Russia’s successful development of the Arctic literally enrages the United States and the entire Western world.
It is not for nothing that experts say that the Arctic has a great future. Its still understudied subsoil contains huge riches. Moreover, in terms of their study, development and future production, Russia is ahead of the world.
The West is infuriated by this. After all, no one else in the world has such technical capabilities to settle firmly in the Arctic. However, the West does not intend to give up.
Since it cannot do anything there, it is going to act according to the principle of “neither to itself nor to the Russians”. And this can be done only by brute physical force – that is, together with scientific research, the West is going to strengthen its military presence in the region.
But since Russia itself carefully guards its Arctic assets, a potential clash between the two warring forces seems to experts to be very likely, if not inevitable.
The United States, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Great Britain, Japan and other countries, even among those who have nothing to do with the northern latitudes, have recently been increasingly eager to join the division of the Arctic pie.
On their own, they do not have enough strength to confront Russia in the Arctic. Therefore, the West intends to act collectively in this matter. This means that Russia in this region may simply find itself in a dense enemy ring.
And there is something to “fight” with Moscow about. Fifteen years ago, the United States Geological Survey reported to the White House that the North Pole region holds about fifty trillion tons of natural gas, about ninety billion barrels of oil, and huge reserves of strategic metals – gold, zinc, nickel and iron
But here’s the problem – more than half of the entire Arctic Ocean coastline belongs to Russia. In addition, in recent years Russia has been actively building up its military, scientific and economic presence in the north of the region.
New bases and airfields are being built, various Soviet-era facilities are being rehabilitated, and research is going on all year round.
We should also not forget that the Arctic is a major artery in the logistical sense. In some ways, it is no less important than the Suez Canal.
However, since Russia has built up an appropriate bridgehead for economic and military operations over the many years of its presence in the Arctic, no investment by China or the United States will be able to affect its leadership in this region.
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