Russia has its own problem with climate denial, which seems to come from the top. But like here in the US, while wealthy interests fund science denial to keep their populations ignorant of the threat from climate change, they quietly prepare for a climate altered future in which the arctic ocean opens for trade and exploitation.
Moscow has long claimed large portions of the Arctic, claiming that the underwater Lomonosov and Mendeleyev ridges demonstrate that Russia’s continental shelf extends far beyond its current 320-kilometer territorial waters. The proposed change would bring an extra 1.2 million square kilometers into Russia’s grip with, according to Natural Resources Minister Sergei Donskoi, at least 5 billion tons of new oil and gas reserves.
This all remains in question, but in 2007 the Arktika expedition both demonstratively planted a Russian flag on the seabed at the North Pole and claimed to have found proof of these claims.
However, the Kremlin is not just relying on scientific reports and legal claims. Instead, there is an increasingly strong military dimension to Russia’s presence.
The new Northern Command responsible for the Arctic will subsume the Northern Fleet, and there is a growing naval presence in the region. Last year the nuclear-powered missile cruiser Peter the Great led a squadron of 10 warships and four nuclear-powered ice breakers to the New Siberian Islands.
Indeed, Russia’s icebreaker fleet is a particular “ice-power” asset: It is the world’s largest and includes the massive nuclear-powered vessel 50 Years of Victory. Beyond that, Russia is constructing a chain of 10 Arctic search-and-rescue stations that, along with its 16 deepwater ports, are intended to consolidate Russia’s authority over the Northern Sea Route, which Putin has said may prove even more important than the Suez Canal in shaping global shipping flows.
Long-range air patrols have also been stepped up, and a new, year-round airbase is being built in the New Siberian Islands Archipelago between the Laptev and East Siberian seas to support an even greater presence. This is only one of the 13 new airfields and bases being built, as well as 10 air-defense radar stations.
Moscow has said this expansion is due to scientific research that shows its continental shelf extends further below the pole than previously contended.
By expanding its territory, Russia would be in a prime position to take advantage of both natural gas and oil reserves while positioning itself to take part in any future trade through the north as the polar icecaps melt.
The US estimates that upwards of 15% of the earth’s remaining oil, 30% of its natural gas, and 20% of its liquefied natural gas are stored in the Arctic sea bed.
In Canada, meanwhile, the government is taking a less obvious approach to staking a claim in the Arctic. Earlier this week, Smart News wrote about how a research expedition funded by the Canadian government turned up the wreckage of one of the two ships involved in the Franklin Expedition to chart the northwest passage. Yet even this archaeological and historical quest has political undercurrents, says Ben Makuch for Motherboard.
As in everything else Arctic related for Canada, [Canadian Prime Minister Stephen] Harper is also using this historic moment as a way of building the Canadian narrative claim to the Arctic.
Finding the Franklin Expedition ships, says Makuch, “will help establish for his relatively young country the historical chops to compete with Russia’s own aggressive claim over disputed and potentially resource-rich Arctic land.”
“Of course, Canada didn’t exist at the time of Franklin’s journey, and any actual historical link with the voyage is tenuous,” he adds.
Two weeks ago, as Americans were preoccupied playing Groundhog War in Iraq, a significant discovery was announced in Canada. Yes, yes, of course this is an accepted ground for joking—“Worthwhile Canadian Initiative Yields Results” being the world’s most boring headline, and so on—but in this case the initiative in question really was worthwhile, at least to anyone with an appreciation for Victorian mystery, the winter sublime, and the far north. What had taken place was the discovery, intact and underwater, of one of the two ships of the Franklin expedition, the British naval voyage that went out in search of the Northwest Passage, in 1845, got stranded in the Arctic ice, and was never seen again. (There’s a good, ghostly video of the wreck here.)
The finding of the Franklin ship—there were two, the H.M.S. Erebus and the H.M.S. Terror; no one is yet sure which has been spotted down there—is, for Canadians, a very big deal (“Canada’s Moon Shot,” the Toronto Star called it), since the Franklin expedition has long provided the single most eventful mythological moment in Canada’s admittedly not-exactly-limitlessly mythologized history. Margaret Atwood, in her essay “Concerning Franklin and His Gallant Crew,” from 1991, identifies it as a kind of origin myth of disaster in the Canadian experience. To translate it from Canadian into American terms, it is as if someone had found, in a single moment, the hull of the Titanic, the solution to the mystery of the lost colony at Roanoke, the original flag of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and the menu for the Donner Party’s last meal.
Norway is experiencing increased military activity from Russia in the Arctic region and the news recently said that there will be a great strengthening of our own military to counter this.
http://www.norwaynews.com/en/~view.php?73Ob454DNa482ax285aln844OQ3882U076DFp453Jax8
Although the Arctic is clearly a motivator for Russia, I think Putin is also just showing off his military capabilities as a “response” to what he considers a threat from NATO. Well there is really no doubt which party has been the busiest annexing regions from sovereign countries lately…
You had better oil up your G3 and check your stock of 7.62, JCL. Putin is unpredictable, and no one knows how the situation is going to pan out as the Arctic becomes more ice-free.
So far, the “Arctic Powers” have been able to work things out up there fairly nicely, but that is likely to change once they start to exploit the resources. Russia’s territorial claims ARE rather extreme.
While I use the AG3 in the military it seems they swapped it out for HK416N some years ago.
According to the news, the Russians have not crossed into our region yet, although they seem to do it all the time with the Finns and Swedes – no doubt because they are not Nato members. I wonder what he is getting at, Mr Putin doesn’t seem all that stable these days.
This reminds me of when my aunt continued smoking even as she was going through chemotherapy. I had always thought she was an intelligent person before. But her arguments for smoking showed that she had a problem with change. And to suggest change as a more sustainable path only made her more fiercely stubborn.
We can draw an easy correlation between continuing to smoke, and continuing to drill. We know it’s madness. But if we (humans) become aggressively against change, the end result will be the same.
It’s not about oil – it’s about farmland. ;}
Lebensraum?