The US extended its claims on the ocean floor by an area twice the size of California, securing rights to potentially resource-rich seabeds at a time when Washington is ramping up efforts to safeguard supplies of minerals key to future technologies.
On a global scale, it doesn’t really matter, but every little bit matters right?
It’s cheaper to just split profits than going to war over it. And yes the US and Canada absolutely would in principle, the UK went to war with Iceland over cod – because the UK thought that Iceland would just cave, which they didn’t, they won the thing. Not everything needs to be high-intensity, cannot be, as war is the continuation of politics by different means and, as see above: It’s often just preferable to agree instead of spending resources on fighting. Similarly India and China mutually agreed to forego guns in the Himalayas (among other things, risk of avalanches) and fight with sticks and stones. Dunno if I should count Canada and Denmark (as protector of Greenland) and their liqueur war over Hans’ Island, they didn’t even earnestly try to get each other drunk.
It’s cheaper to just split profits than going to war over it. And yes the US and Canada absolutely would in principle, the UK went to war with Iceland over cod – because the UK thought that Iceland would just cave, which they didn’t, they won the thing. Not everything needs to be high-intensity, cannot be, as war is the continuation of politics by different means and, as see above: It’s often just preferable to agree instead of spending resources on fighting. Similarly India and China mutually agreed to forego guns in the Himalayas (among other things, risk of avalanches) and fight with sticks and stones. Dunno if I should count Canada and Denmark (as protector of Greenland) and their liqueur war over Hans’ Island, they didn’t even earnestly try to get each other drunk.