Warships vie for Arctic supremacy and resources — in 2030

A plot pitting Canadian, U. S. and Russian navies against one another is not that far- fetched, politics professor says

Arctic ice is receding and Canada and other Arctic nations are fighting for control of the last unexploited source of oil, gas and rare minerals in the world. The year is 2030 and the battle for the Arctic — and world domination — is in full force.

That’s the premise of a new video game Naval War: Arctic Circle set to be released this year.

Lead game designer Jan Haugland has been working on the game with a small group of developers for four years. The real time strategy game allows players to challenge the computer or one another in a game of modern naval warfare.

The developers used open source information to design vessels and aircraft based on existing technology — one boat is designed to resemble the Canadian naval frigate HMCS Halifax.

Haugland says the game is setup in a “rock, paper, scissors” style, meaning that every unit has its strengths but can be beaten by another unit. The nations have their strengths too. In the game, Russia has fewer aircraft than other countries, but a lot of submarines, the U. S. has the largest navy and Canada, despite its small population, has its extensive coastline as a strength.

“[ In the game] the Arctic region is rapidly becoming the last unexploited resource of oil and gas and many rare minerals,” Haugland said. “The world is, then as now, really starving for these resources. The sovereignty of these areas are disputed.”

There are no “good guys” or “bad guys” in the game, Haugland said, and he emphasizes that this Arctic of the future — complete with receding ice and tension surrounding opening trade routes — is just a game.

But Robert Huebert, an Arctic expert and a politics professor at the University of Calgary, said future tension in the Arctic is a real possibility.

“There’s a narrative that most people will say that to even talk about the prospect of conflict, is to invite conflict,” Huebert said. “But follow where people are putting scarce resources and you’ll see that most of the Arctic countries in the past five years have spent various large amounts of money, in a major economic downturn, on improving their combat capabilities in this region.”

Just two days ago, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said that Russia will build six submarines and one aircraft carrier a year starting in 2013.

But there’s another country Huebert said deserves attention for the role it could play in Arctic security — China.

“What we’re seeing with the Chinese is that they’ve made it very clear that they want to be major players in the Arctic for reasons of transportation, natural resources, scientific research and strategic concerns,” Huebert said. “They will be there. They’re spending the money. Their navy is being modernized as we speak at a time when the American navy is facing huge budget cuts.”

Like in the game, scientists suspect that a wealth of natural resources lie undiscovered beneath the water and ice. In 2008, the U. S. Geological Survey suggested that 30 per cent of the world’s undiscovered gas and 13 per cent of the world’s undiscovered oil is north of the Arctic Circle.

The Arctic, Huebert said, is becoming more important in terms of navigation, tourism and security. “The more the ice recedes, the more the Arctic becomes an ocean like any other ocean for both good and bad,” he said.