[ctdonath2]

Real question: Why the concern about Arctic naval combat? what’s up there worth fighting extreme ice & cold just to get to fighting people? Northern Canada & Russia don’t seem places many people are interested in conquering. Arm up to protect the frontier just because it’s there? or because there is something there worth protecting?

[freedumb2003]

>>what’s up there worth fighting extreme ice & cold just to get to fighting people? <<

FWIU, oil and natural gas. Lots of it.

[onedoug]

World hegemony. There’s heck of a lot of oil underneath for one thing. And to insure that American and Canadian territorial sovereignty remains secure.

[Starboard]

what’s up there worth fighting extreme ice & cold just to get to fighting people?

***************

Think of oil, gas, minerals, trade routes, military bases. There is a lot of info out there on Russia’s Artic strategy that examines why they are doing this.

[Afterguard]

OIL. The russkies are trying to corner the oil “fields” known or suspected to lie under the ice.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Oil.
Lots of it.

[Lazamataz]

Real question: Why the concern about Arctic naval combat? what’s up there worth fighting extreme ice & cold just to get to fighting people? Northern Canada & Russia don’t seem places many people are interested in conquering. Arm up to protect the frontier just because it’s there? or because there is something there worth protecting?

All of you answered "oil".

But you missed the real value of the region:

99.99% of the worlds ice-cubes are RIGHT THERE.

Mixed drinks will quadruple in price if Russia takes the region.

[Gen.Blather]

This is about locking up the ownership of potentially rich oil fields, most of which are under water and or ice. They want to establish the historic precedent that they own it so that when it becomes possible to drill for oil and mine for minerals nobody can contest them.

[UCANSEE2]

or because there is something there worth protecting?

Hmmm. Didn't Obama recently make a trip to the Arctic Circle ?