Russia’s policy in the Pacific Arctic seeks to protect NSR approaches and potentially to extend interdiction capabilities beyond the AZRF. Its ambitions have direct consequences for the security of the Bering Strait and for the Sea of Okhotsk.
Russia’s Pacific Arctic surface stretches north from the Chukchi Sea to the Bering Strait and the entrance to the Bering Sea in the far east. Further south, access is protected by installations on the Kamchatka peninsula and on the Sea of Okhotsk, close to Japan and South Korea. The Bering Strait represents the gateway to the NSR in the North Pacific.
Russia’s military posture in the Pacific Arctic
The Kremlin has two main priorities in ensuring sovereignty and protecting its national interests in the Pacific Arctic: 1) protecting the NSR; and 2) extending Russia’s military capabilities beyond the AZRF.
Protecting NSR approaches
In the Pacific Arctic, a two-part logic applies, similar to that on the Kola peninsula. Russia seeks comprehensive control over access for foreign military assets around its perimeter, while in the far-sea zone it is extending its capabilities to disrupt foreign military activity at longer ranges both at sea and in the air.
The Pacific Fleet is the mainstay of Russia’s force in the Pacific Arctic region and along the Far Eastern seaboard down to the Kamchatka peninsula and the Sea of Okhotsk. Headquartered in Vladivostok, the Pacific Fleet has an area of responsibility that stretches from the Far Eastern seaboard to the Bering Sea and the Bering Strait, and protects access to the Chukchi Sea along the AZRF and the NSR. The Pacific Fleet is responsible for around one-third of Russia’s second-strike, sea-based nuclear deterrent.
In the Kremlin’s narrative, recent American actions in the region are validating Moscow’s threat perception and vindicating Russian force posture. In June 2020, Russia dispatched an air-wing to ‘escort’ US B-52H bombers flying in airspace close to the Sea of Okhotsk. Also, in October 2020, Russia announced it had picked up the signal of two US B-1B strategic bombers over the Bering Sea. More recently, in October 2021, Russia said it prevented a US Navy destroyer from entering Russian waters in the Sea of Japan.
Moscow believes that such activity must be met with a strong response, which increases the risk of escalation in the North Pacific. The situation is compounded by the fact that Russia seeks to undermine US strategic dominance in northeast Asia, and, more specifically, the deployment of theatre missile defence in Japan and South Korea. Such deployments arguably prevent the Kremlin from increasing its defence in depth further south and around the Sea of Okhotsk.
Extending interdiction capabilities
As with the Kola Bastion, Russia seeks to extend its interdiction ambitions beyond the AZRF in the North Pacific. This is particularly visible further south in the Sea of Okhotsk. In 2014, the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (UNCLCS) confirmed a Russian claim allowing it to extend its continental shelf under the seabed in the Sea of Okhotsk, giving Russia access to the subsea and sea floor some 200 nautical miles from its coastline.
Yet, the UNCLCS findings were deliberately interpreted by Moscow as a way to exert the same control over surface waters as it would have over internal waters, in order to close off the surface of the entire open sea to foreign vessels, civilian and military alike. In other words, the Sea of Okhotsk was turned into an ‘internal Russian sea’. Since then, Russia has been increasing its military presence through the deployment of sea- and air-denial capabilities on the ground, on the Kamchatka peninsula and on the disputed Kuril Islands/Northern Territories, as well as at sea.
The UNCLCS findings were deliberately interpreted by Moscow as a way to exert the same control over surface waters as it would have over internal waters, in order to close off the surface of the entire open sea to foreign vessels, civilian and military alike.
However, Russia has no ambitions – nor does it have the military capabilities – to replicate the multi-layered protective dome deployed on the Kola peninsula and to create an ‘Okhotsk Bastion’. Indeed, Russia’s strategic posture is much weaker in the North Pacific than in the North Atlantic: neither Pacific Fleet assets nor the Kamchatka installations are in particularly good condition, while climate change is impacting infrastructure.
The idea of sustaining, let alone projecting, a Bastion protective dome covering sea approaches to the North Pacific seems a distant prospect. This does not mean, however, that Russia is unable to contest and disrupt the presence of US forces and its regional allies.
Chokepoints and flashpoints in the Pacific Arctic
Beyond the AZRF, the deployment of a coastal and near-sea defensive line from the Kuril Islands/Northern Territories and the Sea of Okhotsk up to the Bering Sea and the Chukchi Sea speaks of real – but limited – ambitions regarding control and denial in the North Pacific. This has direct security consequences for the US and its regional allies in two key navigational chokepoints.
The Bering Strait chokepoint
Like the GIUK and GIN gaps in the European Arctic, the Bering Strait could be threatened by Russian deployments. It may become – although to a lesser extent than in the European Arctic – another point of contention between Russia and the US over both freedom of navigation/innocent passage and access to and from the Pacific Arctic.
There are ongoing discussions in Russia regarding the management of the Bering Strait. The 1990 USSR–US Maritime Boundary Agreement created the ‘Baker–Shevardnadze line’ across the Bering Strait, effectively marking the border between Russia and the US in the Chukchi and Bering Seas. However, following the collapse of the USSR, Russia did not ratify the agreement and only agreed to observe it temporarily.
There are now worrying signs that the Kremlin may seek to contest both the line itself and future rights to passage through the Bering Strait. Nevertheless, the latter remains an unrealistic prospect, as Russia has no capacity to conduct SLOC interdiction operations in the Bering Sea.
However, the Kuril–Chukchi defensive line could become a significant issue for US assets in terms of uncontested access to the North Pacific SLOC and to the coast off Alaska. This is compounded by the fact that Russia intends to expand its fishing industry in the Chukchi Sea, with an increase in the number of civilian and coastguard surface vessels close to the Bering Strait and to US territorial waters possible.
Tension over the Kuril Islands/Northern Territories and the Sea of Okhotsk
Increased military activity on and around the Kuril Islands/Northern Territories puts more pressure on Japanese national security and greatly reduces the prospect of any form of bilateral settlement between Japan and Russia. Air defence identification zone (ADIZ) violations and airspace incursions, especially over Japan, are now commonplace.
The presence of Russian out-of-area assets in the North Pacific is compounded by the deepening of military and defence cooperation between Russia and China in recent years. The two countries now regularly conduct joint aviation and bomber patrols over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea, close to the Japanese ADIZ.
These activities are not benign and increasingly show signs of contestation in the form both of planned violations of the regional airspace over the Sea of Japan and of incursions into the airspace of Japan and South Korea. For example, in July 2019, Russia and China conducted their first joint long-range military aviation patrol. The exercise escalated into a reconnaissance-in-force operation when they overtly violated both the Japanese and South Korean ADIZs. Provocatively, Russian and Chinese assets flew over the disputed Dokdo/Takeshima islands.
In October 2021, the Maritime Interaction bilateral drills in the Sea of Japan showcased deeper military cooperation between Russia and China, notably in terms of joint air defence and ASW. More significantly, their respective naval forces conducted their first joint patrol through the Tsugaru Strait.
Such military activities with China have clear advantages for Russia as it seeks to increase its defence in depth in the North Pacific, not least as a sign of contestation against any US theatre missile defence presence.
