The Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, known as Spitzbergen in Russia, is a group of inhospitable, desolate Arctic islands. The nearest city, Tromsø, is 1.5 hours away by plane. In Longyearbyen, the archipelago’s center, reindeer share the road with 2,600 residents, and people do not venture out of town without rifles for fear of bear encounters. In Barentsburg, a former Russian coal mining town, Russian barracks-style buildings crowd around the square where a huge bust of Lenin, a relic from Soviet times, stares blankly at the ice-covered bay.
It is unlikely that Russia has any interest in Svalbard’s almost depleted coal, its Northern Lights snowmobile tours or Longyearbyen’s brewery. It has a keen interest, however, in drilling in Svalbard’s continental shelf, with its tremendous untapped deposits of copper, zinc, gold, rare metals, oil and gas. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Arctic 2035 strategy road map shows that, in the short run, Russia is not giving up its attempts to get access to Svalbard’s continental shelf. In the long run, it appears that Russia might even be entertaining the idea of annexing the islands for military and economic purposes. Yet, Norway and NATO have the tools at their disposal to resist Russian encroachment. More importantly, Russia’s aggressive actions and rhetoric targeting Svalbard in early 2020 and the subsequent response from Norway and NATO offer lessons for policymakers looking to maintain strategic stability in the Arctic.
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