MOST IMPORTANT ARTICLES AND DOCUMENTS:
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- The Dark side of the Arctic Mission
- Will the US sign the Law of the Sea Convention?
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The Arctic nations (with territories North of the Arctic circle) are Russia, Canada, Denmark, the US, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland. The first three countries (Russia, Canada and Denmark) possess significant territories extending northwards of the Arctic circle. (see map).
Despite the recent claims posted in the international media, Arctic is a purely military region, where Putin announced Russia's military counteroffensive against the US, as a result of the failed dipomatic talks with Bush Sr. in Kennebunkport, which brought to Putin's knowledge that Bush Sr. is serious and firm about his intentions of planting American Patriot rackets pointed against Russia in Poland and a sophisticated radar meant to follow every Russian move, in the Czech Republic.RIA Novosti announced on 10.04.2008 that the Nordic countries involved in the partition of the Arctic region, reopened the talks in Riksgransen, Sweden, on April 8 and 9 at the so-called "Nordic Globalization Forum hosted by the US-backed right wong Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.
The forum hosted the prime ministers of Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Finland.
With Denmark a staunch supporter of the US' military operations in Iraq, with Iceland practically a British colony, with Canada - the US' brother and with Sweden led by a right-wing (US-backed coalition), of all the above-mentioned countries only Finland is somewhat loyal to Russia and hence eventually disposed to make its Arctic territories available for a Russian military exploitation.
The rest, including Sweden, led by a right-wing coalition which militates for Sweden's integration in NATO, is against Russia in its attempts to regain its Arctic territories.
The arctic region is very important for Russia, military speaking, because Russia needs to boost its capacity of hitting the United States.
The North Pole is an ideal place of pointing Russian rackets against the US, both because of the location in itself, because of the superiority of the Russian submarines located there for very long and also because of the harsh weather conditions that Russians bear better than Americans, being used to that severe climate and which could make them eventually win a military confrontation there.
~Vera
RELATED ARTICLES:
Nordic countries outline their Arctic interests
15:55
10/ 04/ 2008
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Fedyashin) - The prime ministers of Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Finland met in Riksgransen, Sweden, on April 8 and 9 for the Nordic Globalization Forum hosted by Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.
They also coordinated their interests and put forth their views on Arctic problems.
The meeting was attended by the heads of Scandinavia's leading industrial and energy companies, trade unions, newspaper publishers, politicians, and globalization, climate and energy experts. It was not just a friendly get-together, although the summit was not expected to make any formal decisions.
Its focal point was the prime ministers' excursion to Riksgransen Mountain, which gave the name to the city, reputed as the northernmost ski resort in the world, 350 km (218 miles) north of the Arctic Circle.
Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, Danish leader Anders Rasmussen, Iceland's Prime Minister Geir Haarde, Norway's Jens Stoltenberg and Finland's Matti Vanhanen were part of the daring excursion.
The subject of the meeting in Riksgransen was "A competitive Nordic region in a globalized world," or rather challenges of economic development, climate change and energy. The Arctic theme sounded quite loudly at the summit, with the climate, energy, globalization and Arctic experts gathered to encourage the Nordic leaders and Nordic cooperation to move in the right direction.
This was bound to happen, taking into account recent moves made by strong players such as Russia, Canada and the United States in and around the Arctic. However, while these three players are at loggerheads with each other over the region, the Scandinavian countries seem ready to act jointly, which they are likely to do better than other countries, considering their forays into other territories in past centuries and their experience in developing northern reserves.
The Arctic countries were stirred by Russia's August 2007 expedition, which placed the Russian flag on the seabed of the Arctic Ocean.
This infuriated Peter MacKay, then the foreign minister of Canada, who said: "Look, this isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say, 'We're claiming this territory.' Our claims over our Arctic are very well-established."
MacKay said there was no threat to Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic, despite the latest claims by Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov retorted that Russia was not just placing flags, but doing what trailblazers always do.
Canada knew what it was all about by that time. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made four visits beyond the Arctic Circle since then, and Canada has pledged to allocate tens of millions of dollars for the construction of a deepwater port and naval base at Nanisivik, is expanding the army training center in Resolute Bay, has earmarked $7.5 billion for building several Arctic patrol vessels to protect its sovereignty, and will increase the group of 100 servicemen to 1,000 in the Arctic.
The United States is also increasing its presence in the region, and its ocean surveillance ships make regular visits there.
Canadians claim that Russia is trying to steal 460,000 square miles of seabed, an area five times larger than Britain, in the Arctic. But it was Canada who started trouble in the Arctic in the 1950s by proclaiming its sovereignty over the North Pole. The International Court of Justice ruled then that the territory would be proclaimed Canadian property, unless some other country proved during 100 years that it owns the seabed of the Arctic Ocean. This started the race.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, a multi-disciplinary science organization that focuses on biology, geography, geology, geospatial information and water, more than 25% of undiscovered oil and gas reserves could be under the Arctic shelf. Compared with them, the total reserves of Saudi Arabia, the world's largest net oil exporter, look like a keg of beer next to an Olympic swimming pool.
Besides, the world's climate is getting warmer, and the Arctic is thawing faster than any other region in the world. In 10 or 15 years, or possibly even sooner, the Northwest Passage off Canada, the shortest route from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean halving the travel time from Japan to Europe, might become navigable throughout the year.
It is therefore not surprising that the world has become addicted to "geographical discoveries" and the Arctic nations are marking "their" territory.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080410/104750414.html
Debating NATO: Sweden and Finland keep their distance
http://www.thelocal.se/11020/20080410/
Published: 10 Apr 08 12:32 CETOnline: http://www.thelocal.se/11020/
Sweden and Finland have become more willing to debate possible NATO membership, writes Tallinn-based journalist Justin Petrone. But opposition to the alliance remains strong.
Despite the continued dominance in Sweden and Finland of a solid majority opposed to future inclusion in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the public debate about joining the alliance has grown less controversial in recent years, several experts say.
However, they also emphasize that both countries are still a long way from joining the alliance.According to Pål Jonson, vice president of the Swedish Atlantic Council, Tomas Ries, director of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, and Risto Pentillä, director of the Finnish Business and Policy Forum, there are various reasons for the recent warming in the domestic debates within both Sweden and Finland.
These new factors include the election of Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt’s centre-right government in October 2006; the accession of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to the alliance in 2004; as well as the influence of highly globalized business communities and political elites in both countries.
Jonson, Ries, and Pentillä described the current Finnish and Swedish discourse on NATO during a panel discussion at the second annual Lennart Meri Conference in Tallinn two weeks ago.
The conference was hosted by the International Center for Defense Studies, a foreign policy think tank based in the Estonian capital.‘Critics associate NATO with Abu Ghraib’Through his role at the Swedish Atlantic Council (SAK), Jonson is well acquainted with the debate over relations with NATO in Sweden.
For Jonson, one of the greatest factors influencing Sweden’s relationship with the alliance has been the Reinfeldt government’s pledge to deepen its relationship with NATO.In February, for instance, Swedish Defence Minister Sten Tolgfors said that the country — which already takes part in NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme as well as the alliance’s ISAF force in Afghanistan — was looking into joining the NATO Response Force, a 25,000-strong crisis reaction force.
Despite this warming of the political elite to NATO, the public, as well as the majority of parties represented in the Riksdag remain opposed and the distance between the current Swedish debate and actual membership in the alliance is great, Jonson said.
A recent poll in Sweden, for instance, found that 53 percent of Swedes oppose NATO membership while just 29 percent support it. Jonson told The Local that much of this opposition could be attributed to the idea that Sweden, by remaining neutral, held the “moral high ground” during the Cold War. He also pointed out that the alliance has endured criticism in recent decades, reinforcing the idea that Sweden benefits from non-alignment.
“Critics today tend to associate with it with the War in Kosovo, US dominance, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq, and these kinds of things,” he said of NATO.He added that the country’s political elite have reached no consensus and that Sweden’s government is wary of pushing the issue, partly due to the defeat of the referendum on joining the euro zone in 2003.“That showcased the government’s inability to mobilize support for political decisions,” he said of the 2003 referendum.
“That has increased the hesitancy of the political establishment for raising the issue again.”The Four Souls of FinlandAcross the Gulf of Bothnia, Tomas Ries from the Swedish Institute of International Affairs argues that the Finnish NATO debate is being coloured by what he calls the “four souls of Finland.”
The old Cold War policy of neutrality, he argues, was the product of a fusion between ardent Finnish nationalists, whom he he calls “Kalevala Finns” and hard-nosed realists, who he describes as “Koivisto Finns” – in honor of Mauno Koivisto, who served as president of Finland from 1982 to 1994.
Interrupting this schema in recent years, however, have been two new emergent political groupings, the so-called idealist position, that opposes participation in the alliance, which Ries has dubbed the “Moomin Finns” in reference to the popular Finnish children’s books, and a more globalized position centered around the business community, that supports integration into NATO.
Ries calls this group the “Nokia Finns.”“Nokia Finns emerged first in the business community when Finnish companies were getting involved in the Western business world in the 1980s,” he said. “In the 1990s, through Nokia joining the business community and through European Union membership, you had a boom, and you saw the rise of a new generation of people who became pretty globalized.
”The “Moomin Finns” instead have taken a more pacific stance on the issue of joining the military alliance. “The idealist position emerged in the late 1990s,” Ries said. “Until then it was considered naive to have these idealistic values,” he said. “But Finland started to join this Western postmodern political community where ideals became increasingly important in politics.
“There is also an attitude that Finland will get in trouble if we get involved in the alliance,” he said. “Some idealists want to keep Finland in its corner. They believe that if they don’t bother anyone, no one will bother them. And that’s not so idealistic,” said Ries.Like Jonson, Ries described the debate in Finland as lacking a sense of urgency. “Insular is the word,” he said. But other developments, like the expansion of NATO to the Baltics, have also had their influence.
“I would imagine that now, after the Estonians come out of their internal NATO meetings, and the Finns come hat in hand and say, ‘Can you tell us what happened at the meeting?’ – Baltic membership has an impact,” he said.He also said that the ongoing debate has softened the Finnish discourse on the topic of the alliance. “The whole NATO question is becoming more and more domesticated,” he said.
“There are more reports and discussions about NATO and gradually it becomes less controversial,” he said.Diverging pathsAccording to Risto Pentillä, a quarter of the Finnish public supports NATO membership, but slightly more than half have continued to oppose it.
He told The Local that the result of Baltic membership has meant that Finnish foreign policy thinkers have continued to “emphasize Finland’s unique geopolitical position, so it hasn’t really moved the debate forward and it hasn’t made Finland more likely to support inclusion in NATO.
”There are also two new elements in the debate, according to Pentillä. “Finland’s policy has been predicated on the assumption that if Finland wanted, and Russia got nasty, Finland could join NATO at any time,” he said.
“Now that the Americans supported MAPs [Membership Action Plans] for Georgia and Ukraine and it didn’t materialize, it puts the entire premise of this position into question,” he said.Another factor has been NATO’s operations in Afghanistan.
Some against joining the alliance argue that fully joining NATO would behoove Finland to send its troops, currently in northern Afghanistan, into the more volatile southern provinces, Pentillä said.Despite these new factors, Pentillä said that Finland is unlikely to join the alliance any time soon.
“The debate hasn’t really moved anywhere in the past 10 years,” he said.
He also said that the fact that Finland has joined NATO’s Response Force this year while Sweden has not shows that the countries may have difficulty in coordinating their positions in the future.
In Sweden, post-euro referendum wariness, coupled with current geopolitical realities, have favoured the partnership approach of the Reinfeldt government, as opposed to a drive to completely join the alliance, according to Pål Jonson.
“There is no sense of urgency to joining NATO right now,” he said.
“There is no monolithic threat from Russia towards Sweden right now. So there is more of an influence deficit than a security deficit that is stopping us from joining the alliance.”Justin Petrone
Denmark maps Arctic ridge in race for polar sovereignty
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/11/europe/EU-GEN-Denmark-Arctic-Claims.php
Future of the Arctic region fraught with uncertainty
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=10ee1a98-6202-4912-8605-fe093db24bef
Reinfeldt welcomes guests to Globalisation Forum
08-04-2008
http://www.norden.org/webb/news/news.asp?id=7785&lang=6
Prime ministers inject new vigour into partnership
http://www.norden.org/webb/news/news.asp?id=7791&lang=6
Ministers converge on Riksgränsen
http://www.norden.org/webb/news/news.asp?id=7778&lang=6
Nordic countries vow to boost co-op to better cope with globalization
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/10/content_7952411.htm
UPDATE:
RIA NOVOSTI:
Arctic spring fever
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080421/105550029.html
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