The Arctic Five - the US, Russia, Norway, Canada and Denmark (Greenland) - are scrambling to secure territorial rights to disputed and hitherto unclaimed parts of the world’s last great wilderness. This is partly because the retreat of local sea ice is opening up to exploitation what many leading experts think could be massive reserves of petroleum- even as much as 13% of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30% of its undiscovered natural gas.
Exploiting many of these reserves would not currently be commercially viable: Russia’s Shtokman gas complex and Norway’s Goliath oil field, both in the Barents Sea, have proved to be extremely expensive to develop, and stand at the very verge of what is technically achievable. But the ‘Arctic Five’ know that, over the coming decades, new engineering techniques could conceivably realise what can currently only be dreamt of, just as today’s deep sea ventures in the North Sea and elsewhere would once have been scoffed at.
It wouldn't hurt to have an institution focused on surviving and fighting in the harsh environment of the north. Which is why we could use a Polar Command.
