WHAT THE F**K IS GOING ON IN: The Arctic

The main aim of this piece is to avoid using the phrase "cold war" or anything to that end. We'll see how that goes. The Arctic, as we all knew it growing up, was a big useless slab of ice where nothing went on apart from frolics involving elves, reindeer, a big fat guy and his wife. In the last while, however, the Arctic has taken on a new significance in geopolitical and diplomatic circles. In the most beautiful of ironies, global warming has led to a melting of some of the ice in the Arctic, rendering feasible the exploitation of the Arctic by, yes you've guessed it, the Oil industry. The potential rewards are what makes this modern day version of the gold rush so interesting: according to a UN geological survey, a quarter of the world's undiscovered oil may lie beneath the Arctic seabed.
In true cavalier fashion, the Russians have already recently placed a flag (pictured above) on the seabed beneath the Arctic in an area disputed between themselves and Canada. True to fashion, Canada has moaned and sulked a la the "persuasive" cop in the Simpsons ("come onnnn, leave town, pleeeease, be a friend"), but it looks like the Russians won't be backing down any time soon. The Canadian foreign minister at the time, Peter MacKay, claimed that "you can't go around the world these days, dropping a flag somewhere. This isn't the 14th or 15th Century". Sergey Lavrov, his Russian counterpart, responded with this gem: "We're not throwing flags around. We're just doing what other discoverers did"(Read: "no, little man, this is the 14th or 15th century). Case closed it seems. No admission from the Russians that they have moved beyond 500 year-old tactics for territory usurpation. Sure why would they.
A portion of the "Area", as the Arctic is known under international law (the poor definition of which is the main reason for these problems), can only be claimed if it can be proven that it is an extension of a country's continental shelf. There is an acceptance emerging that Russia feels it has more than enough data to prove that this area is indeed theirs to claim, and that moving them may prove more than difficult. Whether or not the UN scientists indeed deem the area to be Russian territory is unlikely to cause our Vlad into moving ("facts schmacts, facts can be used to prove anything. Hey Dmitri, pour me another snow shake".) Stephen Harper, Canadian PM, has spoken of the law of "use it or lose it" as being the unwritten rule in the Area. It is this thinking that has led to his support for a multimillion dollar military port and naval station a few hundred kilometres from the Russian flag.
The phenomenal treasures lying beneath the ice caps make the follow-up to this stand-off essential fodder for anyone with an interest in geopolitics. At a time when Russia is already at loggerheads with the US over any number of issues, with the US, Norway and Denmark also showing interest in the area, combined with growing concerns over energy supplies, mean that a second and more vicious Cold War may well be in the midst. Damn it. Got to the last line.