Monday, June 2, 2008

Cold enough for you comrade?


It seems that Canada is attempting to increase it's northern ambitions by investigating the possibility of claiming rights to the seafloor beyond the north pole.

To be honest, I thought that the north pole was an ambitious goal for our aspirations of Arctic seafloor claims. It turns out that UN precedent indicates that a country can claim further than 350 km from their shores if it can be proved that the seafloor is a natural extention of the country's natural landmass.

Turns out the Russians were willing to let us set the pole boundary as good neighbors share an existing fence, but if it turns out that Canada has a right to go further, then we may have to move the fence.

Now, I'm a big fan of diplomacy and being good neighbors, but if Canada has rights to the seafloor then we should protect those rights by whatever means necessary. That would include manned patrols and some sort of security perimeter. Unfortunately Canada has let our military degrade from the second largest navy in the world 60 years ago to a living museum of second hand vessels and our own antiques.

I hope the Russians are willing to play nice, because if it comes down to standofs in the Arctic Ocean, we don't have much of a chance. Don't forget, other neighbors down south had a staring contest with the Russians for half of the last century. The yanks had a lot behind them to keep the stalemate going. We don't.

So if Canada wants the Arctic seafloor rights and the oil and gas deposits therein , we better hope that the Russians are intimidated by our own internal sense of moral superiority because that's all we have.

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