President Bush on Monday released long-awaited security directives laying out American military, economic and diplomatic priorities in increasingly accessible Arctic waters.

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The directives stated American rights to free navigation through pinch points in the Northwest Passage over Canada [UPDATE: A wise Canadian comment contributor below notes a problem with the preceding language.] and Northern Sea Route over Russia, which immediately drew spicy coverage from Canadian papers. (Canada has long asserted that the passages are Canadian waters.) “Bush Asserts Power Over Arctic,” said the headline in the Calgary Herald.

There were lines endorsing the Pentagon’s push for bolstering the country’s ability to navigate in icy waters (see my recent coverage of our deteriorating icebreaker fleet) and the need for the Senate to consent to ratification of the Law of the Sea treaty (yet again). The presidential Arctic Research Commission has more on the policy move.

Over all, the directives reinforce an idea I’ve been exploring for many years now, in the paper (see the “Big Melt” series), our prize-winning “Arctic Rush” documentary, and my prize-winning Times book, “The North Pole Was Here” — essentially, the combination of a warming climate and rising thirst for oil and gas and shipping routes guarantees that the Arctic Ocean of our history and lore, an untouched, forbidding frontier, is now really history.

Click here for a video report on the Coast Guard’s plan to establish its first Arctic outpost and for reaction from the State Department to a reporter’s question about the Arctic policy shift:

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Here’s the State Department discussion of the Arctic policy shift, as released today by the department’s press office: