The warming Arctic, with its energy resources and strategic position, is ripe for territorial disputes, the commandant of the Coast Guard warned Tuesday.
"As I look at what is playing out in the Arctic, it looks eerily familiar to what we're seeing in the East and South China Sea," Admiral Paul Zukunft said at an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Defense One reported.
There's already been territorial claims by Russia for "most of the Arctic Ocean, all the way up to the North Pole and as a signatory of the Law of the Sea Convention has filed this claim," he said.
And he noted more Chinese maritime traffic in the far north.
"The Snow Dragon . . . is on her way up to the Arctic from China," he said, Defense One reported. "And they routinely stop and do research in our extended continental shelf. They've established a pattern."
Zukunft said the United States's extended continental shelf holds up to "13 percent of the world's oil reserves, about a third of the world's gas reserves, and about a trillion dollars worth of rare earth metals" that technological advancements will soon make feasible to harvest.
The United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea is the 1982 treaty that established nations' maritime rights and responsibilities — granting countries exclusive rights to harvest minerals and materials from underneath their continental shelves. But it hasn't been ratified by the United States, Defense One reported.
It should, Zukunft said.
"I cannot state more profoundly that we are not in the best of company in the non-ratifiers and it's time for us to join the club and ratify the Law of the Sea Convention," he said, adding the Coast Guard will also need more equipment to protect the territory.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.