With vast oil reserves waiting to be taken from the Arctic, it is interesting to read about Russia’s saber-rattling and implications for the United States, Canada and other countries that want to claim a piece of what lies below the frozen earth.
I don’t know much about geopolitics in the Arctic — and I may be reading too much into recent news stories I’ve seen — but there may be something going on in the world that we should watch.
The following is from a story written last week by Randy Boswell of Canwest News Service in Canada:
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev directed his top Kremlin officials to develop a comprehensive and assertive strategy to exploit the region’s vast Arctic frontier — including the demarcation of boundaries and the exploiting of polar resources …
Initial reports of Mr. Medvedev’s address to Russia’s national security council suggested he was advocating unilateral action to secure Arctic territory at a time when the five polar nations — including Canada — are collecting geological data for planned sea floor territorial claims under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Later in the same piece, there is a discussion about Russian
aircraft invading Canadian air space in Far North.
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