… waaay north. My colleagues Mike Blanchfield and Randy Boswell will have more on what will be one of President Bush's final National Security Directive and Homeland Security Directive. It affects Canada.
“This directive establishes the policy of the United States with respect to the Arctic region and directs related implementation actions. “
The text of the document:
“National Security Presidential Directive and Homeland Security Presidential Directive–Arctic Region Policy”
The EU also in the game:
“The Arctic and the Northwest Passage: The Euro threat”
Mark
Ottawa
A letter of mine in the Ottawa Citizen, Sept. 26:
“Areas of dispute
Re: Boots on tundra, Sept. 23.
Letter-writer Bob Lidstone writes that “Simply put, a failure on Canada's part to put our boots on our Arctic tundra will inevitably result in someone else's being there.” Hardly.
Mr. Lidstone has fallen victim to the efforts of the Conservative government to stoke jingoistic fervour [for example] over the north. In fact no one except the Danes (Hans Island) has any claim on any Canadian land in the north. Foreign countries are about as likely to invade the north as they are to invade Newfoundland.
The areas of dispute are the status in maritime law of the Northwest Passage; the maritime boundary in the Beaufort Sea between the U.S. and Canada; and the economic rights to the Arctic seabed in offshore areas beyond various countries' coastal 320-kilometre exclusive economic zones.
Boots on the tundra will be of little help in asserting Canadian claims in any of these cases.”
Mark
Ottawa
More from Alaskan Ben Muse at Arctic Economics. Note:
“…
The directive does recommend that Congress pass the Law of the Sea Treaty.
'Joining will serve the national security interests of the United States, including the maritime mobility of our Armed Forces worldwide. It will secure U.S. sovereign rights over extensive marine areas, including the valuable natural resources they contain. Accession will promote U.S. interests in the environmental health of the oceans. And it will give the United States a seat at the table when the rights that are vital to our interests are debated and interpreted.'
The Secretary of State is directed to continue to seek the Senate's advice and consent to the Treaty…”
There goes President Bush's unilateralism, I guess.
Mark
Ottawa