Russian collapse drives Chinese fill-in.

Popular unrest continues to grow across Russian territory. Citizens are increasingly unhappy with their economic situation and repeated waves of press-gang conscription. Protests and social unrest grow inside Russia as a result of continued conscription, high casualty numbers, economic stagnation, and domestic instability feeding on each other.

Russia’s military and state apparatus collapse, leading to large ungoverned spaces and the rise of Russian warlords with access to stolen Russian weaponry and little concern for international norms. Russian oil and gas facilities, despite their degraded status, become the prize in the growing civil war among rival Russian warlords.10 There is the very real possibility that facilities will be collateral damage in such fights, if not targeted to keep them out of the hands of rival factions, with tremendous economic and environmental harm should facilities be damaged or destroyed.

Western intelligence can account for most of Russia’s strategic nuclear force but acknowledge that some weapons are controlled by ethno-nationalists. No one knows the fate of Russia’s tactical nuclear arsenal with any fidelity. A tactical weapon is detonated during fighting among rival factions in Chechnya, and another among groups seeking to control pipelines from the Yamal Peninsula. Russian refugees pour into the Nordic-Baltic states to avoid the chaos. Roughly one million refugees cross into Finland, five hundred thousand into the Baltic states, three hundred thousand into Sweden, and one hundred thousand into Norway.

The second major difference from Arctic Tsar is in Chinese behavior. Here, China steps into the void. Seeing Russia’s pending collapse, Beijing spends a decade dramatically increasing the size of its ground forces and its expeditionary military capabilities, and prepositions equipment in its northern and western provinces. In 2033, China’s military annexes central and eastern Russian territory ranging from the Pacific Ocean to the Ob River, as well as the Kola and Yamal Peninsulas and related NSR infrastructure, totaling well over half of Russian territory. China’s public rationale is that it is providing regional stability and environmental protection across ungoverned spaces, and establishing control of loose nuclear weapons, all for the benefit of humanity. Chinese forces quickly pacify their occupied territories, though Russian warlords in the remaining Russian provinces vow they will eventually liberate Russian territory from the Chinese occupiers and restore Russia’s greatness. The reality is that provincial leaders spend more time fighting among themselves over the scraps of the old Russian regime than they do plotting against China.

In 2034, Chinese state-owned enterprises take over the management of the NSR and Russian oil fields. China restores and upgrades equipment damaged by permafrost melt and local fighting. It sends the region’s oil and gas to China. The West protests China’s violation of another nation’s territorial integrity but is unwilling to intervene militarily or economically. Privately, some in the West are happy that China has brought some stability to the region. That changes, however, when China begins fortifying the northern and eastern Siberian coasts, putting Chinese conventional forces within striking distance of Alaska, and closes the NSR to non-Chinese vessels. Chinese submarines and armed icebreakers, unmanned sea and air vehicles, and manned aircraft patrol Arctic waters. In 2035, Chinese “settlers” begin moving north and west into sparsely populated Russian territory.