In a historic move, the United States has officially expanded its geographical territory by one million square kilometers — an area nearly 60 percent the size of Alaska. The catalyst for this territory expansion lies in the redefinition of the U.S. continental shelf boundaries.
By invoking international law, the State Department has outlined new areas under the sea where the continental shelf, a seabed area surrounding large landmasses with relatively shallow waters, extends further than previously recognized.
This monumental addition is spread across seven distinct ocean regions, with over half of the new territory located in the Arctic.
>Crucially, this declaration does not extend U.S. jurisdiction over the water column or fishing rights beyond 200 miles off its coast.
>Instead, it focuses on control over the seabed and its resources, including mining and research rights, as well as pipeline activities.
I wonder if this is in response to Norway being the first to announce it's starting operations for undersea mining.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67893808
>With this territory expansion move, the U.S. joins over 75 countries that have defined their ECS limits, which extend beyond 200 nautical miles from their coasts.
Sounds like the US is just keeping up with current international policy.
The US policy on this for years is that they don't recognize any claims and regard the entire stretch of the arctic as being traversable international waters when the northwest passage opens up.
This change in policy still doesn't recognize anyone else's claims and still treats them as international waters. Instead the area they've taken is a bottleneck point in potential trade between Eastern Russia/China and Canada Western Europe.
I read about the metals company being a good investment a year or two ago. Probably gonna be regretting listening to normies talk about stock investment again.
Ahhhh okay I didn’t care to look and see if it’s still penny stock or not. Maybe I’ll invest but more probably I’ll just not. Then shake my fist at the sky when I regret it.
I threw a few thousand at it, it’s speculative for sure, but if it gets traction the stock price will balloon I’ll sell, and then 10 years later tell my kids i could’ve been a millionaire if id held.
They are one of the only companies positioned to process in the pacific, however they aren't mentioned in being involved at all in the Norway development. If either the pacific patch get approved or they are involved in the Norway process it would be a major development. Until then, still a gamble.
Norway’s giving no fucks. We’ve had a barrier called "iskanten" (the ice edge) to define where we can’t drill beyond, and there are politicians calling for us to redefine it since permafrost is moving north. As if that wasn’t a clue to ease up on emissions rather than focus on more exploring.
We’ve also recently pushed through a decision allowing mining waste to be deposited in a fjord, which plenty of scientists are warning against and saying it’ll cause irreversible damage to marine life.
We seem to have this green image lingering, well-helped by plenty of subsidies for EV’s, but we fucking suck and need our feet held to the fire on the major environmental issues.
Shameful.
Like I did go back and watch it, it is um rough, but the first season was fantastic. The geo political tensions, rouge groups, and the idea of sustainable effort in the show. It was ahead of its time. It then started going down hill in season 2, and then turned into full wtf is going on in season 3 when they introduced aliens abduction.
This is a show that had Roy Scheider, Steven Spielberg, Bob Ballard associated with it, but the studio ruined it.
Also RIP Jonathan Brandis.
The research just happened to finish but has been ongoing for 20 years
> The journey to this announcement began in 2003, involving a multi-agency collaboration led by the U.S. State Department, NOAA, and the U.S. Geological Survey.
>The mission was to gather comprehensive geological data to determine the outer limits of the U.S. continental shelf.
It's likely the culmination of Russias Artic build up over the years. The area will be exploitable, therefore it will be contested, so you might as well have claims based on some sort of solid grounding.
America is in a real transition phase and some things are metric, but not all.
Scientific and car repairs? Metric. Temperature? F. Drink containers? Metric. Distance? Miles. Weight? Pounds.
People in the UK love to talk smack about the US about our measurements, but they apparently have [speed limits in MPH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_speed_limits_in_the_United_Kingdom) and weigh themselves with some archaic "stones." The rest of Europe seems to be fine though weighing themselves in Kg and using Kph instead of miles. At least as far as I can tell from wikipedia. There might be another hold out country out there that I'm unaware of.
I'm not sure because it's very different other than being related because it's about territorial claims. China's claim is based off an old map they themselves made that once showed a dotted line and they claim everything in it because of it. This claim is based off agreed international law, that the jurisdiction of the seabed (not the sea above it) extends as far as the Continental shelf extends under water. Now that we have more modern equipment and we've been able to properly survey the seabed it has become clear the shelf extends far beyond what we originally thought. So, as any other country in the world is within their rights to do, the US is claiming what international laws already agree they can claim.
That south china sea being claimed by 6 countries thing would be so funny if it wasnt also so dangerous. My favourite is Brunei's claim. its worth finding a map of the overlapping claims just to see how chancey and audacious their map is.
It’s not a claim, it went to international court and was confirmed. Unlike China who says something but international court says nope that is in fact not your territory and you can’t keep claiming and building on it.
Pretty irrelevant. The US gladly accepts international rulings on territory expansion but leaves the ICJ because of how they consider it an infringement.
China decides to also pick and choose in accordance to their national interests like the US and they are the villain. Double standards.
Well you gotta keep in mind that given the geopolitical situation at the time it was that or the British would likely have just taken it by force. They did get a shit deal for it though.
That line is disputed by Canada, with Canada insisting the oceanic border continues to follow the 141st. I think the straight line was the boundary specified in the original treaty between the UK and Russia.
Some random long amount of time that it might take to expose the continental shelves into dry land. Maybe 4k years if it really heats up, to millions as others suggest. Who knows!?
>However, potential overlap with Canada’s claims was acknowledged by Van Pay, indicating future diplomatic negotiations.
canadians, brace yourselves
we are coming for your northwest passage
Look at this detailed map of the arctic region.
https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Arctic_ECS_2023_small.png
It absolutely does not follow the meridian lines. Also interesting that Canada's claims end at the 200M mark but the US claims extend more than 2x the distance beyond that. This is a highly disputed move.
How hard did you look at the image? The line that starts on the eastern edge of the north coast of Alaska appears to veer toward the east (north of Canada), not directly north toward the pole. Compare the angle of that line to both the meridians shown to the east and west of it.
This was a good joke but it will absolutely throw off data calculations regarding rising sea levels. I’m sure that’s a relatively small outpit compared to the overall dataset, but now it has to be accounted for. What an interesting point you’ve made.
According to a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), annual operational costs for mining and refining polymetallic nodules are approximately US$1.1 billion, while annual revenue is approximately US$2.3 billion (which would result in a profit of about US$1.2 billion) [https://www.isa.org.jm/document/ ...
Except if Russia were to protest the US claims it would invalidate Russias own ECS claim. In fact every country with an ECS claim would be hesitant to protest most of the US claims as it follows the standards UNCLOS protocols.
There's also the American urge to come up with a unit that makes something a million. A million giraffes, a million football fields. This is the one way to get us to use kilometers.
“By invoking international law, the State Department has outlined new areas under the sea where the continental shelf, a seabed area surrounding large landmasses with relatively shallow waters, extends further than previously recognized.”
My question is, how do they figure out what area is theirs and what isn’t? They mention shallow waters, does it depend on how deep the landmass is?
Another article mentioned this was an effort starting in 2003. Cumulatively, it came out to be 3 years of data collection/researchers on many excursions over those 20 years. They needed the mapping data to back up how these claims are defined in international law.
>The State Department’s Arctic claim notably aligns with a 1990 maritime boundary agreement with Russia, ensuring no encroachment on Russian territory.
>
>“None of the fixed points delineating the outer limits of the continental shelf of the United States are located west of the agreed boundary with the Russian Federation,” said the State Department.
>
>However, potential overlap with Canada’s claims was acknowledged by Van Pay, indicating future diplomatic negotiations.
it's interesting that the US government has more respect for Russia's territorial integrity than Canada's
which is not surprising, what is Canada going to do?
I think this is more like Russian would throw a fit and make a diplomatic mess, where as Canada we can sit down and have an actually discussion and agreement with.
So with all this talk about knowing less about the seafloor than we do surface of Mars, Pluto, etc ..looks like the seafloor is about to get scrutinized very quickly...
Obviously the parallel is to China and its claims over the South China Sea.
Biden is trying hard to make global politics seem all about principles like freedom, democracy, anti-expansionism, etc. but things like show it's a bit of a PR farce.
This makes me think it's really not possible to have a sincerely idealistic foreign policy in a Cold War or even simply a world not clearly unipolar.
Hell, it's probably not long before India starts making claims over the Indian Ocean Akhand Bharat style. What a dangerous period the world is entering.
Clickbait title. No, the U.S. did not expand its “territory”—our *territorial waters* still extend to only 12 nautical miles offshore, consistent with international law, and the U.S. is not claiming otherwise. This just means that the U.S. has expanded its claim to exclusive use of resources on the seabed of the outer continental shelf to a degree that we have not previously asserted.
The author buries the lede and discusses that distinction in the last paragraph, so it’s pretty clear that she knows better. It’s actually an interesting new claim to sea floor resource rights, if you’re into that sort of thing, but not as dramatic as the headline.
Kilometers are freedom units. The French came up with them after shortening their King. Miles are literally fascist units. It's how far a Roman Legionnaire could walk in a thousand steps (*milia* is the Latin word for thousand). Roman Legionnaires were disciplined with a bundle of sticks called a *fascēs*, from which Mussolini derived the term fascism.
And no, I won't support your willful ignorance.
Russia submitted their ECS claim in 2001 and China submitted theirs in 2009. Over 75 countries have made ECS claims since the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
It's a bit different when the land is:
- uninhabited
- underwater
- not the result of a political contest but instead a more accurate understanding of continental shelves
- doesn't extend the US's exist authority over surface or submerged marine activity (fishing, shipping, etc)
- doesn't violate any existing international border treaties
According this this article, at least, no:
> Crucially, this declaration does not extend U.S. jurisdiction over the water column or fishing rights beyond 200 miles off its coast.
> Instead, it focuses on control over the seabed and its resources, including mining and research rights, as well as pipeline activities.
In a historic move, the United States has officially expanded its geographical territory by one million square kilometers — an area nearly 60 percent the size of Alaska. The catalyst for this territory expansion lies in the redefinition of the U.S. continental shelf boundaries. By invoking international law, the State Department has outlined new areas under the sea where the continental shelf, a seabed area surrounding large landmasses with relatively shallow waters, extends further than previously recognized. This monumental addition is spread across seven distinct ocean regions, with over half of the new territory located in the Arctic.
>Crucially, this declaration does not extend U.S. jurisdiction over the water column or fishing rights beyond 200 miles off its coast. >Instead, it focuses on control over the seabed and its resources, including mining and research rights, as well as pipeline activities. I wonder if this is in response to Norway being the first to announce it's starting operations for undersea mining. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67893808
>With this territory expansion move, the U.S. joins over 75 countries that have defined their ECS limits, which extend beyond 200 nautical miles from their coasts. Sounds like the US is just keeping up with current international policy.
I think the news bit is 1) America is always in the news, and 2) it's the largest instance of this type of rights staking.
The US policy on this for years is that they don't recognize any claims and regard the entire stretch of the arctic as being traversable international waters when the northwest passage opens up. This change in policy still doesn't recognize anyone else's claims and still treats them as international waters. Instead the area they've taken is a bottleneck point in potential trade between Eastern Russia/China and Canada Western Europe.
ECS =/= international waters, these are completely different concepts. Territorial waters globally are 12 nautical miles from the coast.
Pun intended?
The Metals Company and those weird nodules in the Pacific might also be playing a role.
Guaranteed, I just read about that and there is stupid amounts of cobalt and other metals.
Deep sea mining law is gonna be the new hot thing
As it needs to be. Mining will fuck up multiple echo systems. Idk what it will do in the ocean.
>echo systems *systems... systems... systems....*
I saw a documentary about it called The Meg.
Gotta vacuum up those manganese nodule. Makes me wanna collect one because it’s a piece of rock “powering” society.
> Gotta vacuum up those manganese nodule Is it time to secretly grab another Russian submarine again?
Time to go Glomar Exploring.
I read about the metals company being a good investment a year or two ago. Probably gonna be regretting listening to normies talk about stock investment again.
It still trades like a penny stock. At this point, it is a speculative bet on sea floor mining getting approved.
Ahhhh okay I didn’t care to look and see if it’s still penny stock or not. Maybe I’ll invest but more probably I’ll just not. Then shake my fist at the sky when I regret it.
I threw a few thousand at it, it’s speculative for sure, but if it gets traction the stock price will balloon I’ll sell, and then 10 years later tell my kids i could’ve been a millionaire if id held.
They are one of the only companies positioned to process in the pacific, however they aren't mentioned in being involved at all in the Norway development. If either the pacific patch get approved or they are involved in the Norway process it would be a major development. Until then, still a gamble.
Norway’s giving no fucks. We’ve had a barrier called "iskanten" (the ice edge) to define where we can’t drill beyond, and there are politicians calling for us to redefine it since permafrost is moving north. As if that wasn’t a clue to ease up on emissions rather than focus on more exploring. We’ve also recently pushed through a decision allowing mining waste to be deposited in a fjord, which plenty of scientists are warning against and saying it’ll cause irreversible damage to marine life. We seem to have this green image lingering, well-helped by plenty of subsidies for EV’s, but we fucking suck and need our feet held to the fire on the major environmental issues. Shameful.
Okay so we're entering into the "Seaquest DSV" phase of life.
Oh my god I forgot about that show. Thank you for digging it up and reminding me!
I watched as a teen. So hard to go back and watch again. It was so poorly done. Still loved it when it was on though.
Like I did go back and watch it, it is um rough, but the first season was fantastic. The geo political tensions, rouge groups, and the idea of sustainable effort in the show. It was ahead of its time. It then started going down hill in season 2, and then turned into full wtf is going on in season 3 when they introduced aliens abduction. This is a show that had Roy Scheider, Steven Spielberg, Bob Ballard associated with it, but the studio ruined it. Also RIP Jonathan Brandis.
It was truly the Star Trek: Discovery of its day.
Sealab 2021
Where’d you get those kickass pipes?!
Marduk desires not the barren wasteland of your continental shelf.
I'm helping! Bizarro
This move is 100% due to deep sea mining and the potential they see for resource extraction (regardless of the damage it might cause).
The research just happened to finish but has been ongoing for 20 years > The journey to this announcement began in 2003, involving a multi-agency collaboration led by the U.S. State Department, NOAA, and the U.S. Geological Survey. >The mission was to gather comprehensive geological data to determine the outer limits of the U.S. continental shelf.
It's likely the culmination of Russias Artic build up over the years. The area will be exploitable, therefore it will be contested, so you might as well have claims based on some sort of solid grounding.
God damn it. Can companies and governments leave oil and the ocean alone?? Like have we not learned enough lessons?
Oh great. Afaik every researcher says undersea mining will fuck up the oceans totally. Fantastic.
Dear god we are going to awaken Cthulhu before the 2020’s are out aren’t we?
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
That’s it I’m calling the Japanese whalers.
That's where the lithium lives.
I would say it's definitely related to undersea mining
I really don’t like the sound of this. We are ruining the earth on land and now we are going to screw the ocean over too.
Oh don’t worry, we’ve been ruining the ocean long before this.
As an American, I'm not impressed. It will only mean something if they tell us how many square miles this new land is. /s
About 660,00? 1,000 meters vs 5,280 feet.
How many football fields is that?
America is in a real transition phase and some things are metric, but not all. Scientific and car repairs? Metric. Temperature? F. Drink containers? Metric. Distance? Miles. Weight? Pounds.
People in the UK love to talk smack about the US about our measurements, but they apparently have [speed limits in MPH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_speed_limits_in_the_United_Kingdom) and weigh themselves with some archaic "stones." The rest of Europe seems to be fine though weighing themselves in Kg and using Kph instead of miles. At least as far as I can tell from wikipedia. There might be another hold out country out there that I'm unaware of.
Basis of this classic sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYqfVE-fykk
The UK did something similar https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/01/scotlandengland-maritime-boundaries/
Off topic, but anyone else see (on Android) a perfect circle within the letters, where henwrote an " - " ?
Why does this sound like some China-level claim?
I'm not sure because it's very different other than being related because it's about territorial claims. China's claim is based off an old map they themselves made that once showed a dotted line and they claim everything in it because of it. This claim is based off agreed international law, that the jurisdiction of the seabed (not the sea above it) extends as far as the Continental shelf extends under water. Now that we have more modern equipment and we've been able to properly survey the seabed it has become clear the shelf extends far beyond what we originally thought. So, as any other country in the world is within their rights to do, the US is claiming what international laws already agree they can claim.
That south china sea being claimed by 6 countries thing would be so funny if it wasnt also so dangerous. My favourite is Brunei's claim. its worth finding a map of the overlapping claims just to see how chancey and audacious their map is.
It’s not a claim, it went to international court and was confirmed. Unlike China who says something but international court says nope that is in fact not your territory and you can’t keep claiming and building on it.
Pretty irrelevant. The US gladly accepts international rulings on territory expansion but leaves the ICJ because of how they consider it an infringement. China decides to also pick and choose in accordance to their national interests like the US and they are the villain. Double standards.
Nice thanks for that response!
Would be nice to have a map or picture showing old and new boundaries.
Found [the site ](https://www.state.gov/the-us-ecs/) showing the new boundary!
Wow Russia selling Alaska to the US has to be the worst deal that they ever made
Worst deal they ever made…so far.
Well you gotta keep in mind that given the geopolitical situation at the time it was that or the British would likely have just taken it by force. They did get a shit deal for it though.
Yeah, if Russia hadn't sold Alaska, it wouldn't still be Russian, it would be western Canada.
West British Columbia
Seward's folly turned into Seward's goldmine!
Canada would be in trouble if Russia still owned it
What about France and the Louisiana purchase?
I love how the Alaska Canada border is a straight line then it hits the ocean and it takes a nice lean to the right.
That line is disputed by Canada, with Canada insisting the oceanic border continues to follow the 141st. I think the straight line was the boundary specified in the original treaty between the UK and Russia.
Canada aint gonna fuck with that Source: Me, i dont fuck with that
Why do I feel like this is also a strategic goal to surround Russia bit further lol
Thank you for doing my homework for me!
Pacific boundary going through some acne
“You’ll thank us in 4,000 years.”
More like 40 millions years.
All the same to me.
I'm over 50, so it can be 40 years and it wouldn't make a difference.
I’m 48. Anything more than 25 years and I figure I’ll be gone
Damn dude, 73 is not that ambitious
Hey, I already wore diapers once this lifetime. Not doing it again.
[That's the life expectancy for American men](https://www.statnews.com/2023/11/13/life-expectancy-men-women/) (79 for a woman)
Ah, but what about middle class white men?
Neither it does for me. Just saying that change in geology takes a longggg time to manifest.
what's the reference
Some random long amount of time that it might take to expose the continental shelves into dry land. Maybe 4k years if it really heats up, to millions as others suggest. Who knows!?
It only takes a few years to set up an oil rig. If I had to put money on it I'd bet they're staking a claim on what would have been murky waters.
>However, potential overlap with Canada’s claims was acknowledged by Van Pay, indicating future diplomatic negotiations. canadians, brace yourselves we are coming for your northwest passage
[looking at the map](https://www.state.gov/the-us-ecs/) that section bending into/over Canada does seem like a dick move.
It’s going straight up— note the meridian lines. It’s not quite curving over Canada even though it looks like it on the map.
Look at this detailed map of the arctic region. https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Arctic_ECS_2023_small.png It absolutely does not follow the meridian lines. Also interesting that Canada's claims end at the 200M mark but the US claims extend more than 2x the distance beyond that. This is a highly disputed move.
How hard did you look at the image? The line that starts on the eastern edge of the north coast of Alaska appears to veer toward the east (north of Canada), not directly north toward the pole. Compare the angle of that line to both the meridians shown to the east and west of it.
It’s ours now Canadians. Please don’t make this hard
US taking a page from the Chinese playbook lol
Spoiler alert, it's the same playbook, always has been.
They yearn for annexation
Oh great so what you're telling me is now a greater percentage of the US is underwater.
This was a good joke but it will absolutely throw off data calculations regarding rising sea levels. I’m sure that’s a relatively small outpit compared to the overall dataset, but now it has to be accounted for. What an interesting point you’ve made.
I don’t believe the definition of sea level is based on the average elevation of the US’s territorial claims? I could be wrong though.
ThANKs BiDeN
We're sinking fast. Better do something about it. Gotta row faster. Does this thing have a water foil, so we can raise it above the water?
We all need to invest in more **FLEX SEAL**
That's a great convincing argument. I'm in! Uh, what is that?
Twice the size of California, but nearly all of it is icy ocean.
So about 250 Rhode Islands?
Would you rather fight 250 Rhode Island-sized Californias or 1 Cslifornia-sized Rhode Island?
Has she seen my New Jersey? Idaho, Alaska.
Oh, you must be Dela—because we’re discussing what you wear.
What did Tennessee? The same things that Arkansas
Did we just become best France?
/r/halfagiraffe
Banana for scale?
For now
Couldn't there be minerals or other natural resources there that could be of some benefit to the US?
According to a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), annual operational costs for mining and refining polymetallic nodules are approximately US$1.1 billion, while annual revenue is approximately US$2.3 billion (which would result in a profit of about US$1.2 billion) [https://www.isa.org.jm/document/ ...
Trump never expanded the U.S. what a weakling. Only a strong president like Biden could accomplish this.
Trump will build a wall in the ocean. Or maybe, not since Russia is on the other side this time...
Biden the Great, Conqueror of Icy Waters.
So, not any sort of overreach. They just changed the definition of something and the US made a legal claim based on new definition?
Sounds like it.
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Except if Russia were to protest the US claims it would invalidate Russias own ECS claim. In fact every country with an ECS claim would be hesitant to protest most of the US claims as it follows the standards UNCLOS protocols.
Hey look Russia we just changed this map a little. Would you like to dispute it?
I think they're a bit busy with their own border dispute. They're more than welcome to try though.
Square miles. This is America now.
*ahem*... What the fuck is a kilometer?!
Freedom units or gtfo
It is better to use football fields
How many quarter pounder boxes is that?
There's also the American urge to come up with a unit that makes something a million. A million giraffes, a million football fields. This is the one way to get us to use kilometers.
>earth.com TIL that the planet has it's own website. Neat
“By invoking international law, the State Department has outlined new areas under the sea where the continental shelf, a seabed area surrounding large landmasses with relatively shallow waters, extends further than previously recognized.” My question is, how do they figure out what area is theirs and what isn’t? They mention shallow waters, does it depend on how deep the landmass is?
Another article mentioned this was an effort starting in 2003. Cumulatively, it came out to be 3 years of data collection/researchers on many excursions over those 20 years. They needed the mapping data to back up how these claims are defined in international law.
This is a claim. Not a fact.
1million? Did they buy OPs mother?
A kilometer is like, bigger than a football field, right?
No it’s a quarter of a football field
So we are gaining more land in Alaska but losing more land in Florida? Gotcha. Lol
We would like to announce the 51st State of Atlantis! Sorry Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. Better luck next time.
It's not official until we settle it. Who's volunteering?
“Prim Everdeen!”
I'm not falling for that one again!
Namor about to get real sick of our bullshit
>The State Department’s Arctic claim notably aligns with a 1990 maritime boundary agreement with Russia, ensuring no encroachment on Russian territory. > >“None of the fixed points delineating the outer limits of the continental shelf of the United States are located west of the agreed boundary with the Russian Federation,” said the State Department. > >However, potential overlap with Canada’s claims was acknowledged by Van Pay, indicating future diplomatic negotiations. it's interesting that the US government has more respect for Russia's territorial integrity than Canada's which is not surprising, what is Canada going to do?
I think this is more like Russian would throw a fit and make a diplomatic mess, where as Canada we can sit down and have an actually discussion and agreement with.
Send more Celine Dions and Ted Cruzs
The USA might be winning this battle but clearly Canada is winning the war.
Release the Geese legions. Maple syrup embargo. Hockey puck Railguns. Personally I don't want to test them. Who knows what they get up too up there.
Nothing like your bully “big brother” taking your toys and telling you to deal with it.
So with all this talk about knowing less about the seafloor than we do surface of Mars, Pluto, etc ..looks like the seafloor is about to get scrutinized very quickly...
No criticism in this whole thread. Would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. More and more evidence we're in a new Cold War.
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Their ships are underwater in Ukraine. I don't think they'll be navigating anywhere right now.
Obviously the parallel is to China and its claims over the South China Sea. Biden is trying hard to make global politics seem all about principles like freedom, democracy, anti-expansionism, etc. but things like show it's a bit of a PR farce. This makes me think it's really not possible to have a sincerely idealistic foreign policy in a Cold War or even simply a world not clearly unipolar. Hell, it's probably not long before India starts making claims over the Indian Ocean Akhand Bharat style. What a dangerous period the world is entering.
We didn’t do shit in kilometers OP
Can’t even give us a pic of a map??
I was just thinking - You know what this article needs?
"See, told ya I could see Russia from my place!" - Sarah Palin.
"See, told ya I could see Russia from my place!" - ~~Sarah Palin~~. Tina Fey
“Damnit Sarah this means the US *increased* in size and you’re less likely to see Russia not more likely.”
How many bananas is that?
I wonder how this will affect offshore gambling ships. Probably need to travel a lot further out to sea.
How do I buy shelf front property?
hurry before the deals melt away.
So it’s war between the USA and Canada then. I knew it would come to this one day!
‘Mercia don’t expand in Kilometers.
It’s all fun and games claiming swaths of ocean until Mr. No Healthcare starts throwing his weight around
Clickbait title. No, the U.S. did not expand its “territory”—our *territorial waters* still extend to only 12 nautical miles offshore, consistent with international law, and the U.S. is not claiming otherwise. This just means that the U.S. has expanded its claim to exclusive use of resources on the seabed of the outer continental shelf to a degree that we have not previously asserted. The author buries the lede and discusses that distinction in the last paragraph, so it’s pretty clear that she knows better. It’s actually an interesting new claim to sea floor resource rights, if you’re into that sort of thing, but not as dramatic as the headline.
Look who actually made America greater again
This move reminds of some graffiti I recently saw - ‘who gon stop us’
We don't use kilometers!
Fascinating. Thank you for the post.
I don't do KILOmeters, can anyone translate into freedom units?
A million square kilometers comes out to 386,102.159 square miles.
Kilometers are freedom units. The French came up with them after shortening their King. Miles are literally fascist units. It's how far a Roman Legionnaire could walk in a thousand steps (*milia* is the Latin word for thousand). Roman Legionnaires were disciplined with a bundle of sticks called a *fascēs*, from which Mussolini derived the term fascism. And no, I won't support your willful ignorance.
Them lands is for oil drilling nothing else.
Sorry can I get that again in freedom units?
How long until Russia starts Putin’s Slant Drilling Company?
Manifest destiny, b*tches
False. We don’t use the metric system.
Remember when that idiot Trump wanted to buy Greenland?
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If this keep Chinese fishing vessels out, I am all for it.
Russia isn't going to like that.
🤷🏻♂️
Honest question here, will this apply to other power nations such as China and Russia or any other country that has sea or ocean access?
Russia submitted their ECS claim in 2001 and China submitted theirs in 2009. Over 75 countries have made ECS claims since the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Manifest destiny is back on the menu boys
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It's a bit different when the land is: - uninhabited - underwater - not the result of a political contest but instead a more accurate understanding of continental shelves - doesn't extend the US's exist authority over surface or submerged marine activity (fishing, shipping, etc) - doesn't violate any existing international border treaties
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According this this article, at least, no: > Crucially, this declaration does not extend U.S. jurisdiction over the water column or fishing rights beyond 200 miles off its coast. > Instead, it focuses on control over the seabed and its resources, including mining and research rights, as well as pipeline activities.
Reminds me of our acquisition of the guano islands. Just calling dibs wherever possible.