Before the close of the congressional lame duck session, President Barack Obama made favorable headlines for himself by obtaining the requisite Senate approval for New START—a bilateral treaty on nuclear arms between Russia and the United States. Although New START may foreshadow future cooperation between Russia and the United States (which could have an important […]
The U.S. Navy is conducting naval exercises in the Arctic as part of Ice Exercise 2011 (ICE-X 2011). The USS New Hampshire and the USS Connecticut are the two submarines participating in the exercises, which have been planned and are being overseen by the Arctic Submarine Laboratory located in San Diego, about as far away […]
A London tribunal has extended the injunction on BP and Rosneft’s proposed joint venture in the South Kara Sea in the Arctic. The injunction was sought by AAR, a group of Russian oligarchs which own half of TNK-BP, BP’s primary partner for development in the Arctic. All of BP’s projects in Russia and the Ukraine […]
Canada’s Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence has tabled an interim report (PDF) entitled, “Sovereignty and Security in Canada’s Arctic.” The 75-page paper discusses various aspects of Canadian Arctic policy, including domestic and international issues and multilateral regimes in the region. There are also several useful maps in the appendices, including one showing […]
There is a lot of news coming out of the Arctic today, some of it involving countries far to the south of the Arctic Circle, and some of it involving Russia. Germany enters the race for the Arctic Der Spiegel reports that German diplomats are “worried that the five countries bordering the Arctic — Russia, […]
President Obama has chosen former Alaska Lieutenant Governor Frances Ulmer to chair the Arctic Research Commission for the next four years. Currently, she is chancellor of the University of Alaska Anchorage. She also served as one of the seven members on the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Ulmer studied political science […]
On March 10, the National Academy of Sciences released a report requested by the U.S. Navy detailing the challenges climate change poses to its forces, along with recommendations for how it should respond. While the report states that climate change could cause areas like Russia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, and China to become […]
The Economist reports that it is now the Inuit’s turn to push back against corporations seeking to exploit resources in the Arctic. While the media likes to play up the possibility of inter-state conflict around the North Pole, little is said about the conflicts already underway between indigenous peoples and industry. One dispute of note […]
As a growing superpower, China is interested in projecting its power in maritime regions like the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. It is also turning its eye towards the Arctic Ocean. An Asia Times article entitled “China, a Snow Dragon in the Arctic,” states, “While Beijing’s interests and policy objectives there remain unclear, […]
Billed as “North America’s Premier Gas Conference,” the Arctic Gas Symposium will be taking place tomorrow through March 3 in Calgary, Alberta. In the province that helped revolutionize tar sands, there will be lots of discussion on the latest issues facing the hydrocarbon industry in the Arctic. One notable topic of interest this year is […]
NYU’s Center for Global Affairs and the Quebec Government Office in New York City will be co-hosting a panel tomorrow, Monday, February 28 at 6:30 pm entitled, “Going North: The Geopolitics of Northern Development.” The main topic of discussion will be how resource and shipping developments in the Arctic are affecting geopolitics in the region. […]
The Canadian Budget 2010 sets aside CAN $34.8 million over the next five years for enhancements to the country’s Arctic weather and navigation information systems. As part of Canada’s commitment to the International Maritime Organization, the government provides data on two regions of the Arctic largely within Canadian Arctic waters: the Northwest Passage and the […]
Although the U.S. is an Arctic nation, it’s about to spend the next two years without a heavy icebreaker. The Coast Guard recently confirmed that the Polar Sea will be decommissioned this year, with her crew being transferred to the Polar Star. The latter boat will be undergoing repairs until 2013, leaving the U.S. without […]
Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb is on a three-day trip to Western Russia this week. After paying a visit to Vyborg, a town of 80,000 inhabitants near southern Finland, he made his way to St. Petersburg, where he spoke at the Russian Geographical Society to launch the Finnish-Russian Arctic Partnership. Stubb remarked, “Let’s keep the […]
Last April, the Norwegian and Russian foreign ministers announced that they had begun talks on resolving the 40-year dispute over the maritime border between their two countries in the Barents Sea and Arctic Ocean. In October, Foreign Ministers Jonas Gahr Støre and Sergei Lavrov met again, in Murmansk, this time to sign an treaty on […]