Arctic military bases signal new Cold War
Canada fired a warning shot in a new Cold War over the vast resources of the far North by announcing last night that it will build two new military bases in the Arctic wilderness.
A week after Russia laid claim to the North Pole in what is rapidly becoming a global scramble for the region’s vast oil and gas reserves, Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, said that Canada would open a new army training centre for cold-weather fighting at Resolute Bay, and a deep-water port at Nanisivik, on the northern tip of Baffin Island
Under international law, each of five Arctic countries – Canada, Russia, the United States, Norway and Denmark – controls an economic zone within 200 miles of its continental shelf. But the limits of that shelf are in dispute.
This writer calls for the immediate establishment of the Arctic-Global Peace coalition, consisting of civil-society leaders (arts, sciences, media, business leaders) to envision an era of harmony and world prosperity aided in part from sustainable relationship with Arctic natural resources.
Concurrently there should arise in support of the Coalition a global movement (beginning in the 5 countries) protesting the militarization of the Arctic.
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