The New Cold War’s Arctic Front

The New Cold War’s Arctic Front - WSJ:
G-7 leaders gathering in Bavaria on Monday vowed to extend sanctions if Russia doesn’t dial back its aggression against Ukraine. 
Previous sanctions haven’t deterred Kremlin land-grabs, and the question now isn’t if Russian President Vladimir Putin will strike again but whom he’ll target next.
Mr. Putin considers Europe’s eastern periphery, stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, part of Russia’s imperial inheritance.
Yet in recent years the Russian leader has also turned his attention northward, to the Arctic, militarizing one of the world’s coldest, most remote regions. 
Here in Finland, one of eight Arctic states, the Russian menace next door looms large.
“That is a tough nut to crack, to know exactly what the Russians want,” newly appointed Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini says.
“But I’m sure they know.
Because they are masters of chess, and if something is on the loose they will take it”—a variation on the old proverb that “a Cossack will take whatever is not fixed to the ground.”
...These changes have implications not just for trade but also for the ability to exploit the vast energy resources beneath the Arctic. 
Energy fields in the region have to date produced some 40 billion barrels of oil and 1,100 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the region also holds 13% of the world’s undiscovered conventional oil, a third of the world’s undiscovered conventional gas and a fifth of the world’s undiscovered natural-gas liquids.
No wonder Moscow has been racing to reopen old Soviet bases on its territory across the Arctic and develop new ones. 
Mr. Putin wants by the end of 2015 to have 14 operational airfields in the Arctic, according to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, and he has increased Russia’s special-forces presence in the region by 30%.....