Colin P said:
Who said it needs to be a sub? Not everyone agrees with our assertion of sovereignty, including our major ally. who might decide to sit back and do nothing. A well armed ship in the right place will make tangling with it to high a price and would allow the ship and crew to stand their ground against surface ships that intend to push through with veiled threats. By making a serious effort, you reduce the likelihood of a crisis. A lightly armed vessel will not be seen as real deterrent.
Actually Colin, I am sorry to say on this one you are wrong.
I wish people talking about Arctic sovereignty would take the time, first to look at the situation on
a globe, not on flattened and distorted maps.
ABOVE (considering the North Pole to be "Up") the northernmost Canadian piece of land, on one side, and the European/Asian northernmost piece of land is a huge expanse of water called the Arctic ocean. It is three times the size of the Mediterranean sea. That Arctic ocean is international water, like any other ocean, as of now.
In practice, with very few exceptions, no one goes there other than Canadian, American and Russian ice breakers doing mostly research and show the flag because it is iced over permanently, except near the edges. As a result, the various Nations surrounding the Arctic ocean (and there is a very limited number of them) are proposing that each one of them exercise sovereignty over
activities going on
on the ice in their "sector", the boundaries of which are being negotiated between them, but which would all meet at the North pole. This is a huge departure from the Law of the Sea ("LOS") and it is far from clear that the other seafaring nations of the world would recognize such claim on the exercise of sovereign powers (I know for sure the Chinese will never agree to this). There is also a process in place and currently being followed by all interested parties for the determination of the extent of each bordering nation's contiguous continental shelf as such shelf's sea based resources belong to the nation whose shelf is contiguous.
As for Canadian sovereignty on our
land territory up there, Colin, with the exception of the little fracas with Denmark over Hans Island, NOBODY is contesting our sovereignty or our land borders. This means that they also recognize our twelve nautical miles territorial sea and our 200 nautical miles exclusive economic zone. The exact angle and shape of these territorial waters and economic zone, at their ends where we meet with American claims and Danish ones are not set but subject of ongoing discussions.
Now, the closest point between Russia's and Canada's land masses are 1200 Km apart, and permanently ice covered. So the Russian hordes are not about to come across the Arctic, at five Km/h on ten to fifteen big, hard to maneuver icebreakers each carrying a single platoon of soldiers. Our CF-18 would dispose of the lot in a few minutes, with days if not weeks to prepare the assault and deploy to execute it.
As for "heavily armed" vessels getting on our Canadian side of the ocean, as Lumber pointed out, there are no icebreakers so armed in the world so it would have to be regular surface warships coming in either from the Bering straight in the West or the Labrador sea in the East. If they can go (because there is no ice) then so can we with our own heavily armed warships. Moreover, we, and nobody else, have military capable airfields up there so we can mount attacks on other nation's "heavies".
You may have noticed that I did not talk about sovereignty of waters
between the Islands of the Canadian archipelago yet. That is the real crux of the matter, actually, and is subject to a dispute between us and the "major" ally you did not name: the Americans.
A quick lesson in LOS for all here: there are four "type" of waters defined under international LOS:
1- International waters: everything not otherwise internal or territorial. Basically, all seas and oceans when more than 12 nautical miles from land. In these waters, there are no national claims to the application of one's laws to someone else (we'll see the EEZ exception later), and ships are free to use these waters as they see fit and of putting themselves under the protection of whichever country they want that will accept them.
2- Territorial waters: waters contiguous to a country, extending from the limits of the nation's internal waters (usually the low tide mark) to twelve miles out. In these waters, the contiguous state can impose its laws on all ships found within these waters, with the exception that, in peace time, it cannot deny the
right to innocent passage to merchant ship's of another nation but may make it conditional on requesting permission to transit through, and can only close these waters to them under special circumstances, However, warships of another nation cannot enter these waters at all without the permission of the nation whose waters these are.
3- Internal waters: Thes are the waters found between the low and high water mark of the shore, the harbours, ports, bays and other similar enclosed waters of a country. The country whose waters these are can do as it pleases with them, even denying access to them to anyone on whim. Obviously that states laws apply in these waters without any restrictions. Where bays are concerned, there is a formula whereby basically, a bay that is "deeper" than it is "wide" at its entrance can be enclosed by drawing a straight line at the mouth and all waters inside it are internal, and the 12 Nm territorial sea extends from those straight lines.
4- Of course, without changing the designation of Territorial or international waters, a nation can claim in the seas contiguous to its coasts an Exclusive economic zone up to 200 Nautical miles out from its internal waters. This only gives them the power to regulate economic activities in that zone.
There is also an animal called "international straight" which is a narrow passage which may be bordered on each side by different countries or by the same country and may be comprised of international or territorial sea, and which links two bodies of international waters or of different nation's territorial seas (think Juan de Fuca straight for instance). The difference between an International Straight and ordinary territorial waters of a country is that even though these are "territorial" by definition, there are no circumstances under which the right of innocent passage can be denied and this right of innocent passage includes innocent passage (all weapons in "harbour" position and unloaded/submarines surfaced only) by any nation's warships and this right entails that no permission to transit can be required.
And this is where we (and the Russians as regards their own "North-East" passage BTW) are at odds with the Americans.
The USA recognizes our claim to the lands we claim as our own up in the Arctic; they recognize our claim to our "12 NM" territorial sea up there and the attendant 200 NM EEZ, but not from where we calculate it. What they don't recognize is the fact that we have elected, unilaterally and without supporting LOS or international recognition of such method, to draw "straight lines" (like the ones used in LOS for bays and fiords, as described above) not at the entrance of bays but at the entrance of every straight or passage found between the islands and calling all enclosed waters therein "internal" under LOS, in effect making like the whole archipelago is a single land mass belonging to Canada, and calculating our 12 and 200 NM zones accordingly.
The USA is quite willing to recognize 12 nm territorial seas around every island we have up here and 200 nm around these same islands for EEZ (which in effect is just about the same as under our claim since there are no points where the islands are more than 400 nm away from one another), but not our straight lines making larger internal waters than anywhere else in the world. Moreover, because they see the North-West passage (and the "Russian" North-East passage too) as International Straight as it links two international bodies of water: the Beaufort sea and the Labrador sea). Thus they claim aright to innocent passage without permission, even for their warships.
Are we going to fight with them on on that, when we are the only ones in the world to make such claim in LOS? Or are we going to resolve it between us, knowing that nobody else is really interested in the security of these waters. After all, even for their own security, the American don't want to see everybody and their dog's warships up there, so will certainly be amenable to finding a solution that accommodate everyone.
