Cannon's - laughable except for the broader context - comments were made at the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto where he retrieved a chestnut from the archives ("Arctic superpower" and "energy superpower" from last August) and "said the country's future as an 'energy superpower' is closely tied to potentially rich deposits of Arctic oil and gas on land and seabed." [19]
This year's study by the U.S. Geological Survey "assessed the area north of the Arctic Circle and concluded that about 30% of the world's undiscovered gas and 13% of the world's undiscovered oil may be found there, mostly offshore under less than 500 meters of water. Undiscovered natural gas is three times more abundant than oil in the Arctic and is largely concentrated in Russia. [20]
Hence Cannon's assertion that "This is why we react so strongly when other nations, like Russia, engage in exercises and other activities that appear to challenge our security in the North...." [21]
Three North American news sources, one Canadian and two U.S., all not unsympathetic to the initiative, recently wrote about the new Navy Arctic Roadmap.
The National Post recently published this:
"The U.S. Navy is planning a massive push into the Arctic to defend national security, potential undersea riches and other maritime interests.
"An 'Arctic road map' released by the Department of the Navy details a five-year strategic plan to expand fleet operations into the North in the expectation the frozen Arctic Ocean will be open water in summer by 2030.
"[I]t is clear the United States is intent on seriously retooling its military presence and naval combat capabilities in a region increasingly seen as a potential flashpoint as receding polar ice allows easier access." [22]
An American source which linked the online version of the Roadmap added of it in relation to U.S.-Canadian collaboration in the Arctic:
"It includes a comprehensive, three-phase outline of measures the Navy hopes to undertake in the Arctic region within four years: develop new, resilient vessels and weaponry; map the seabed floor for potential resources and geological information; and innovate diagnostic tools to more accurately predict when the cap will thaw.
"Even as the ratification process lurches through the Senate, the U.S. Navy is launching the first phases of its program. In August, Navy service-members and administrators took part in a Canadian training program, Nanook, where they learned tactical strategy for rugged climates and underwent disaster-relief training. In October, the United States Naval War College hosted the 19th biennial Seapower Symposium, where American and Canadian Naval administrators discussed their 6,500-nautical-mile dispute over waterway boundaries." [23]
Third, with the unabashed title of "U.S. Navy Prepares for Militarization of the Arctic," another report revealed that "the U.S. Navy is...planning for potential combat situations that may arise once global warming has melted the Arctic Ocean's summer ice within two decades. A 35-page memo from the Department of the Navy spells out a five-year plan expressing the need to develop new technology and strategies in the event things become contentious in the open waters of the Arctic Circle by 2030." [24]
As the U.S. and NATO campaign in Afghanistan is being intensified to an all-time high level of fighting (with more foreign troops in that nation than at any previous period in its history), with the Pentagon expanding into Colombia in a move that could trigger a regional and even continental war, and with Western proxies in the South Caucasus eager to launch new armed hostilities on Russia's southern border, even the top of the world, the remote Arctic Circle, is not being spared the threat of war.
1) http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2009/11/us-navy-arctic-roadmap-nov-2009.pdf
2) Ibid
3) NATO's, Pentagon's New Strategic Battleground: The Arctic
February 2, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/natos-pentagons-new-strategic-battleground-the-arctic
4) National Security Presidential Directive 66
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-66.htm
5) Voice of Russia, January 16, 2009
6) NATO, January 29, 2009
7) Voice of Russia, January 30, 2009
8) Encroachment From All Compass Points: Canada Leads NATO Confrontation With
Russia In North
Stop NATO, August 5, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/encroachment-from-all-compass-points-canada-leads-nato-confrontation-with-russia-in-north
9) End of Scandinavian Neutrality: NATO's Militarization Of Europe
Stop NATO, April 10, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/end-of-scandinavian-neutrality-natos-militarization-of-europe
10) Canada: Battle Line In East-West Conflict Over The Arctic
Stop NATO, June 3, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/canada-battle-line-in-east-west-conflict-over-the-arctic
11) Navy Arctic Roadmap, November 10, 2009
12) Navy NewsStand, March 20, 2007
13) Canwest News Service, November 16, 2009
14) Ibid
15) Ibid
16) Ibid
17) Canwest News Service, November 24, 2009
18) Agence France-Presse, November 22, 2009
19) Ibid
20) Science, May 29, 2009
21) Canwest News Service, November 24, 2009
22) National Post, November 27
23) World Politics Review, November 30, 2009
24) AllGov, November 30, 2009
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