Battle for the Arctic

[lhuang]

I heard them canadians did not like the russian subs in canadian waters , what truth exists of that international incident ?

I heard Canadian armed forces have began to increase their army & navy and airforce budget since that incident

Obviously there is some disareement what are the limits of these borders , but what is the Russian take do they feel they own the region becasue they laid a flag on bottom of ocean ? or something like that I herd that a while ago ...

More info on such an occurrence please?

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

More info on such an occurrence please?

Reference:
CBC News - New Brunswick - Canada monitors Russian subs off East Coast

Canada monitors Russian subs off East Coast
Last Updated: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 | 12:04 PM AT Comments339Recommend138CBC News

A pair of Russian Akula nuclear submarines, like the one shown in this file photo, have been spotted off of Canada's East Coast. (Associated Press)
The Department of National Defence has sent a surveillance plane to waters off Canada's East Coast to monitor a pair of nuclear-powered Russian submarines in the area.

The attack subs were first spotted on Aug. 5 in international waters off Georgia, according to officials. The presence of the boats was leaked to the New York Times last week by anonymous security analysts.

While the subs were off the U.S. coast, the Pentagon was also monitoring their movements but no action was taken against the vessels.

Canadian officials said information indicates the Akula-class warships have now moved north.

'Commitment to sovereignty'
"For a variety of reasons, to demonstrate our commitment to sovereignty, we're watching to ensure we know what is happening along our coastlines," Defence Minister Peter Mackay told The Canadian Press. "Anything that comes near sovereign Canadian territory, we are going to react."

Defence Minister Peter MacKay says Russia has been "flexing its muscles" on the international stage. (Canadian Press)Akula-class subs are equipped with surface-loaded cruise missiles and surface-to-air missiles but are not believed to pose any kind of threat, defence officials said.

A long-range CP-140 Aurora plane will keep an eye on the subs, which have remained outside Canada's 12-nautical-mile territorial limit, according to Canada Command, the Ottawa-based military headquarters in charge of continental defence.

It's unclear whether Canada took the initiative to have a patrol plane watch the vessels or whether the U.S. Northern Command requested that the submarines be tracked.

Canada Command spokesman Lt. Noel Paine declined to disclose the details of the surveillance mission, calling it a "routine" patrol.

Russian posturing
The arrival of the Russian subs off the North American seaboard is the first documented time in more than a decade the country has operated vessels in the region, according to military historians.

Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the Russian military, has shrugged off foreign concerns about Russian sub patrols near North America. (Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters)During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union regularly patrolled each other's coastlines in an effort to collect military information and to track each other's fleet movements.

Analysts have suggested the arrival of the subs is part of Russian posturing.

Deputy chief of staff for the Russian armed forces, Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovistsyn, said the unannounced sub movements are "part of a normal process" and are travelling within recognized international regulations. There is no need for "hysteria" about their presence, Nogovistsyn told Reuters.

The patrol is just a matter of the country's fleet not sitting idle or continuing to travel around in circles on Russia's internal routes, he said: "The navy should not stay idle at its moorings."

Fight for the Arctic
MacKay said the submarines have not done anything considered threatening. But the minister added there is a pattern of "Russia flexing its muscle" over recent months.

The Arctic, with its prospective mineral wealth and ill-defined borders, has become an area of intense competition among Canada, Russia, the United States, Denmark and other countries.

The Russian navy fired two long-range underwater missiles in Arctic waters near the North Pole in July. Russia has also launched several bomber flights that have brushed up against Canada's Arctic border.

In February, Canadian fighter jets scrambled to intercept a Russian bomber less than 24 hours before U.S. President Barack Obama was to visit Ottawa.

The Russian Embassy in Ottawa has denied that the presence of the latest vessels has anything to do with staking claim in the Arctic.

The Canadian navy is preparing to conduct an anti-submarine exercise in the Arctic later this month.


Read more: CBC News - New Brunswick - Canada monitors Russian subs off East Coast

 

[Dron.ru]

At a meeting with the heads of major oil companies of Russia on the development of resources in the Arctic, Putin urged involve foreign partners in joint projects of building liquefied natural gas terminals. Recently, with the Indian delegation discussed issues of joint production of gas in the Barents Sea.

Last year, Canada announced plans of building a major naval base on its northern islands, thereby giving a clear signal to the U.S., which openly challenged the right of Canada to control the straits between the islands of the Canadian Archipelago.

Because the interests of Russia and Canada in the Arctic on many issues do not overlap, we can expect for a separate agreement between the two countries till a critical review of UN requests several countries to join the Arctic shelf.

Arctic goldrush is exposed as UN deadline for sharing spoils ends. ( "The Times", United Kingdom)

The scramble for mineral riches under the oceans was exposed yesterday when a UN deadline passed for countries to claim the seabed up to 350 miles from their coasts.

Forty-eight nations, including Britain, submitted claims to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, and dozens more made preliminary filings. Countries that missed the deadline risk losing any future claim.

The deadline sets in process what the UN calls the last major redrawing of the world map. “It’s going to change the face of the world. There is no question about that,” said Lindsay Parson, of the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton University. “People won’t own these areas. They will own the right to the non-living resources.”

The submissions filed with the UN exposed overlapping claims in contested areas such as the Arctic, the South China Sea and around the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.

The stakes are enormous as the melting of Arctic Sea ice and new technology which allows drilling and mining deep under the sea will enable states to exploit oil, gas and other minerals far offshore.

The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea set yesterday’s deadline for states to stake their claims to vast areas of the continental shelf that lie beyond their existing 200-mile “exclusive economic zones”.

The continental shelf at issue varies in depth from just a few hundred metres in the Grand Banks off Canada’s Atlantic coast to as much as 4,000 metres (13,000ft). “There is an untold amount of money at stake because what is at stake is millions of square kilometres of seabed and everything that lies underneath. Nobody really knows what the full value is,” said Robert Volterra, an expert in public international law at the law firm of Latham & Watkins in London. “In the Arctic continental shelf alone people estimated there may be billions of barrels of oil.” Russia, the first to file with the UN in 2001, has already been rebuffed in its attempt to claim a huge section of the Arctic. Russia’s submission was contested by Canada, Denmark, Norway and even the United States, which has not ratified the Law of the Sea Treaty. Washington told the UN that the Russian claim contained “major flaws”. The UN commission recommended that Russia should submit a “revised submission” on the Arctic — something Moscow has yet to do.

Moscow has continued to press its claim to the Arctic, most spectacularly when a mini-sub planted a flag on the seabed beneath the North Pole in 2007 in an area that Denmark also says it will claim because of its sovereignty over Greenland.

Talks have reportedly been held on a possible joint submission by Russia, Canada and Denmark to the UN commission, determining the outer limit of the continental shelf but not necessarily dividing it up. Neither Canada, which ratified the treaty in 2003, nor Denmark, which joined in 2004, was bound by yesterday’s deadline because they have ten years to file their claims.

The tussle over the Arctic is not repeated at the other pole, where the 1959 Antarctic Treaty bans all mineral exploitation and puts rival sovereignty claims on hold.

Britain, which claims sovereignty over a portion of the frozen continent, also claimed by Chile and Argentina, has notified the UN that it is not making a submission with respect to the British Antarctic Territory but reserves the right to do so in the future.

Argentina has predictably howled about Britain’s claim, filed on Monday, to the continental shelf around the Falkland Islands, over which the two countries fought in 1982. Argentina had already filed its own claim to the shelf around the islands.

The 21-member UN commission can determine the size of the continental shelf, but has no power to resolve disputes between nations. Conflicting claims must be settled by arbitration, or before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, or the International Court of Justice.

 

[lhuang]

too long to quote

So the Russian subs stayed outside of the territory limit? What are the Canadians complaining about? USN ships skirt Chinese border on South China sea all the time

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

So the Russian subs stayed outside of the territory limit? What are the Canadians complaining about? USN ships skirt Chinese border on South China sea all the time

Well canadians love their ice , so anyone who comes close on their ice it makes them nervous

Did you not see Canada vs Russia ICE hockey game that was the battle of arctic right there

 

[Dron.ru]

I heard them canadians did not like the russian subs in canadian waters , what truth exists of that international incident ?

Now a number of northern seas are closed for the passage of nuclear submarines due to the shallow depth - some pack ice scraping along the bottom. Attempt of the American submarine in late August to overcome the Bering Strait, nearly ended in disaster, in the Chukchi Sea, they fell into an ice trap, from which it was possible to leave only through luck.

Since Canadian straits deep enough, the submarines of different countries regularly graze there

Canadians are more concerned with demonstrative voyaging U.S. warships in the straits of the Canadian Archipelago.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

Other then oil arctic has nothing ... its just barren land , where living is hars , and cold - and rough seas - anyone sean the ocean waves in that region...

Solar + Wind + Tidal energy is the answer , we just don't know how to exploit it properly

 

[Dron.ru]

 

[Gideon]

The Russian claims to the Arctic are preposterous in America's point of view. The Arctic is basically a giant ice shelf which is already severely compromised due to Global Warming causing a already noticeable rise in sea levels. Not to mention that the Arctic still remains one of the world most endangered natural ecosytems where many species are on the verge of extinction.

The Russians basically want to set up oil rigs and pollute the entire area selfishly destroying one of the world largest ice shelf causing a rapid increase in world wide sea levels and destroying an endangered natural ecosystem for profit! This is morally disgusting to civilized people, especially considering that Russia has no lack of oil resources in Siberia instead of damaging the whole world for a profit.

Another point is the Russian claim itself, which America does not accept. How can the Russians claim the right to drill there in the first place ? Proximity to the Arctic doesn't give Russia the right over anything just as Australia or Chile can't annex Antarctica just because they are close to it! If that were the case, the Moon should belong to USA as America is the first and only nation to send its men there. Will Russia accept USA annexing the moon ?

Exploration of natural resources of the Arctic can happen if there is an international consensus decided by the UN on how to divide the Arctic and what mineral rights Arctic circle countries have and what rights other countries have. It is no-man's land and that implies that no country can claim any rights over the Arctic unilaterally.

 

[Dron.ru]

The Russians basically want to set up oil rigs and pollute the entire area selfishly destroying one of the world largest ice shelf causing a rapid increase in world wide sea levels and destroying an endangered natural ecosystem for profit! ... America does not accept.

Only empire of goodness (USA) will obtain resources in the Arctic without threat to ecology.

By the way, Obama has recently allowed the extraction of oil on the continental shelf off the coast of Alaska. Of course this decision was made not for profit, but only in order to save polar bears from thirst.

world largest ice shelf causing a rapid increase in world wide sea levels

The melting of floating Arctic ice does not affect the level of the oceans. (Law of Archimedes)

 

[tariqkhan18]

If you are looking at the Arctic you might as well look at the bigger picture (space for example).

 

[Luftwaffe]

 

[Dron.ru]

Battle for the Barents Sea

 

[ARCHON]

Other then oil arctic has nothing ... its just barren land , where living is hars , and cold - and rough seas - anyone sean the ocean waves in that region...

Solar + Wind + Tidal energy is the answer , we just don't know how to exploit it properly

With the region falling in the equatorial region , the focus of both the countries should be solar, which we have ample in quantity. Solar panels should be subsidized and like in US solar panels should be distributed to every household thereby decreasing the dependency on natural resources.

Serious R&D has to come from Asian region coz we have more sunlight than the northern areas like Europe , Russia etc.

Wouldn't it be nice if each home produces its own electricity for free?

 

[third eye]

With the region falling in the equatorial region , the focus of both the countries should be solar, which we have ample in quantity. Solar panels should be subsidized and like in US solar panels should be distributed to every household thereby decreasing the dependency on natural resources.

Serious R&D has to come from Asian region coz we have more sunlight than the northern areas like Europe , Russia etc.

Wouldn't it be nice if each home produces its own electricity for free?

Err,,

Its the arctic that is being discussed here which is half way across the globe from the equtorial region.