http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_daily_concentration.png

Note how both the Northwest Passage (along the Canadian Archipelago) and the Eastern Passage (along the Siberian Coast) are now completely navigable in summer. These routes were occasionally open in the past to specially equipped and reinforced vessels, but summer navigation in these waters is now routine.

As the ice melts at the pole and operations in polar seas become more feasible, access to fisheries and mineral resources in that part of the world becomes increasingly practicable. We’re about to see a real scramble for influence and force projection in that part of the world, as the Arctic nations (USA, Canada, Denmark, Norway, and Russia), move into the area. Russia in particular has been very aggressive at exploiting this opportunity, building ports, bases, settlements and other facilities and infrastructure in the far north and launching vessels (including warships) designed to operate in these waters. They have followed up with an active program of scientific exploration and outrageous territorial claims in the area to legitimize their activities in the region.

America has responded by building one icebreaker, and by partnering with Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum, and the Russian state oil conglomerate to drill in the area. Other nations have also responded, but it is clear that the USA and RUS are the major players in the region.

I just wonder how effective we will be in this rivalry with the Russians as long as we are determined to ignore the reality of climate change. A multi-billion dollar program of exploration, development and defense is going to be hard to justify in a Congress that sees Climate Change as “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American People”.