Arctic Yearbook 2014
444
Peacetime Location
ca. 36 %
ca. 0,8 %**
Deployments
ca. 66 %
ca. 36 %
ca. 0,8 %**
Military Exercises/Manoeuvres
Arctic Region
ca. 2 %*
ca. 66 %
ca. 36 %
ca. 0,8 %**
* the sovereign territories of Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia and Sweden within Europe
** only the Arctic land territories of Norway
Table 2: Coverage of the Arctic by existing CSBM regimes in the OSCE framework.
Included Categories of Military Equipment and Measures of Verification
Additionally, a potential CSBM regime in the Arctic should also aim to better cover the military
branch of naval forces, especially since these forces already now, but even more so in the future, will
play an even stronger role in the area (Lind 2014; Wezeman 2014; Bergh 2014) and are currently not
sufficiently covered by existing regimes of CSBMs (Schmidt 2013: 16). In order to credibly reduce
the amount of private information on naval forces, a possible CSBM regime in the Arctic should
thus also aim to provide location-specific information for naval forces outside their peacetime
location as long as they currently operate in the area.2 Otherwise roughly 64% of the region
consisting of international waters and Exclusive Economic Zones would remain uncovered by a
possible future CSBM regime.
If such location-specific information on naval forces operating in the area would be provided, the
treaty on Open Skies, in which state parties agree to accept (passive quota) and are able to carry out
(active quota) aerial observation flights over the sovereign territories of all other state parties (OS
2002: 5), would probably appear as the first choice of their verification (Spitzer 2009: 11; Josefsson
2014). While currently not able to credibly verify naval forces on the high seas, a prior briefing of the
observed party on the current naval presence and activities in the area, as well as the further
designation of respective OS airfields in the countries’ northern territories would make the treaty on
OS appear a strong potential tool of verification (Josefsson 2014).
While Open Skies already covers the land
territories of all Arctic states, but is not
able to verify detailed information on
state’s military equipment (ibid.), a
possibility of on-site inspections following
the general concept of the Vienna
Document would most likely further
contribute to an increased level of
transparency and trust in all states’
defensive presence of military forces. Figure 6: A Russian nuclear submarine vessel in its home port
While in general of a more thorough (RIA Novosti. Vittaly Ankov).
nature, inspections as carried out under
Confidence- & Security-Building Measures in the Arctic