Subs and Arctic sovereignty

US and UK subs make a regular point of asserting that the waters are international.

Commander Submarine Force announces the participation of the USS ALEXANDRIA (SSN 757), home ported in Groton, Conn., in a joint U.S. Navy / Royal Navy exercise being conducted in the Arctic Ocean in March and April 2007...

Two submarines, the USS ALEXANDRIA and a Royal Navy Trafalgar class submarine will conduct the joint classified testing on submarine operability and war fighting capabilities in Arctic waters...

The U.S. Submarine Force conducts exercises in waters around the globe, including the Arctic, in order to guarantee assured access to any ocean in the world. The Submarine Force continues to use the Arctic Ocean as an alternate route for shifting submarines between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In fact, submarines can reach the western Pacific directly by transiting through international waters of the Arctic rather than through the Panama Canal.

U.S. submarines must continue to train in the Arctic environment to refine and validate procedures and required equipment in support of operational safety. The U.S. Navy and Royal Navy Arctic cooperation represents an excellent example of the shared vision and resources the two navies [and governments - MC] enjoy.

Since 1986, every Arctic tactical exercise has involved both U.S. Navy and Royal Navy submarines.

I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that the covert presence of vessels in an area is not in fact a challenge to a claimed sovereignty. If subs transit submerged within the 12 mile territorial sea, sovereignty would not be called into question. It is a visible presence, without authorization, in claimed territorial waters that would raise the issue.

More here: "Arctic sovereignty: the Navy is not the answer".

Update: Thomas Walkom of the Toronto Star, in a useful moment, pointed out a brutal truth in a column, Jan. 28, 2006 (full text not free online):

The United States, as well as Japan and the European Union, insist that the ice-choked passage, which winds through the archipelago of the Canadian Arctic to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is an international waterway...

But, as I keep arguing, operations in all seasons by Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers would suffice to assert our claims, however tenuous they may be, to the passageways.