Populo Summer 2017

is due to the fact that an estimated 30 billion barrels of oil and 221 billion cubic feet of natural gas reserves are in the American economic zone in the Arctic. 360 The history of the USA’s Arctic policy can be split in to three sections, the 1980s were associated with military security, 1990s with environmental security and 2000s and beyond with a broader agenda that includes state sovereignty. 361 After the Cold War, the USA continued to send submarines to the Arctic, and although there were theories that the new class of US submarines could not go to the Arctic, this was proved not to be true, when in 2009 the USS Texas reached the North Pole. 362 Although the USA continued to send submarines to the Arctic, it was only in 2009 with the outgoing Bush administration that the Arctic was taken seriously again by the American government. In January 2009, President Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive 66, the first published document relating to the Arctic since the Clinton administration in 1994. 363 In this document, which President Obama supported, maintaining national security interests in the Arctic was an important element. These interests were; missile defence, a strategic deterrence, a maritime presence in the region and ensuring freedom of navigation and flight in the region. 364 This document clearly shows that the USA is willing to stand up and protect the Arctic, however the 360 Titley and St. John, p.271. 361 I. Lundestad, ‘US Security Policy in the Arctic since 1981: American Strategy, Russian Relationship’, (Dissertation for PhD in History, University of Oslo), pp.189-192. 362 Huebert, p.213. 363 I. Lundestad, ‘US Security Policy and Regional Relations in a Warming Arctic’, Swords and Ploughshares edition ‘Global Security, Climate Change, and the Arctic’, Bulletin of the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 17.3 (2009), 15-17 (p.15). 364 Huebert, p.213.

142

Made with FlippingBook HTML5