A New Frontier In Geopolitics of Great Power-Rivalries

The Military Case For Melting Ice

The 2011 joint mission employed the flagship icebreaker from each country, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy (WAGB-20) and the Canadian Coast Guard Ship Louis S. St-Laurent (LSSL), with each ship performing different functions and one ship breaking ice for the other. Source: US Dept. of State, Public Domain.

*opinions shared here are solely those of Adel Aali and not opinions of the History Behind News podcast or its guests.

We have a problem from the get-go here. The “frontier” about which I will write and rant in a moment, is not “new” at all. I’ve been reading about it for years now. It’s just that the exploration of that frontier, the exigencies of our country’s poor preparedness for it, and our inability to enforce our interests there are exposing the direness of the geopolitical situation.

Now, to the frontier. The ice sheets of the Arctic Ocean are melting. While preventable, given the current state of our politics, this disastrous degeneration of pristine wilderness seems all but inevitable. But one day, not too far into the future, we will all wake up from our delusions of the safety afforded in distance. On such a day, catastrophe will shatter our civilization. For example, when cities like Miami will irreversibly be flooded by ocean waters.

Having highlighted the looming tragedy, I want to take stock of the opportunities that the near future of the Arctic Ocean may present. First, the U.S. and its allies (mainly Norway and Canada) can exploit the Arctic region’s rich deposits of minerals, such as oil, phosphate…