Europe June 12, 2009, 9:53AM EST

Who Is Winning the Race for the Arctic?

Russia, Norway, Greenland, Canada, and the U.S. are scrambling to claim the North Pole's rich natural resources. So far, Russia is way ahead

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In the game Monopoly, players try to amass as much property as possible. The course of the game quickly becomes clear—whoever owns Boardwalk is on a winning streak and whoever owns Baltic Avenue is sure to end up empty-handed. Money, meanwhile, is the sole means to reach the game's goal. In real life, however, things aren't always as simple as a board game.

In the case of the Arctic region, the major players use scientific data and the somewhat vague rules of international law. Increasing their territory means a gain in prestige for these countries, and serves to provide energy security as well. It's also a chance for them to take responsibility for the environmental risks in the region that will eventually affect all countries. But which of the nations around the polar region will emerge as the winner of this Arctic Monopoly game? Is there even such a thing as a winner here?

In any case, things are not looking particularly good for the United States. The country was too inactive in the region for too many years to now suddenly take a leading role. "If there's a five-nation race in the Arctic," warns Coast Guard Admiral Gene Brooks, "we're fifth." Although American explorer Robert Peary formally claimed the area around the North Pole for the United States 100 years ago, nothing happened for a long time afterward, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union. Now politicians in Washington are rubbing their eyes in disbelief as other countries set the agenda when it comes to the pole. "I believe it is a race," says Mead Treadwell, chair of the US Arctic Research Commission.

The US will remain on the sidelines of the polar race for a while yet. This may be a good thing in terms of political rhetoric in the region, which might be less charged without the United States involved. But it also means Washington is missing as a possible stabilizing factor in the Arctic.

Brilliant Rhetoric but Few Investments

Canada is just as conspicuously missing from the region, despite the fact that its prospects there look quite good. Climate change is allowing resources to be extracted from areas further and further north. Canada especially would stand to benefit if its infrastructure in the Arctic weren't so thin on the ground. For decades Canadian politicians have spun out brilliant rhetoric about the country's far north, yet hardly any actual investments have been made in the region.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's statements following Russia's Arctic diving expedition in the summer of 2007 also seem to fall into this category, and the investments Ottawa promised then still haven't materialized. Even if those promises are eventually fulfilled—a new deep water harbor, a military training center, patrol boats or even a new icebreaker ship called the John G. Diefenbaker which the government wants to build—all these projects are still not enough. Canada will continue to be giving up much of its potential in the Arctic.

One particular example makes it easier to understand just how serious or not Canada's wish for effective sovereignty in its far north is. Alert, Canada's northernmost base, located on Ellesmere Island, is actually closer to Moscow than to Ottawa. That information alone may not sound particularly dramatic. But combined with the fact that this outpost for defending Canada's sovereignty was reported to have only five inhabitants in the 2006 census, it becomes clear that the Canadian government is going to have to put in some effort if it truly wants to position itself as an Arctic power. In the legal fight over the status of the Northwest Passage, now opening due to the shrinkage of Arctic ice, Canada's position looks likely to worsen in the long run.

Greenland, which is politically represented by Denmark, has mixed prospects. In fact Copenhagen's Arctic policy is somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, the country has already worked strongly for a political solution to the race in the far north.