In one of my favorite comedy routines, Brit Eddie Izzard points out the absurdity of planting a flag as a method of claiming territory by European colonial powers. Russia has just become the new standard bearer of this long-dormant practice.

On stage, Izzard, an Englishman with a French last name who was born in Yemen, displays a keen understanding and criticism of international politics:

We stole countries with the cunning use of flags. We'd just sail around the world and stick a flag in... "I claim India for Britain."

Then, the Indian retort, "You can't claim us, we live here! There are 500 million of us!"

The killer colonial rejoinder is, of course, "Do you have a flag?" "No flag no country, you can't have one!"

Nowadays, it's much more common of a scenario for a company to stick its flag in, condescending to pay a meager wage to the locals while the overarching political and economic goal of free trade is furthered.

Some post-nationalists even go so far as saying that companies, not countries, will be the predominant collectors and spreaders of fortune in the 21^st century. Toyota's plants in the U.S., GM's plants in Mexico, and even the rise of national investment companies like Dubai Ports World and Singapore's Temasek Holdings seem to be sending flags the way of scurvy and muskets.

But companies like Temasek, called "national champions" in Europe, are themselves put up on a patriotic pedestal. I told you just a couple of weeks ago how the European Union's energy policy is running into one obstacle after another as national governments attempt to consolidate local firms into national utilities and producers. Those countries are simultaneously using their respective companies to gain sway over neighbors as new energy-based spheres of influence take shape.

And there is no national champion like Gazprom. This brooding bear of Russian natural gas and provider of the majority of Europe's intake has been successful in forcibly renegotiating contracts with western project partners and reclaiming state assets that were sold during the post-Soviet era, all of which was done when fossil fuel prices were as low as the ocean floor.

So that brings us up to today, when China, India, Brazil, and of course Russia, are rising to the status of giants in the global economy. Based partially on population and partially on vast resource wealth, these countries are chug-a-lugging into the 21^st century and generating Dickensian levels of urban filth in the process.

Last Thursday, Russian explorers used a small submarine to plant a rust-proof flag on the ocean floor at the North Pole.

Whether you're an adherent of anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming models or if you think this thawing is normal, the ice up on top of the world is thinning quickly. With five countries staking a claim to territory inside the Arctic Circle, each is currently entitled to a 200 mile economic zone just beyond their contiguous coasts under the administration of the International Seabed Authority.

This means that Canada, Norway, Russia, the United States and Denmark (yep, Greenland still flies a Danish flag) are all freezing their buns off waiting for the chance to drill in the Arctic, where Bernstein Research says a quarter of the world's undiscovered reserves may lie.

Canada and Russia are now at unlikely loggerheads, disputing territory that was out of the question for resource harvests just a few decades ago.

But while Canada looks just below the Arctic--to the fabled Northwest Passage now opening between the ice sheets of the country's majority mass, and the bountiful oil sands of Alberta that rocketed Canada up just behind Saudi Arabia in estimated oil reserve rankings-its ultimate goal seems to be the northernmost climes of the Great White North. Canada has promised to build six to eight new patrol ships to monitor the Northwest Passage, though the United States says Canada has no territorial claim. These waters are as diplomatically murky as they are frigid.

With Russia's titanium flagpole firmly in the seabed, Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay gave his own opinion on the touchy territorial issue:

"This isn't the 15^th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say, 'We're claiming this territory.'"

Sound familiar? 

MacKay continued to say that the Canadian government is "not at all concerned about this mission," and that it was "basically just a show by Russia" with "no threat to Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic."

One of the leaders of the Russian expedition, Artur Chilingarov, gave reporters his two kopeks this week upon his return to Moscow. "The Arctic always was Russian, and it will remain Russian."  He continued stridently: "We are happy that we placed a Russian flag on the ocean bed, where not a single person has ever been, and I don't give a damn what some foreign individuals think about that."

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrived in the Canadian Arctic this Wednesday, August 8, and a government official speaking anonymously said, "The Russians sent a small submarine to drop a small flag at the bottom of the ocean. We're sending our prime minister to reassert Canadian sovereignty."

A new day has dawned. Britain and France are now competing for exploration rights in Russia, and China is buying off governments in Africa. And there may not be any North Pole natives to conquer with the cunning use of flags, but the nations of the world seem as ready as ever to stake their claims, and fight for what they want.

What they want is energy. Roar, bull, roar.

Regards,

Sam Hopkins

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