Controlling the Northern Seas: The Influence of Exclusive Economic Zones on the Development of Norwegian, Danish, and Canadian Naval Forces
Creators: name: Choi, Timothy Hiu-Tung
Publisher: name: Arts
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: maritime security
subject: UNCLOS
subject: Exclusive Economic Zone
subject: EEZ
subject: Royal Canadian Navy
subject: Royal Danish Navy
subject: Royal Norwegian Navy
subject: seapower
subject: sea power
subject: naval strategy
subject: maritime strategy
subject: NATO
subject: Arctic
subject: climate change
subject: Cold War
subject: navies
subject: coast guard
subject: sjøforsvaret
subject: søværnet
subject: small navies
subject: sea control
subject: offshore patrol vessels
subject: North Atlantic
subject: Svalbard
subject: Iceland
subject: Greenland
subject: History--Modern
subject: History--Canadian
subject: History--Military
subject: Military Studies
subject: Political Science--International Law and Relations

description: The military challenge of climate change in the Arctic is often centered upon resource access within Arctic states' Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ). There is thus a need to understand how those states' naval forces have responded to EEZ creation during the Cold War and their consequences through the present day. Examining the navies of Norway, Denmark, and Canada, this dissertation asks how the EEZ directly and indirectly affected their force structures and sea control operations and whether smaller navies consistently differ from larger one, which tackles the dearth of literature on smaller navies and peacetime naval operations. This dissertation finds that while all three Arctic states created and exploited the 200 NM zones, only Norway developed notably increased constabulary seapower inputs for controlling its blue water offshore area. For Denmark, its colonial territories in the North Atlantic meant its navy already had the constabulary fleet and organizational infrastructure necessary to control its EEZ even as its warfighting fleet focused on Baltic operations. Meanwhile, Canada could depend on its pre-existing blue water warfighting fleet to serve as ad hoc constabulary platforms for legally-endowed civilian fisheries officers. Despite these differences in each country’s force structures, the actual operations of all three countries’ navies would converge in the post-Cold War era, which called for overseas expeditionary missions in accordance with alliance interests. For the two smaller navies of Norway and Denmark, such missions were carried out with the same constabulary forces originally designed for EEZ concerns as they were the ones with the necessary blue water characteristics. In contrast, Canada already had a fleet of naval vessels that were suitable for such expeditionary operations due to its focus on blue water antisubmarine warfare. By the early 2010s, all three countries would have the necessary warfighting assets to operate in expeditionary roles, though only Canada would have the numbers required to do so on a continuous basis. However, rising geopolitical tensions and climate change’s effect on increasing activity in and around these countries’ EEZs is leading to a convergence of warfighting and constabulary requirements in these northern seas close to home.