In her very good Dec. 25 Outlook article, “The colder war,” Heather Conley left out a key fact for U.S. policy interests in the Arctic. She mentioned the importance of the Convention on the Law of the Sea for Arctic issues but did not note that the United States has not ratified the convention, despite broad support in industry, the armed forces and the Senate. A handful of senators has opposed ratification for reasons inexplicable to anyone who looks rationally at U.S. national security interests in the Arctic region and elsewhere.
As a result, the United States is on the outside looking in as the rules of the road for the warmer Arctic are made by those who are a party to the convention. The Senate needs to ratify the Law of the Sea Convention as early as possible to ensure the United States has a leading voice on issues covered by the convention that relate to our national security, of which the Arctic is perhaps the most urgent.
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