Recently, the Russian northern fleet is being upgraded and it currently includes 18 icebreakers - which were instrumental in allowing German cargo ships to sail through the East Siberian Sea and into Russia’s north coast. The possibility of cracking through thinner ice shelfs to make ways for more and more sea routes going across the northern part of the world has brought the interest of several nations into the Arctic.
Canada itself has built new refuelling stations and patrol boats on Baffin Island, with Danish observers witnessing their excercises. Russian, Norwegian, Finnish, and Swedish armed forces do manoeuvres together in the Barents Sea.
Under 500 meters of water in the Arctic region, large reserves of oil and natural gas are estimated, and oil exploration in the region may commence once oil prices rise high enough to give those reserves a positive net present value. The United States Geological Service has in fact recently pointed out that the Arctic region alone may hold a large part of earth’s undiscovered oil reserves.
The visits of navy admirals and shipping companies up north in the recent summer show that many are already ahead in calculating possibilities of Arctic exploitation. I expect some major activities to be ongoing there after 30 years.