"For Our Descendants"

How very noble, how honourable, how responsible. They can only have our admiration. We have so wronged them. When all they desire is to protect the patrimony of future generations. How could we have been so wrong, as to attribute to them those nasty self-serving functions of greed and hegemonic entitlements?

There it sits, the vast Arctic frontier. Empty, unvalued, deserted of any civilized presence, let alone the permanence of particular and proved ownership. So why not just exercise a spirit of generosity and undertake to provide guardianship for it? It is perhaps, only a spirited rumour that the region has vast undersea resources.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev appears to have informed Russia's national security council that the country is on the cusp of unilaterally expressing very definite ownership of that geography. Oops, guess he kind of forgot the traditional and historical interests of Norway, Denmark, Canada and the United States.

Well, those things happen. Sometimes one's enthusiasms just allow one to get carried away on a stream of imagining possibilities.... And then there's the rude interruption of reality. There are five polar nations, in point of verifiable fact. That's called reality. Each of those polar nations has a vested, cultural, historical, political and economic interest in the Arctic.

Wouldn't you know it, just when things were looking so dreamily good. But fact is, those polar nations, including Canada, are in the process of collecting geological data for presentation to the UN body responsible for such clarifications as designating ownerships, to solidify their territorial claims.

Mind, Russia too has made some initial claims, yet to be finalized and formalized to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. So why this great big hurry? Not enough to have planted that undersea titanium flag? Guess not. The Kremlin has been rather feisty of late, very restless, extremely combative.

Is Russia already anticipating running out of oil and gas? Leaving them once again in an unfortunate beggarly condition with which to face their countless direly heartless enemies? "Our biggest task now is to turn the Arctic into Russia's resource base for the 21st Century", according to Mr. Medvedev.

Thing is, Russia always comes up with reasons why they do this and that, the kinds of "this's and thats's" the rest of the world looks on askance, even with alarm. As in oops, not playing fair. Aggressive techniques have become the Russian tactic of proven expedience. And here we thought we're inhabiting a world more given to diplomacy?

"The main issue is that of reliably protecting our national interests in the region. We need a solid legal and regulatory framework for our activities in the Arctic. We need, above all, to finalize and adopt the federal law on the Russian Arctic zone's southern border. A treaty fixing in law our external border on the continental shelf is also on the upcoming agenda. This is a very important task."

Darn right, it is. Russia claims the Lomonsov Ridge to be an extension of their geological territory. Hey, hasn't Canada, with Denmark's scientific assistance, given voice to ownership of that same ridge? Yet Mr. Medvedev says "I stress that this is our obligation and quite simply our duty to our descendants. We must ensure reliable protection in the long term for Russia's national interests in the Arctic."

We hear you, loud and clear. Do you hear our little whispers here? Prime Minister Stephen Harper - Canada, don't you know - has expressed a clear determination to aggressively pursue Canada's territorial interests in the North. It's our Arctic too, you see. We've got historical claims, as do Norway, Denmark and the U.S.

Can't we be reasonable?

What's the hurry? We're all in this together, chum.