Russia Stakes Claim to North Pole

This is kind of an interesting story actually

Kremlin lays claim to huge chunk of oil-rich North Pole | Russia | Guardian Unlimited (http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2113289,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12)

LOL...this is so ridiculous. They should just stop with all this b.s. and invade it, point all their missile arsenal at the entire planet and say "We claim the North Pole, anyone have a problems with that?"

Even if there was some geological bridge that connected the countries...

It's nobodies land.

I'm curious to what the backlash will sound like, and how far the world will go to stop them should they choose to ignore it.

why does it always have to be about the money?

Who is going to stop them? Nobody. Why? Simple their Northern borders are in the Arctic Circle anyway, the North Pole is virtually their backyard. They can probably tap the oil fields under there without even leaving Russian waters, and even if they did it is too far north for anyone to do anything about it. Putting it in football terms, it is a big homefield advantage for Putin and co. Meanwhile China is outflanking us in Latin America and Africa with goodwill gestures, etc, while Iraq is making us look like a bunch of arrogant idiots. In the not so distant future we are going to get totally screwed. Remeber if Russia totally drops the dollar for the Euro as one of their reserve currencies, with Europe dependent on Russian oil, the rest of Europe will b e compelled to do the same and tank our economy. Russia has a lot of natural resources, and more importantly has a lot of gold, which we don't. Also they have hedged their resrve currencies into more of a basket of currencies configuration meaning they have insulated themselves fairly well against a dollar crash. The Russians, along with their Chinese allies can in essence "nuke" our economy and still be relatively functional with their own.

I'm sure this will play a large part in not allowing Russia there:
"Under international law, no country owns the North Pole. Instead, the five surrounding Arctic states, Russia, the US, Canada, Norway and Denmark (via Greenland), are limited to a 200-mile economic zone around their coasts."

What sucks is that given our tendancy to chase after countries with oil, this could be a huge problem.

they already tried this is 2001. i doubt it'll work much better for them this time.

they already tried this is 2001. i doubt it'll work much better for them this time.

I don't recall them trying back then...what happened back then?

I don't recall them trying back then...what happened back then?

they went to the UN and were laughed at more or less.

they went to the UN and were laughed at more or less.


Wow, I can't believe I don't recall this. I must be getting old.