Arctic. the new Frontier.

 EVERYONE WANTS A PIECE OF THE ARCTIC

IT IS EVIDENT THAT IT WILL BE THE NEW LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

Everyone is amazed at talk about Canada and Greenland. The Arctic may soon supersede events in the middle east and Ukraine as the most important areas in the coming decades. The Arctic shoreline is claimed by 8 countries, Russia, 53%, Canada, 40%, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the USA. Continental EU nations and most of the world, do not have any claims on this, until now, uninhabitable land mass.

It is all about the prospects of climate change and the reality that if this change continues, these lands will have their mineral and their natural resources available. While most western nations have adopted the idea of attempting to reverse climate change by deindustrializing their economies, Russian scientists have had another view. Their opinion is that while carbon emissions are part of the climate change phenomena, it is a minor player with sun spot activity, pole shifts and other natural changes that leave the ability of man to stop these changes irrelevant. Their plan is to adapt to the changes and the Russian government has been working in that  direction for years.

It seems that western countries may also have belatedly come to that conclusion and thus the increased focus on the new Arctic frontier.

Much of the Arctic is governed by International law and the Arctic council which has all the above 8 as members. so far these rules and negotiations have been friendly and cooperative.

At this time we have "Territorial sea" which is 12 miles and has full sovereignty of sea, land and seabed by the adjoining country.

Then their is the "contiguous zone" that is 24 miles and gives the controlling country the right to enforce laws, considering immigration, customs and sanitary control among other rights.

Then there is the "Exclusive economic zone" which extends 200 miles and give the exclusive right to explore and extract from the water column and the seabed.

The rest is considered the domain of mankind and also international sea travel is protected by a sea treaty.

Russia, most likely due to their experience in the Arctic, is way ahead of the rest of the world in taking advantage of their majority position. They have built the biggest and best nuclear powered icebreakers and also portable nuclear power plants that can be moved to where needed, they are already doing shipments through the Arctic sea that has shortened the routes to Europe and China by as much as 40%.

Some of these countries, do not have the resources or the technology to take advantage of their position and may be forced to take on partners to be able to develop their resources.

Russia has already partnered with China in developing sea routes and also will be able to assist in refining of certain metals and manufacturing needed tools and equipment.

There is no doubt that the Arctic is going to change the geopolitics in the very near future.