detail what was known substantially years before and
merely accelerated initiatives long in the planning.
A year before the survey results were released, "U.S.
Senator Richard G. Lugar said Russia is aspiring to
take control over potential energy reserves in the
Arctic Ocean at the expense of U.S. interests.
(Russian Information Agency Novosti, May 16, 2007)
The same Russian features added, "The senator, known
for his anti-Russian statements, urged U.S.
authorities to join the struggle for the polar oil and
gas resources by ratifying the United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea."
That is precisely what the Bush report of 21 days ago
recommended, oddly enough drawing plaudits in many
Western quarters because it supposedly signaled a
reversal of general Bush era "unilateralism."
Washington will now sign onto the United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea the better to wage
war for energy and military positioning in the top of
the world and its newly rediscovered reverence for
international norms and for alleged multilateralism is
reducible to a closing of the ranks with its NATO
allies against Russia and, as is of late increasingly
mentioned, China in the Arctic Circle.
Regarding the original recommendation on ratifying the
Convention by US Senator Richard Lugar, it's important
to recall that the same Lugar led the charge to invoke
NATO's Article 5 mutual defense clause - in reality a
war pact - against Russia in June of 2006 in the US
Senate on the same topic of "energy security."
Lugar's own senatorial website reported at the time:
"On Thursday, June 8, 2006, the U.S. Senate
unanimously passed Foreign Relations Committee
Chairman Dick Lugar’s resolution that calls upon the
United States to lead the discussion at NATO
headquarters about the role the alliance could play in
energy security and the President to submit to
Congress a report that details “a strategy for NATO to
develop secure, sustainable, and reliable sources of
energy, including contingency plans if current energy
resources are put at risk.”
“NATO is now facing new challenges and new priorities.
To be fully relevant to the security and well being of
the people of its member nations, NATO must think and
act globally,” said Lugar.
“International developments are calling attention to
the growing importance of energy security for NATO
member countries and other non-member partners....On a
global scale, increased competition for finite
supplies of oil and gas could lead to conflict that
would directly or indirectly involve NATO member
states....Earlier this year, Lugar introduced the
Energy Diplomacy and Security Act (S. 2435), which
'recognizes energy security to be a foremost concern
for United States national security and would realign
of our diplomatic priorities to meet energy security
challenges.'"
(Senator Richard G. Lugar, June 12, 2006)
Lugar has not been alone in agitating for invoking
energy issues as a pretext for military expansion,
including expansion of a strategic character, as what
he and others like him are demanding is, even when not
overtly mentioned, direct confrontation between the
world's two major nuclear powers.
In 2007 a US commission released a study called
'Strategy of cooperation on the navies of the 21st
century,' in which "The future situation in the Arctic
was included by the document's authors into the list
of the 'new era's challenges', which the USA is to be
ready for."
("US Warns on Possible Military Conflict Around Arctic
Resources," Financial Information Service [Russia],
October 19, 2007)
The same year this version of the new Bush Arctic
doctrine was adumbrated:
"As much as a quarter of the world's oil and gas
supplies could be in the region, Rear-Admiral Brian
Salerno of the U.S. Coast Guard said today, citing
statistics from the U.S. Geological Survey. Global
warming in the Arctic has 'implications for national
energy security.'
"'Will we have a constant aircraft carrier presence?
I don't know, but we might.'
"The U.S. Navy pledged to increase its fleet of ships
and other craft in the Arctic, a day after Canada
promised to build as many as eight new vessels to
patrol the region."
(Bloomberg News, July 10, 2007)
The same month this development surfaced:
"For the first time this week, top US Naval and Coast
Guard commanders are meeting with Arctic scientists
and climate experts to assess the situation....[T]he
US "absolutely" must boost its presence in the Arctic
region as part of an international coalition.
The US would establish forward bases, increase its
fleet patrols of Arctic waters, review its Arctic
policies."
(Deutsche Press-Agentur, July 11, 2007)
Which 'international coalition' was intended was
evident last week in Iceland.
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