Putin

Two enormous problems arise here. Russia aggressively claims the continental shelf, which includes the underwater mountain ranges known as the Lomonosov Ridge and the Mendeleev Ridge, as the natural prolongation of Russia’s land. This vast territory (465,000 square miles or about three Californias) includes the North Pole, one reason that the titanium flag was planted there in 2007. If Moscow’s claims for the continental shelf are approved, Russia will not only be the largest country on earth but the largest underwater as well.

Russia’s first claim on this territory was rejected by the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf as being insufficiently demonstrated. In August 2015 it submitted a new claim. Denmark and Canada also claim part of it as belonging to their continental shelf.

Another major complication is that the United States is not yet an official signatory to the Law of the Sea Treaty. The motion died in the Senate in 2012 with Republicans declaring that “the treaty’s litigation exposure and impositions on U.S. sovereignty outweigh its potential benefits.” Former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have been strong supporters of the treaty. Then defense secretary Leon Panetta has said: “Not since we acquired the lands of the American West and Alaska have we had such a great opportunity to expand U.S. sovereignty.” By not being a signatory to the Law of the Sea, the United States does not have official claim to its territorial sea, Exclusive Economic Zone, or continental shelf.

Republican senator Richard Lugar, addressing the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said that the Law of the Sea had been “designated by the Bush Administration as one of five ‘urgent’ treaties deserving of ratification.” He added:

As the world’s preeminent maritime power, the largest importer and exporter, the leader in the war on terrorism, and the owner of the largest Exclusive Economic Zone off our shores, the United States has more to gain than any other country from the establishment of order with respect to the oceans…. The Commander-in-Chief, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the United States Navy, in time of war, are asking the Senate to give its advice and consent to this treaty. Our uniformed commanders and civilian national security leadership are telling us, unanimously and without qualification, that U.S. accession to this treaty would help them do their job.

Lugar also noted that Russia was already making “excessive claims in the Arctic.”

The Russians, of course, don’t see their claims on the Arctic as excessive but as just and justified. And indeed there is considerable historical basis for the Russians to feel a special relationship with the Arctic. There is no question that they were the forerunners of scientific exploration in the region, establishing a tradition of intrepid researchers who set up their research stations on ice floes that could suddenly break apart, as described in this Soviet report from November 1954:

A crack in the ice passed through the camp. Most of them were asleep and only the man on watch heard the noise. Suddenly a blow was felt and the floe shuddered. Everyone woke up quickly and ran out of the tents. All went to pre-arranged places for “ice alarm.” The crack passed between the tents of the meteorologists and started visibly opening. It passed beneath the tent housing the magnetic instruments. The edge of the tent hung over the water, but tent and equipment were saved. In ten to fifteen minutes the floes had parted and there was open water 50 m. wide between them.