A report by the US Geological Survey (USGS) found that 25 areas inside the Arctic Circle contain about a fifth of the world’s undiscovered but recoverable oil and natural gas reserves.

The area north of the Arctic Circle has an estimated 90 billion barrels of oil, 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids, accounting for about 22 percent of the undiscovered, technically recoverable resources in the world. The Arctic accounts for about 13 percent of the undiscovered oil, 30 percent of the undiscovered natural gas and 20 percent of the undiscovered natural gas liquids in the world.

The long-term impact might be relatively slight, though: At the present consumption rate of 86 million barrels a day, the oil in the Arctic would meet global demand for three years. The reserves might bring a little relief to tight markets, but they don’t look like the answer to declining production in oil fields in the rest of the world.

As for natural gas, the region’s undiscovered reserves are equal to Russia’s proven gas reserves, the world’s largest. Most of the new estimated recoverable gas is located in two Russian provinces.

A separate USGS study estimates that a billion-barrel Arctic oil field would cost about USD37 per barrel to produce, plus about USD3 per barrel in exploration costs. It costs about USD2 per barrel to pump oil from the ground in Saudi Arabia and USD5 to USD7 per barrel in Venezuela and Azerbaijan. And it costs more than USD30 to mine, haul and upgrade a barrel of synthetic crude from Canada’s oil sands.

The long-term potential is debatable, but the melting Arctic ice cap threatens to unleash global geopolitical conflicts over resource control, boundaries, self-government, rights of passage by sea and air, and naval and military presences.

An official government document made public in March suggested Russia would deploy units from the army and the FSB (Federal Security Service) in the Arctic. The paper declared Russia’s intent to develop Arctic forces to protect a continental shelf it said would become the nation’s “leading resource base” by 2020.

The document said Russian planned to put troops in its Arctic zone “capable of ensuring military security,” including the “creation of (an) actively functioning system of the Federal Security Service coastal guard.”

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev followed up with an editorial in the March 30 of issue state-sponsored newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta ridiculing the idea that the Arctic is a global resource.

“The United States of America, Norway, Denmark and Canada are conducting a united and coordinated policy of barring Russia from the riches of the shelf. It is quite obvious that much of this doesn’t coincide with economic, geopolitical and defense interests of Russia, and constitutes a systemic threat to its national security.”

Other countries with territorial claims–the US, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden–were more than a little alarmed by this aggressive tone. Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon responded quickly, saying that Canada “will not be bullied” by Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov subsequently backed off the document and Mr. Patrushev’s commentary. Following the close of the Arctic Council meeting in late April, Mr. Lavrov explained that Russian had no intention of boosting its military presence in the Arctic, and that the moves his government was taking were based on strengthening the potential of the coast guard.

These moves are necessary because the melting ice cap is leading to more human activity in the region. He also noted that existing laws could resolve disputes over access to resources.

In April, Arctic Front: Defending Canada in the Far North was awarded the Donner Prize as Canada’s best public policy book. A central criticism of Far North–that Canada has neglected economic and strategic advantages–seems flawed because the ability to exploit the resources was impaired by ice, and thus the geopolitical significance of the nearby terra firma wasn’t on any serious person’s radar.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the authors’ prescription–aggressive action to establish sovereignty and protect claims to resources–isn’t valid. And it appears Canada and the non-Russian Arctic nations are now rising to the contest.

Countries are beginning to use military muscle and diplomatic hardball to carve out their fair share of potential resources made accessible only because polar ice is melting. Had Canadians aggressively settled the territory that inspires their title the offshore rights would be less ambiguous.

Aggressive public funding for remote communities isn’t a pillar on which to build a headline-grabbing political career. Any policymaker who proposed the kind of public investment required to make lively such an adventure would have either been a representative of Nunavut, for example, or had zero ambition to be prime minister.

But global warming continues to melt the ice in the Northwest Passage and the competition for northern resources is heating up. Canada, the authors warn, may be forced to defend this area from a position of grave weakness.

While the five Arctic border nations as well as certain non-border parties certainly acknowledge the importance of the region, in recent days this early heat of mid-spring has eased a bit. The acting chief of Russia’s embassy in Ottawa, Sergey Petrov, said during a recent news conference that Canada and Russia can cooperate to determine who will have a say in managing the Arctic.

Mr. Petrov said the five Arctic-coastline nations should manage the region’s future, and a recent series of bilateral meetings, including one between the two countries’ foreign ministers, has put Canada and Russia on a more cooperative footing on such things as cross-polar air and sea routes.

Canada continues to map areas such as the underwater Lomonosov Ridge–which Russia and Denmark also claim–as an extension of the North American continental shelf. Such a finding would support Canada’s claim for jurisdiction over the adjacent waters under a United Nations adjudication process.

The EU does not, however, recognize Canada’s claim to the Northwest Passage as an internal waterway.