Command:MO LIVE - Pole Positions DLC PC

Summer 2017Russia is in the 4th year of a 15 year project to install the ‘SHELF’ underwater Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS), a very modern equivalent to the US Navy’s Cold War system of listening arrays in the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) Gap. The difference this time, however, is that the Russians are emplacing this high tech, nuclear-powered system in the Arctic, and that has the United States quite concerned.THE ARTICIn recent years the increased access to Arctic waters due to receding polar ice has allowed exponential growth into hydrocarbon (oil & gas) exploration and extraction, as well as much improved capacity for mineral extraction in the north of Russia, Canada, Greenland and Alaska.Since the development of nuclear submarines able to travel under the polar ice cap, the Arctic has been heavily used for both transit of SSNs and others between oceans, and more importantly for stationing of Ballistic Missile Submarines SSBNs. Both the US and Russia routinely position their SSBNs in this region as it provides excellent hiding grounds for these strategic assets; the US is not happy about a Russian detection system limiting their nuclear deployment options.Neither Russia nor the US wants their operations in the Arctic to become public knowledge. Russia does not have its system fully operational and the US has many other issues on its plate. There is a limited degree of plausible deniability involved in all actions in the north, there are few who can detect them and fewer yet who care to reveal what has been detected.ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT Environmentally the Arctic is one of the most fragile ecosystems on the planet. The receding icepack is seen as forthright evidence of global warming, compounded by enabling more resource exploration which increases both the actual and risk of further deposits of toxic chemicals into Arctic waters, where they take much longer to break down than in warmer climes.…