Dartblog

Perhaps you have heard the news that the Russians, in search of misplaced glories, have dived deep into the Arctic Ocean with a retrofitted flag pole, planted same, and have claimed for themselves new earthen swaths. Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, asked for comment because of the putatively special threat his native land might feel in the matter, provided this wonderful rejoinder: “This isn’t the 15th century. You can’t go around the world and just plant flags and say, We’re claiming this territory’.”

Which is something very lovely: politicians being honest by pointing at the follies of their foreign counterparts and refusing—steadfastly refusing—to take them seriously. What the Russians have done is remarkably lame, and Mr. MacKay’s reaction a treasure for its truthfulness.

On the other hand, I am rather certain that there is nothing really to stop any sovereign nation from claiming unclaimed space, and in that respect Mr. MacKay is entirely wrong: It may not be the 1500s, but some traditions from that dark period have survived; among them, the fact that planting a flag someplace has significance beyond the steel and fabric. Just ask the 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines who gathered around Mount Suribachi in late February, 1945.