Russia and the north pole.

[dr-spangle]

US probably will just for the hell of it...

[Emir of Raspur]

Doubt it - the American conceit is that the entirety of the North West Passage lie in international waters, which frankly is b0llocks but seems to be America's preferred excuse for trying to dominate that waterway if and when the passage of it becomes commercially viable.

[Hesam Jayatar]

 International waters.. Jesus. Its like they need to justify compromising our sovereignty for the past 50 years with their subs. Atleast the Russians used plausible deniability.

 "We got lost" standard response for subs

 "We have airshow" standard response for overhead flight recce's

 "Scientific Research" standard response for communications recce's

 "We love democracy" standard response for ex-patriot Russian organizations in the west

 

[dr-spangle]

UPDATE: "Canada said it will spend CAN$3 billion on new ice breakers to patrol the region."

Denmark has dispatched researchers to assess whether it can lay claim to the north pole.

The nation who owns the north pole will be decided by the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

US can't physically claim it because they never ratified the treaty saying that you could but GWB wants congress to pass the treaty so they can join in



The north pole dispute appears to be warming up

[Com. Fabry]

Yes, and global warming dictates that there won't be a north pole anyway. (Maybe Al Gore just wants it for himself?)

[Emir of Raspur]

You do realise the existance of the North Pole is completely unrelated to the fate of the Arctic ice sheet don't you? 

[dr-spangle]

Yeah the north pole is going to be there forever unless the core of the earth stops which, however likely "the core" makes it seem, is extremely unlikely.

[Liam Sinclair]

Yeah the north pole is going to be there forever unless the core of the earth stops which, however likely "the core" makes it seem, is extremely unlikely.

Um, the geographic North Pole, which everyone is interested in, will always be there until the Earth is destroyed, or otherwise falls over on itself, making East-West the new North-South

The magnetic North Pole (i.e. the North pole that moves throughout the Arctic geographically) is the one you're thinking about.

[Sfeir Jahangir Zsharri]

"the core"

ZOMFG I loved that movie.

[dr-spangle]

The core has been called the least accurate to science film out of films supposed to be about science on several occasions...

Well if the core stopped the magnetic field would stop and "north" wouldn't really be north as such :p

[Behmanesh FarzAn]

There's a reason it's called science fiction.

[dr-spangle]

you would assume that a science fiction would have more science than a normal fiction though :p

and a lot of fictions have more science than that movie...

[Com. Fabry]

Interesting how a discussion can progress from Russia's claim of the North Pole to the science to fiction ratio of science fiction media.

[dr-spangle]

Yup