The Arctic contains up to 25% of the known oil and gas reserves left in the world. The United States, Russia, Canada, Denmark and Norway have always vied for those rights, but Russia has now stepped forward and asserted to the United Nations that it is laying sovereign claim to 463,000 square miles of the Arctic.
Now, where the United Nations gets the authority to decide such an issue is beyond me; they don't own the Arctic Circle. The land on the Arctic Circle is divided among eight countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the United States (Alaska), Canada, Denmark (Greenland), and Iceland (where it passes through the small offshore island of Grímsey). There are, by the way, inhabitants of the Arctic Circle and it would appear to me that they therefore own it. Those inhabitants, coincidentally, are American, Russian, Canadian, Norwegian and Danish.
But, we all know that Putin has been flexing his muscles of late; he knows that Obama is impotent and that the other nations involved will not protest unless the U.S. takes a strong and affirmative lead.
You can look for Obama to take about as strong a stance on the issue as he has taken in the Ukraine.... in other words, Russia can have it. Maybe Russia will give part of their new land claim to Iran so that they can test their nukes there.
That's MY AMERICAN OPINION, respectfully submitted.
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