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The opening of the new frontier can be traced to a calm morning in August 2007, when a pair of Russian submersibles dropped 14,000 feet to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean and planted a flag made of titanium at the North Pole. Images broadcast around the world of the Russian tricolor on the seabed drew quick condemnation in the West.
這片新領域的開發可以追溯到2007年8月的一個安靜的上午，一對俄羅斯潛水員下潛了14000英尺并到達了北冰洋的底部。他們把一面鈦制的旗子插在了北極。四處傳播的俄羅斯三色旗插在海床上的照片很快引起了西方社會的一片譴責。
It had been one of the hottest years on record, and just a month later scientists monitoring the ocean by satellite announced that sea ice had shrunk to the lowest extent ever witnessed. "It was the largest Arctic ice loss in human history and was not predicted by even the most aggressive climate models," said Jonathan Markowitz, a professor of international relations at the University of Southern California. "This shock led everyone to suddenly understand that the ice was rapidly disappearing, and some nations decided to start making moves."
那是歷史上最熱的一年，就在一個月后科學家們用衛星監測到海面的冰川量減少到前所未有的地步。“這是人類歷史上冰川融化面積最大的一次，即使是數據最夸張的氣候模型都沒能預測到”，喬納森·馬科威茨說道，他是南加利福尼亞大學教授國際關系的一名教授?！斑@次事件讓所有人突然意識到冰川在急劇消失，一些國家決定開始要采取措施了。”
Today Russia has become, by most measures, the dominant power in the Arctic. It has the world's largest fleet capable of operating year-round in extreme northern waters and maintains dozens of military bases above the Arctic Circle. The U.S. maintains one base in the Arctic, an airfield, on borrowed ground in northern Greenland.
今天俄羅斯在很多方面已經成了北極的主宰力量。該國有世界上最強大的艦隊，可以在北方的水里作業一年之久，還在北極圈以內建立了十幾個基地。而美國在北極只有一個基地，另外在租借地有一個機場。
Russia has stationed new troops in the north, increased submarine activity, and returned warplanes to Arctic skies, where they now routinely buzz NATO airspace. But Markowitz and several other researchers told me Russian activity in the north was a mirror more of internal plans than of global ambitions.
俄羅斯在北方駐扎了一支新的部隊，增加了潛艇活動，還在北極上空開起了飛機，他們現在每天都在北約的領空打轉。但馬科威茨和其它的研究人員認為，俄羅斯在北方的行動只是更多的反映了他們內部的計劃，而不是對全球的野心。
Two million Russians inhabit the country's Arctic territory, which has several large cities, including Murmansk and Norilsk. The combined Arctic populations of Canada and the U.S. equal less than a quarter of that number. In the U.S., the largest Arctic town, Utqiagvik, formerly Barrow, is home to just over 4,000 people.
200萬俄羅斯人居住在北極的領土上，那里有好幾個大城市，包括摩爾曼斯克和諾里爾斯克。居住在北極的加拿大人和美國人加起來都不到這個數字的四分之一。美國位于北極的最大的鎮叫烏特起亞格維克，也就是曾經的巴羅，只住了4000多人。
