Issues Over Melting Arctic Reveal U.S. Weakness

When world powers meet May 15 over the future of the Arctic, where melting ice is opening the long-awaited chance to establish a new waterway linking west with east, as well as access to untapped oil reserves, the United States may well be at a strategic disadvantage.

At the gathering of the Arctic Council in the northernmost Swedish city of Kiruna, the U.S., Russia and six other primary stakeholders will be joined by nations with observer-only status, including China, Japan and the European Union, that will be asking for a greater say in the region's future and elevated status in the diplomatic group, which also includes Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

According to a report by Bloomberg, even though President Barack Obama late last week signed a new national strategy for the Arctic region, which lists protection of energy interests, maintaining free passage through Arctic waters and building regional infrastructure as key U.S. strategic interests, the government remains without a clear budget plan or specific initiatives, which could include an upgrade America's fleet of outdated icebreakers.

As such, "this strategy becomes nothing more than a lengthy wish list," said Mihaela David, a fellow at the Arctic Institute.

The US had been without an Arctic policy since the last year of President George W. Bush's administration, which leaves the world's No. 1 economy in a weaker negotiating position, asserts Heather Conley, director of the Europe program at the Washington-based policy group Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"Our policy isn't keeping pace with the level of change in the Arctic," she told Bloomberg.

During the Cold War, the Arctic was key to military competition between the U.S. and Soviet Union, according to Ronald O'Rourke, a naval affairs specialist with the Congressional Research Service.

While America lost relative interest in the frigid region after the Soviet regime fell, the country of Russia was the first county in 2001 that filed a claim with the United Nations to extend its sea territory in the Arctic shelf. Then, in 2007, a submarine expedition to the North Pole and planted a Russian flag on the seabed below the ice.

Under international law, no country owns the North Pole, and the five nations with Arctic coastlines -- Russia, the US, Canada, Norway and Denmark -- are limited to their 200-nautical- mile economic zones.

The U.S. is the only country not to have ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which gives states 10 years from the dates they ratify the document to extend their claims on the continental shelf.

More control over more underwater land will give countries a head start in developing mineral-rich resources below the seabed.

President Olafur R. Grimsson of Iceland, home to the world's biggest glaciers and a member of the council, visited Washington last month, in an effort to "try to wake this town to the fact that the Arctic should be among the top priorities for the US foreign policy in the first half of the 21st century" and no longer relegated to its "backyard."

A vote on upgrading the status of other nations is expected to be considered in the context of a more-extensive question about "whether the issues related to the Arctic will be handled by the countries in the region, or whether the Arctic - because of climate change, global economic potential - is a global issue," said Conley.