US Joins the Arctic Race to the Bottom (of the Sea)
America’s unilateral grab for about 380,000 square miles of seabed is a troubling portent for the wider world.
A Russian flag on the seabed of the Arctic ocean.
Source: Photo by NTV / AFP via Getty Images
Cecil Rhodes, Britain’s arch-colonialist and diamond aficionado in Africa during the Victorian era, once declared he would annex the planets if he could, saddened “to see them so clear and yet so far.” Were he alive today — and perhaps holding a US, Russian or even Chinese passport — he might say the same thing about the Arctic, albeit with an eye on quite different resources.
Just as the US was winding down for the holidays last month, it gifted itself an early stocking stuffer: About 380,000 square miles of seabed (equivalent to Texas plus New Mexico). Washington defines this as the country’s extended continental shelf.