prirazlomonoye off-shore oil rig (Irina Slav, “Russia Ramps Up Arctic Oil Production”, OilPrice.Com, July 21, 2016). The latter is the first of the glacial Barents Sea. The 2016 flow from the Russian Arctic almost doubled compared with 2015. In the meantime, the Russian ministry of …

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The UAE Grand Strategy for the Future – from Earth to Space

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is devising a grand strategy to ensure its global security during the 21st century. In 2010, the UAE’s government published the “UAE Vision 2021”, establishing the will “to ensure a sustainable development”. In 2011, the UAE’s political authorities created a national marine environment research centre. In 2014, they created the …

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The “Planetary Crisis” Rules (Part 1)

On 5 August 2010, the Russian authorities declared the state of emergency for the territory of the Ozersk, because raging giant wildfires had been devastating the country since July, and were now threatening the city and its strategic nuclear waste reprocessing plant specialized in the processing of nuclear waste. It was of strategic importance to …

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China and the New Silk Road: From Oil Wells to the Moon… and Beyond

 On 25 May 2015, the Chinese political authorities agreed to finance the building of a pipeline between Pakistan and Iran, dubbed the “peace pipe line” (Valantin, “China, and the new silk road: the Pakistani strategy”, The Red Team Analysis Society, May 18, 2015). As we saw, this agreement is part of the Chinese strategy called “the New Silk Road”, which is defined by the concept of “One belt, One road”. The “road” is aimed at creating a worldwide “land and sea” system (“Belt and Road Nations account for 26 per cent of China’s trade”, The Beijing Review, April 29, 2015), in order to attract supplies and diverse resources much-needed by the rapidly growing Chinese economy and urban development. Each “segment” of …

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Energy, Climate and Military Paradox

A powerful paradox lies at the heart of the current oil and gas global rush (Michael Klare, The Race for what’s left, 2012). On the one hand, the energy global demand necessitates to find and exploit oil and gas deposits, while looking for new ones, even in extreme environmental and political situations, as in the Arctic or the Niger river Delta (Al Jazeera, “Who is stealing Nigerian oil?“, 13 Sept. 2014). On the other hand, 97% of climatologists have developed a consensus in establishing that the current uses of oil and gas are changing the Earth climate (IPCC, fifth report, 2014) at such a speed and rate that basic life conditions could be altered for the whole of the human …

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The Russian Arctic, Energy and a Massive Power Shift

A major world power shift is happening in the Arctic. It is due to new massive oil and gas discoveries, combined with the effects of climate change. In effect, on 28 September 2014, Igor Sechin, CEO of Rosneft, the Russian mammoth oil company, announced the discovery of a giant oil field in the Kara Sea, north of Siberia (Zero Hedge, “Russia discovers massive Arctic oil field which maybe larger than the Gulf of Mexico“, 28 September, 2014). According to the first commentaries, this sub-sea structure called Universitetskaya, potentially, could contain reserves of oil and gas equal or superior to the Gulf of Mexico. As Igor Sechin declared, quoted by Bloomberg (Arkhipov, Chierman and Chilcote, “Russia says Arctic well drilled with Exxon Mobil …

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Arctic: the US Lost Frontier?

As the Arctic is warming, the Chinese and Russian influence in this region is rising (Valantin, Arctic Fusion: Russia and China convergent strategies, 2014). Meanwhile, one can wonder if the US strategic influence is not waning. During the last seven years, China and Russia have developed and deployed powerful Arctic grand strategies, through political, economic, industrial, technological and military means (Ding Ying, “Realizing Chinese and Russian dreams, China and Russia are determined to promote bilateral relationship to make both countries safe, strong and prosperous“, The Beijing Review, March 28, 2013). Since the end of the nineteenth century, the USA has been a prominent Arctic power (Charles Emmerson, The future history of the Arctic, 2010). Is it still the case, and will …

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