In 2005, fisheries inspectors from the Norwegian Coast Guard boarded the Russian fishing vessel Elektron in Arctic waters east of the Svalbard archipelago. The vessel was one of the many Russian trawlers that venture as far north as is possible without reaching the edge of the Arctic sea ice every year to trawl the abundant Arctic fish stocks. Elektron had been under surveillance for some time by Norwegian authorities for illegal discarding of fish in the Norwegian Fishery Protection Zone (FPZ) around Svalbard. During their inspection the two Coast Guard inspectors went on to uncover severe violations, and the trawler was arrested and escorted by the Coast Guard vessel KV Tromsø towards the Norwegian mainland for the police to continue with the prosecution.
The captain of Elektron , in agreement with its Russian owners, had other plans. Just before entering the Norwegian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) he decided to flee with the two Norwegian fisheries inspectors on-board (Åtland and Ven Bruusgaard 2009, 339). For three days, four Norwegian Coast Guard vessels, as well as a maritime surveillance aircraft and several helicopters, caught up with Elektron and closely tailed the trawler as it headed for Russian waters, where Russian Navy vessels were waiting. The Norwegian Coast Guard considered using military force to halt the vessel by boarding it. In the end, bad weather was blamed for not following through with the boarding (Åtland and Ven Bruusgaard 2009, 341). It is also highly likely that Norwegian authorities were concerned with the escalation effects such actions could have vis-à-vis Russia in the Arctic (Fermann and Inderberg 2015, 389, 395).
The Elektron -incident was widely publicised, with coverage on Norwegian national television. This was in part a conscious strategy by the Norway authorities to gain sympathy for its policies and ensure public support (Fermann and Inderberg 2015, 374, 390). A new coalition government had entered office in Norway only a month earlier, with the fresh foreign minister Jonas Gahr Støre wanting to prove himself as a deft diplomat while also upholding Norwegian rights in the area. By all definitions this was a ‘crisis’ for the new government.1 The incident was unanticipated, perceived as a great threat to the actors involved, within a limited timeframe, and had the potential to cause serious damage in the relations between Norway and Russia. It is significant that this incident did not only concern fisheries management, it also took part in the larger context of the disputed regime concerning Svalbard’s maritime zone and security relations between one NATO-member, Norway, and a Russia under President Vladimir Putin intent on re-establishing its Arctic presence.
On October 20, however, the two fisheries inspectors were released to the Norwegian Coast Guard by the Russian Border Service, which had arrived to escort Elektron to Murmansk after ‘intense dialogue’ between the Russian and Norwegian governments (Skram 2017, 168). The incident has subsequently become an example of a small-scale dispute well managed between Norway and Russia. As described by former Norwegian Coast Guard Chief Skram, the fact that Norway was considered a decent neighbour by Russia, in tandem with the recognition that there needs to be a rule-based regime concerning fisheries in the Barents Sea, helped the two countries manage this particular crisis (Skram 2017, 171). At the same time, the incident led to questions being asked about the division between civilian and military tasks in the Norwegian Coast Guard, as well as how best to manage such volatile incidents in the future as Arctic maritime activity is set to increase further (Hemner et al. 2007; Inderberg 2007).
Governing Oceans
The Elektron -incident highlights what this book is about. Firstly, the Arctic maritime environment is changing. Arctic coastal states are struggling to cope with these changes and how to best respond with adequate public services ranging from search and rescue and oil spill preparedness, to general maritime domain awareness. In addition, protection of sovereign rights (hereunder fisheries inspections) is increasingly needed in Arctic waters. The main, if not only, service responding to these demands is the coast guard. Yet Arctic coast guard structures vary greatly across the northern region in terms of Arctic capacities, institutional set-ups, and mandate along a civilian-military spectrum.
At times coast guards get caught in larger military and geopolitical schemes where their role as a branch of a country’s armed forces is integral, as exemplified in the Elektron -case. In other instances, the civilian nature of coast guard tasks and mandates simplify and de-escalate incidents at sea that might otherwise have the potential to spiral out of hand. It is this balancing act—vis-à-vis other countries but also internally within a country—that deems the coast guard a particularly interesting actor to study. Especially in an Arctic maritime domain—or more accurately within the multiple maritime domains in the Arctic—undergoing rapid economic, climatic and (geo)political transformation, the coast guard becomes the ultimate gage of how Arctic countries are responding to and dealing with a multitude of complex challenges in the north.
Secondly, as the Elektron -incident showcases, Arctic coastal states are dependent on cooperation across their maritime boundaries in order to solve new challenges that are arising in the region. This specific incident took place in the context of a larger dispute over maritime zones in the Arctic, albeit one where Norway and Russia had—and have—temporarily agreed to disagree, and more importantly, found a working relationship. This relationship has been built over decades involving a Joint Fisheries Commission as well as informal and formal cooperation between the two coast guard services, and more generally between the two countries. Thus, it is not sufficient to only explore how Arctic states have organised and are adapting their response to Arctic challenges; we must also understand why and how the same states engage in cooperation both bilaterally and multilaterally in order to jointly solve challenges. By engaging with these issues, we will subsequently be able to better comprehend how Arctic states manage potential disputes at sea in the north, and how these low-level mechanisms dispel notions of the Arctic as an arena for resource wars and geopolitical conflict.
Third and finally, altho...