C.J. Chivers, “Eyeing Future Wealth, Russians Plant the Flag on the Arctic
Seabed, Below the Polar Cap,” New York Times, August 3, 2007
Scott Borgerson, “An Ice Cold War,” New York
Times, August 8, 2007
“Editorial: The Great Arctic Oil Rush,”
New York Times, August 12, 2007
William J. Broad, “Russia’s Claim Under Polar
Ice Irks American,” New York Times, February 19, 2008
C.J. Chivers, “Eyeing Future Wealth, Russians Plant the Flag on the Arctic Seabed, Below the Polar Cap,” New York Times, August 3, 2007
A Russian expedition descended in a pair of submersible vessels more than two miles under the ice cap on Thursday and deposited a Russian flag on the seabed at the North Pole. The dive was a symbolic move to enhance the government's disputed claim to nearly half of the floor of the Arctic Ocean and potential oil or other resources there.
The expedition, covered intensely by Russian news organizations and state-controlled television, mixed high-seas adventure with the long Russian tradition of polar exploration. But it was also an openly choreographed publicity stunt.
Inside the first of the mini-submarines to reach the sea floor were two members of Russia's lower house of Parliament. One of them, Artur N. Chilingarov, led the expedition to seek evidence reinforcing Russia's claim over the largely uncharted domain. That claim, which has no current legal standing, rests on a Russian assertion that the seabed under the pole, called the Lomonosov Ridge, is an extension of Russia's continental shelf and thus Russian territory.
At least one country with a stake in the issue registered its immediate disapproval of the expedition. ''This isn't the 15th century,'' Peter MacKay, Canada's foreign minister, said on CTV television. ''You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say, 'We're claiming this territory.' ''
Russia submitted its claim in 2001 to an international commission, which has ruled that the available data is not sufficient to support it. But Russia has pressed on.
''We must determine the border, the most northerly of the Russian shelf,'' Mr. Chilingarov said on national television before the dive, which was billed as the first of its sort -- a descent into the inky darkness far beneath a large window cut into the ice sheet by a nuclear-powered ice breaker.
After resurfacing more than eight hours later, Mr. Chilingarov spoke as if he had been the first to the moon. ''If a hundred or a thousand years from now someone goes down to where we were, they will see the Russian flag,'' he said. The flag is reproduced in titanium. He later added, ''Our task is to remind the world that Russia is a great Arctic and scientific power.''
The day's events underscored both Russia's restored sense of confidence and the international competition for access, influence and extraction rights in the far north, which has intensified as oil and gas prices have surged and as trends in global warming have encouraged speculation that the region could become more navigable.
President Vladimir V. Putin called the members of the expedition to thank them personally, an unmistakable sign of the significance of the claim to the Kremlin, which has reestablished itself as a world power in recent years in part through its control of its oil, gas, minerals and other commodities.
Five countries -- Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States -- have territory in the Arctic Circle and under international convention have rights to economic zones within 200 miles of their borders. Denmark has sent its own scientific expeditions to study the opposite end of the ocean-spanning ridge and to seek proof that it is torn from the continental shelf north of Greenland, which is a Danish territory.
Several other countries seek to extend their influence in the circle, seeing the mostly unpopulated region's potential for providing a hydrocarbon and mineral rush. The ultimate demarcation, if geologists' estimates of its deposits prove true, could be a key to future national wealth and power.
Russia's foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, speaking from the Philippines, ignored criticism, saying that Russia's claims were sound and in time could be established as fact.
''The goal of this expedition is not to stake out Russia's rights, but to prove that our shelf stretches up to the North Pole,'' he said on Radio Mayak. ''There are concrete scientific methods for this.''
The expedition mixed public and private financing, much of which Mr. Chilingarov raised. Any new evidence it collected for the Russian government would eventually have to be submitted to a commission on continental shelf borders, which is elected by members of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Russia has a long tradition of northern exploration and extraction, and since early Soviet times the Kremlin has had research stations on the Arctic ice. Stalin first dispatched a team in 1937, at the height of the Great Terror.
Whatever the merits of any future submission, Russian scientists marveled at the expedition on Thursday, which involved two small submarines, known as the Mir-1 and Mir-2, descending from a drifting, shifting ice pack to the sea floor more than 14,000 feet beneath the surface.
The pair spent about an hour on the sea floor and left behind the reproduction of the Russian tricolor flag at 1:36 p.m., Moscow time, according to Russia's official news agency.
Then they ascended, which the scientists said was the most difficult task, because they had to find their way back to the hole on the surface. The submarines are too small to break through the ice on their own, and errant navigation could have left them trapped beneath the cap.
Once news reached Moscow that the journey had succeeded, scientists spoke with evident pride. ''We can say that is a great technical and technological achievement,'' said Leopold I. Lobkovsky, deputy director of geological studies at the P. P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology here, which provided a research vessel for the expedition.
Another scientist, Ivan Y. Frolov, director of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St. Petersburg, cautioned that whatever the brief dive had found, it would do little to settle disputes about future demarcation. But he noted certain values in the event, which was one element in the annual summer expedition to study climate, the sea and the ice.
''I doubt that this one submersion will make a breakthrough in the problem that is being discussed in the media,'' he said. ''It was a good chance to demonstrate the capabilities of this equipment and the depths that can be reached, and to demonstrate the courage of Mr. Chilingarov, which is great.''
Correction: August 9, 2007, Thursday An article on Friday about a Russian expedition that deposited a Russian flag on the seabed at the North Pole included an incomplete list of countries with Arctic Circle territory. The list includes Sweden, Iceland and Finland, in addition to the five named in the article -- Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States.
Scott Borgerson, “An Ice Cold War,” New York Times, August 8, 2007
RUSSIA’S flag-planting caper at the North Pole last week captured the world’s attention. Harking back to the heady days of colonial imperialism and perhaps the success of Sputnik, a resurgent Russia dispatched from Murmansk a nuclear-powered icebreaker and a research vessel armed with two mini-submarines to stake a symbolic claim to the Arctic Ocean’s riches. Russia hopes that leaving its flag encased in titanium more than 13,200 feet beneath the frozen surface bolsters its 2001 claim that the Lomonosov Ridge is a geological extension of its continental shelf and thus the 460,000 square miles of resource-rich Arctic waters stretching from the North Pole to Eurasia fall under the Kremlin’s jurisdiction.
“The Arctic is ours and we should manifest our presence,” declared Artur Chilingarov, the celebrated polar explorer who led the expedition.
Russia isn’t alone in the great Arctic race. Thawing of the Arctic ice cap has opened access to billions of tons of oil and gas, valuable minerals like gold and platinum and untapped fishing stocks, and all the countries bordering the Arctic are staking a claim. Denmark has spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars to prove that the Arctic once was attached to Greenland, its possession. Finland, Norway and Iceland also have their eyes on the Arctic. And Canada is spending $7 billion to build a fleet of armed Arctic patrol vessels.
“Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty over the Arctic,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said. “We either use it or lose it. And make no mistake, this government intends to use it.”
Will the rhetoric escalate into armed brinksmanship on the ice? History offers reason not to worry. Fifty years ago, the South Pole was the scene of a similar showdown. Seven countries — Britain, Argentina, Chile, France, Norway, Australia and New Zealand — had made claims to territory in Antarctica. These and other countries had established dozens of “scientific” stations on the continent. In 1956, the United States launched Operation Deep Freeze II, the last of four huge naval expeditions to fly the Stars and Stripes in the Antarctic.
Ultimately though, in a spirit of cooperation rare during the cold war, fostered by the 1957-58 International Geophysical Year, 12 countries signed onto a treaty that established a legal framework to govern the southernmost continent. The treaty prohibited nuclear explosions, radioactive waste disposal and military deployments on Antarctica. And it encouraged continued international cooperation in scientific research. The overlapping territorial claims were not relinquished, but “frozen.”
A similar diplomatic solution could put an end to the Arctic arms race today. The 2007-08 International Polar Year, a scientific research effort comparable to the International Geophysical Year, presents an opportunity to propose a treaty. The United States, which has 1,000 miles of coastline in the Arctic, should work to convene an international conference at which all the countries bordering the Arctic could settle their sovereignty disputes in an organized and transparent way.
The so-called Arctic states — Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Russia and the United States — already participate in an intergovernmental body, the Arctic Council, which manages the environment of the Arctic. But a comprehensive Arctic treaty could go much further. It could arrange for sustainable development of Arctic resources, do the seafloor mapping that’s needed to sort out the conflicting territorial claims, develop shipping shortcuts through the northern passages, set technological standards for ships that navigate the icy waters and guard the welfare of the more than one million indigenous people living within the Arctic Circle.
The United States should take preliminary steps to set the complicated treaty effort in motion. First, the Senate should immediately ratify the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which would enable the United States to make its claim to the continental shelf extending northward from Alaska, and guarantee freedom of navigation for our Navy.
We should also explore making agreements with Russia, Canada, Denmark and other countries that would allow for cooperation in gathering weather data, running search and rescue missions and responding to oil spills — even before a larger treaty could be negotiated.
In order to back up claims of sovereignty in the Arctic, the United States should also establish a presence there, and that would mean reinvigorating our geriatric icebreaker fleet. Even though our Navy is as large as the next 17 navies in the world combined, we own only three ships intended for polar missions. Two of them are in disrepair, and the third is not robust enough for future Arctic missions. Russia, in comparison, has a fleet of 18 icebreakers. We should have enough ships to maintain a presence at both poles.
Disputes over maritime boundaries, particularly in the complex icy geography of the Arctic Ocean, require international solutions. No one wins if the region remains a lawless frontier. All the Arctic countries need a treaty that protects the environment as well as their national interests. Global warming has created the need for bold diplomatic action.
For a brief moment it seemed that Adm. Robert Peary and Dr. Frederick Cook had risen from the mists to renew their race to the North Pole.
On Aug. 2, a couple of Moscow legislators in a small submersible vessel deposited a Russian flag on the seabed two miles under the polar ice cap — backing up Russia’s claim to close to half the floor of the Arctic Ocean. Canada’s foreign minister, Peter McKay, dismissed the move, sniffing that “this isn’t the 15th century.” But just in case, Canada dispatched no less a personage than Stephen Harper, its prime minister, on a three-day tour of the region and announced plans to build two new military bases to reinforce the country’s territorial claims.
At stake is control of the Northwest Passage and, with it, what could be huge deposits of oil and natural gas in the seabed below.
In a 21st-century twist unimaginable to Cook and Peary, global warming — driven, in part, by humanity’s profligate use of those same fossil fuels — has begun to melt the polar ice, exposing potentially huge deposits of hitherto unreachable natural resources. Some geologists believe that one-quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas may lie below the thawing ice. Others say less. But with oil at $70 a barrel, the rewards of discovery could be huge.
Russia and Canada are not alone in the great Arctic oil race. Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland and the United States also have a deep interest in the matter.
One thing is clear. To the extent that ownership can be determined, it will not be decided by photo-ops or even by planting flags (the Russians’ is made of corrosion-resistant titanium) in the seabed. It will be decided by geologists, lawyers and diplomats.
Under international law, nations have rights to resources that lie up to 200 miles off their shores. The rest is regarded as international waters, subject to negotiation under the Law of the Sea. A nation can claim territory beyond the 200-mile limit, but only if it can prove that the seabed is a physical extension of its continental shelf.
The Russians are claiming that the huge Lomonosov Ridge underneath the pole is in fact an extension of their continental shelf. And to show just how crazy this could get, the Danes are spending a fortune trying to prove that their end of the same ridge — though now detached — was once part of Greenland, which belongs to Denmark.
The United States does not find itself in a strong position. Misplaced fears among right-wing senators about losing “sovereignty” has kept the Senate from ratifying the Law of the Sea even though the United Nations approved it 25 years ago. This, in turn, means that the United States, with 1,000 miles of coastline in the Arctic, has no seat at the negotiating table.
President Bush and moderate Republicans like Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, will try to remedy this blunder when Congress reconvenes. This would at least enable Washington to stake its claims to the continental shelf extending northward from Alaska. We may never need a share of that oil, but it seems foolish not to keep it in reserve.
Last August, a team of Russian scientists and legislators trekked to the North Pole and plunged through the ice pack into the abyss, descending more than two miles through inky darkness to the bottom of the ocean.
There, explorers planted Russia’s flag and, upon surfacing, declared that the feat had strengthened Moscow’s claims to nearly half the Arctic seabed. The ensuing global headlines fueled debate over polar territorial claims.
But that wasn’t the whole story. The heroes of the moment did not mention that the dive had American origins.
Alfred S. McLaren, 75, a retired Navy submariner, would like to set the record straight and, as he puts it, “acquaint the Kremlin with the realities” of recent history and international law.
A major figure of Arctic science and exploration who spent nearly a year in operations under the ice, Dr. McLaren says he developed the polar dive plan and repeatedly shared his labors with the Russians and their partners — a claim he supports with numerous e-mail messages and documents.
The Russians, for their part, acknowledge that Dr. McLaren played a central role in the dive’s origins. But they say he took no part in substantive planning and logistics.
Dr. McLaren’s plan drew on federal polar data and recommended specific sensors and methods to ensure a safe return.
“I wrote the procedures for the dive,” he said in an interview. The Russians, he added, “went for the territorial claim.”
Don Walsh, a pioneer of deep ocean diving who worked on the Arctic plan with the Russians, backed the account.
The divers, Dr. Walsh wrote in an e-mail message, “did not develop the original idea, the operational plan and they did not pay for it” because wealthy tourists picked up the bill.
“I am sure,” he added, “that this example of how to steal your way to fame will become a legend in the history of exploration.”
The Russians say they took little or nothing. “Talk is cheap,” Anatoly M. Sagalevitch, the expedition’s chief scientist, said in an interview. “But real operation, this is different.”
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has made the most of the divers’ feat, personally greeting them upon their return and announcing last month that Dr. Sagalevitch and two other team members would be named Heroes of Russian Federation, the nation’s highest honorary title.
Dr. McLaren first got to know the Russians through the lens of a periscope. As a submariner, he conducted more than 20 secret missions during the cold war, mainly in nuclear attack submarines.
Three of his voyages ventured beneath the Northern ice pack, gauging its thickness, probing the dark waters below and bouncing sound waves off the bottom to map the craggy seabed. An important goal was to find safe submarine routes near the Soviet Union in case the cold war turned hot. Over all, he spent nearly a year under the polar ice.
In 1972, he won the Distinguished Service Medal, the military’s highest peacetime award.
He left the Navy in 1981 and earned a Ph.D. in polar studies from the University of Colorado in 1986.
After the cold war, Dr. McLaren began working with his former enemies, lecturing aboard Russian icebreakers that carried tourists to the North Pole. He did so repeatedly while president of the Explorers Club, a post he held from 1996 to 2000.
The idea for a polar dive arose in early 1997 when a television journalist, Jack McDonald, had dinner with Dr. McLaren and asked if anyone had ever gone to the bottom. The two decided to explore the possibility.
“We spent a lot time on it,” recalled Mr. McDonald, who planned to make a documentary.
The team envisioned going down in a submersible — a small craft with a super-strong personnel sphere that typically carries a pilot and two observers. Tiny portholes designed to withstand crushing pressures let the occupants peer out. A dive is typically an all-day affair, requiring hours to go down to the bottom and back up.
Later in 1997, Dr. McLaren attracted the interest of Mike McDowell, an adventure tour operator who organized the polar voyages. The next year, Dr. Sagalevitch, who runs Moscow’s twin Mir submersibles, came aboard.
In 1999, the three men began diving in the Mirs to visit the deteriorating remains of the Titanic and the Bismarck. The dives were seen as practice runs for the polar plunge. All told, Dr. McLaren dived in the cramped submersibles five times.
In 2001, Dr. McLaren wrote a polar dive plan for Dr. Sagalevitch in Moscow. Drawing on decades of federal polar data, it gave information like mean ice thickness (about 8 feet), water depth (about 2.6 miles) and salinity near the bottom (34 to 36 parts per thousand).
“Jagged underwater projections and spurs,” the plan warned, could endanger a submersible.
The document, seven pages long, paid special attention to making sure the returning Mirs could find the hole through which they had entered the Arctic Ocean and not become trapped beneath the thick surface ice. It called for special upward-looking sensors.
“Thank you for your recommendations,” Dr. Sagalevitch wrote in an e-mail message after receiving the plan.
For several years the Explorers Club, based in New York City, marketed North Pole dives to adventure tourists.
A cabin would be $16,000, a suite $21,000. The actual dive beneath the pole: $50,000 extra. Despite a flurry of interest, the spectacle did not materialize.
By 2005, the plan collapsed. In a bitter e-mail exchange, Dr. McLaren accused Mr. McDowell, the tour operator, of abruptly removing him from the polar dive roster and evading commitments that would have aided fund-raising.
“You did not bother to answer any of my messages,” he wrote.
Mr. McDowell in turn accused Dr. McLaren of failing to recruit dive sponsors and defended his removal as necessary because of rising costs and the need to attract more paying tourists.
“I do all the work and take all the financial risk,” he added.
Dr. Walsh, who worked with both men, laid the rupture to personality conflicts. “We were top-heavy in chiefs and needed more braves,” he said.
Another factor was the Kremlin, which was seeking new displays of geopolitical muscle. It seized control of the project. On Aug. 2, 2007, Dr. Sagalevitch and Mr. McDowell descended to the bottom, taking along two Moscow legislators.
The polar dive was part publicity stunt and part symbolic move to enhance the Kremlin’s disputed claim to nearly half the Arctic seabed. It made global headlines, with much comment on Moscow’s new swagger. Time magazine’s cover article asked, “Who Owns the Arctic?”
After the dive, many nations sharpened their claims. Denmark mapped icy regions. The United States mounted a polar expedition. And Canada unveiled plans for an Arctic military base.
“The first principle of Arctic sovereignty,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada said in a much quoted statement, “is use it or lose it.”
Dr. McLaren grew livid as the dive’s impact spread. He now ridicules the Russian territorial claims as not only empty but duplicitous because of his unacknowledged contribution. He said, however, that he harbored no hard feelings against the Mir team.
For his part, Mr. McDowell vigorously denied any fault and said any aid from Dr. McLaren was immaterial to the Russian feat.
“What he’s saying is complete rubbish,” Mr. McDowell said from Australia, where he lives. “He’s all bent out of shape because he wanted to be first to the pole. Well, it just didn’t work out that way.”
Dr. Sagalevitch confirmed that the original idea for the polar dive arose with the Westerners but said that he and his team had developed it exclusive of Dr. McLaren’s advice since 1998.
“Fred was so far from any dive plan,” he said. “He doesn’t understand the technical side of the operation. He doesn’t understand the submersible.”
If there are fireworks, they may erupt March 15, when the Explorers Club will hold its annual dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria. All the dive planners and doers are to be there, with Dr. Sagalevitch getting an award for excellence in ocean science.
It will be a bittersweet moment for Dr. McLaren, who helped Dr. Sagalevitch and Mr. McDowell become members when he was club president.
At the dinner, the Russian dive team is to complete a triumph: returning a club flag that it carried to the polar seabed.
Dr. McLaren said he planned to go to the dinner but might excuse himself from the room when the flag was returned.