I think the famous argument over the Northwest Passage is that we claim they are internal waters for the most part, but for a small part of it, given the distance in it—and America will never recognize it—we've agreed to disagree. One of the aspects that is important to remember in the north is that any activity in the north is more an expeditionary than a conventional kind of operation.
I'll just quote you what the Norwegian foreign minister told me one day when I was fortunate enough to meet him. He said, “You know, we've managed to agree on the delimitation of boundaries with the Russians, and the more military Russians come to the north, the more happy we are.” That is because, first of all, there's so much on the SNR and on SAR and on all these other issues. The more we have to cooperate with, the better it is. In fact, the level of cooperation in the north between those countries is without comparison to the conflicts we have in the south.
The issue of the Northwest Passage will be treated on its own and will stay in a kind of disagreement. We'll agree to disagree for the foreseeable future, but we also have to remember that most of the traffic we're talking about for the future will be in the northeast passage rather than the northwest one. It's the Russians we'll have to deal with, which might be a bit more difficult.