environment

Russia and China eye NATO's 'Arctic Achilles heel'

5 Comments
By Pierre-Henry DESHAYES

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Nice to hear something positive from someone who’s actually been there. At the moment it sounds like an attack of very mild paranoia over not much at all. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Look at a map and you can see its importance. Were it militarized the owner could dominate the Barents sea and its approaches to the North Atlantic. If a nation hostile to Russia controls it and militarizes it then they could make it extremely dangerous for the Russian Northern Fleet to use their bases on the Kola Peninsula (Murmansk, Severomorsk, Polyarny, Gadzhievo, etc.) and menace anything entering or leaving their main shipyard in Severodvinsk on the White Sea. This is why Russia in particular is ardent to keep it de-militarized.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Had a very nice iced finger (no pun intended) bun when I visited Barentsburg.The canteen was Soviet Brutalist with incredible murals.

It was encouraging to see how vastly differing political ideologies could work together.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

The situation at Svalbard is interesting, but Putin has enough on his plate, what with trying to avoid further embarrassment, due to his failure in Ukraine. He doesn't have the means to cause trouble in the far north, at the moment.

As for the Chinese, they are primarily concerned with seeing a northern trade route to Europe and North America opened up. Upsetting the West with aggression against Norway will not serve their interests.

In a few decades global warming may make the far north ice free year-round, and then Svalbard's importance along the trade route will increase.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

great piece of one sided "journalism",but yes as long as is antirussian oriented-any crap is worth to be published here.

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

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