U.S. Arctic and Oceans Update July 2010

July was a busy month in the United States for Arctic and oceans related matters.  Herewith, a tweet-like survey of some highlights, from back to front:

July 26:   Final preparations are underway for this year’s continuation of US mapping efforts on the Arctic extended continental shelf (ECS). The 2010 ECS Project mapping cruise, for which the US Geological Survey is the science lead, is scheduled from August 2 - September 6, 2010, on the USCGC Healy.  The Healy will travel in tandem again this year with the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker the  Louis S. St.-Laurent for part of the cruise, as reported in the USGS press release

July 22:  US and Canadian officials met quietly in Ottawa to discuss resolving the maritime boundary dispute in the Beaufort Sea.   For background and a map, see this earlier post.

July 22:  President Obama assigned responsibility for Arctic research to the White House National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), which will coordinate activities assigned to the Interagency Arctic Research and Policy Committee (IARPC).  IARPC and the US Arctic Research Commission (USARC) were created by the 1984 Arctic Research and Policy Act and consult on arctic policy and planning.  The press release is on the USARC website, where the USARC biennial "Report on Goals and Objectives for Arctic Research is also available.

July 19:  President Obama issued an Executive Order  establishing a National Policy for the Stewardship of the Ocean, Coasts, and Great Lakes.  The Order largely adopts the  Final Recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force.  Among the many steps the order announces, it “provides for the development of coastal and marine spatial plans that build upon and improve existing Federal, State, tribal, local, and regional decisionmaking and planning processes."  A related posting is available here. 

July 16:  Eighty-six days after the April 20, 2010, explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig at the BP Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, oil flowing from the well was, at last, temporarily halted by a capping stack system.  The cap continues to hold while efforts continue to close the well permanently.  More information is at the official site of the government oil spill response effort.

July 15: The Interagency and Science Advisory Committees of the Submarine Arctic Science Cruises Program (the SCience ICe EXerices (SCICEX) Program) published a new science plan for the Arctic Ocean, drawing on the potential of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered submarines for data collection. The plan under “Part 1: Technical Guidance for Planning Science Accommodations Missions,” is available under publications at the USARC website.

July 14:   The House passed HR 2864, a bill that, if approved by the Senate and signed into law, would require NOAA to increase its mapping efforts in the Arctic.  See the NOAA Office of Legislative Affairs.  The bill was introduced by Rep. Don Young of Alaska.  The Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment approved by the Ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council in 2009 provides a good overview of the need for improved mapping of the Arctic Ocean for navigational and other purposes.

From Eurasian Heartland to Arctic Coastal State: Antrim on the Russian Arctic in the Twenty-first Century

“The increased accessibility of the Arctic, with its energy and mineral resources, new fisheries, shortened sea routes, and access to rivers flowing north to the Arctic, is pushing Russia to become a maritime state. As it progresses, Russia will no longer be susceptible to geographic isolation or encirclement. At the same time, these changes will require Russia to become more closely integrated into global commercial and financial networks, to welcome international business involvement, and to participate in international bodies that harmonize international shipping, safety, security, and environmental regulations.”
     Caitlyn L. Antrim, The Next Geographical Pivot: The Russian Arctic in the Twenty-first Century, Naval War College Review, Summer 2010, Vol. 63, No. 3, p. 15

With these words, Caitlyn Antrim introduces the basic premises of her comprehensive, concise and engaging article in the Summer 2010 volume of the Naval War College Review.  She derives the first part of the piece’s title  from a 1904 presentation by Halford Mackinder to the Royal Geographic Society in London.   A century ago Mackinder identified control of the steppes and plains of the southwest Russian empire, rich in agriculture and raw materials, as the geographical “pivot around which the conflict between the [Eurasian] heartland and the crescent of maritime states revolved.”*  Mackinder’s “crescent” referred to the outer edges of the Eurasian continents, traced “from the coasts of China and South Asia westward through the Balkans and up to the English Channel.”

Antrim proceeds to discuss the resultant and enduring European and US geostrategy of the 19th and 20th centuries that attempted to contain Russia as a land power on all sides and depended on the frozen Arctic Ocean to serve as the Fourth Wall of containment. She identifies four factors that were key to maintaining this Fourth Wall - technology, economics, climate, and law - and then lays out how changes to them have led to Russia’s “shift from Eurasian heartland to Arctic coastal state,” a shift she convincingly documents.

Antrim views the political and geophysical changes underway in the Arctic as “turning the Arctic from an afterthought to a central front in the new geopolitical view of the world. In this new geostrategy, Russia assumes a role as one of the maritime powers of the “rimland,” and the Russian Arctic becomes a new geographical pivot among the great powers.”

The article does much more, including cataloguing the challenges facing the Russian Coastal Border Guard, analyzing two Russian statements relevant to Arctic policy - the Foundations of State Policy of the Russian Federation for the Period up to 2020 and Beyond and the Transport Strategy of the Russian Federation to 2030 (available at doc.rzd.ru/) and suggesting elements for a  regional adaptation of the Global Maritime Partnership initiative, “extended to include Arctic science, Arctic domain awareness, and ocean resource management.”

Anyone interested in Arctic Mapping and the Law of the Sea will find much to value in Antrim’s article, and in her July 2, 2010, Council on Foreign Relations interview  regarding "Law of Sea Implications for Gulf Spill."  To her excellent CFR discussion of LOS issues related to the spill should be added the existence of, and renewed interest in, the ARCTIC COUNCIL ARCTIC OFFSHORE OIL AND GAS GUIDELINES, endorsed by the Arctic Council in April 2009.


*All quotations are from Antrim’s article.  Caitlyn L. Antrim is the executive director of the Rule of Law Committee for the Oceans.