 The U.S. Naval War College is a Navy's home of thought. Established in 1884, NWC has become the center of Naval seapower, both strategically and intellectually. The following issues in national security lecture is specifically designed to offer scholarly lectures to all participants. We hope you enjoy the upcoming discussion and future lectures. Well, good afternoon and welcome to our 17th issues in national security lecture for this academic year. I'm John Jackson and I will serve as the host for today's event. And for all the Star Wars fans in the crowd, may the fourth be with you. So there it is. Admiral Chatfield is not able to join us today and that's one of the reasons I could get away with playing with the toys, but she sends her greetings and encourages you to ask any questions you may have of our very interesting panel today. This series was originally established as a way to share a portion of the Naval War College's academic experience with the spouses and significant others of our student body. It has been restructured to include participation by the entire Naval War College extended family to include members of the Naval War College Foundation, international sponsor, civilian employees, colleagues throughout Naval Station, Newport and participants from around the nation. We will be offering one final lecture on 18 May, 2021. As we have mentioned on previous lectures, the college is pleased to offer certificates of participation to all viewers who have attended at least 60% of the offered lectures or 11 of the 18. We will use the honor system and will upon request award certificates to everyone who completes 11 lectures by 18 May, 2021. If you have already reached that milestone or expect to, please send an email to commander Gary Ross, that's gary.ross at usnwc.edu and provide the name you'd like to have on the certificate and a snail mail address for us to mail those out to you hopefully sometime in June. Looking ahead on 18 May, we will hear from Professor Hank Breitman, who will speak about humanitarian assistance and disaster response. This will be the last lecture for this current series, but we will be hosting a four lecture summer series in the June, August timeframe and we'll have more information about that in the coming weeks. And today, a family discussion group meeting will follow the formal lecture in order to provide information to the community on specific programs and services available here in Newport. Okay, on with our main event. During the presentation that follows, please feel free to ask question using the chat feature of Zoom and we'll get to as many of these questions as we can at the conclusion of the presentation. The coming decades will witness significant changes to the Arctic region. This afternoon, Professors Walter Burbeck, Lars Sones and Rebecca Pinkes will highlight key challenges and drivers of the great power competition in the Arctic and various ways the United States and Norway are adapting their strategies to secure their interest and prosperity. An increasingly accessible and navigable Arctic operating environment will place new demands on Arctic states and their naval forces. The countries and organizations that are best prepared to anticipate these challenges will be best able to respond to future incidents at sea. Walter Burbeck is the Associate Professor in the Wargaming Department, Founding Director of the Arctic Studies Group and co-leads scholar of the Newport Arctic Scholars Initiative. He has offered many reports and publications on defense and foreign policies issues and is the co-author of the forthcoming book Newport Manual on Arctic Security. Most recently, he served as the Senior Arctic Policy Advisor to the Secretary of the Navy and Special Representative for the Arctic Region at the U.S. State Department. Rere Malar Sones has retired from his position as Chief of the Royal Norwegian Navy in August of 2017 and is now a CNO Distinguished International Fellow here at the Naval War College. He is a Submariner by trade and has held different command positions on various classes of submarines. He served as Commandant and Commander of the Norwegian Coast Guard and later as the Chief of the Royal Norwegian Navy. Rebecca Pincas is an Assistant Professor in the Strategic and Operational Research Department, SOARD in the Center for Naval Warfare Studies at the U.S. Naval War College. And she is a member of the Institute for Future Warfare Studies within SOARD. She previously served as primary investigator at the U.S. Coast Guard Center for Arctic Study and Policy located at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. I am pleased to pass the digital baton to Professor Pincas. Thank you so much for that introduction and thank you for this event. I'm really looking forward to the discussion. Walter has asked me to start off by providing some overview information about conditions in the Arctic before passing the baton back to him for discussion of U.S. strategic interests and then to LARS for an international perspective. So I'll take just a few minutes at the outset here to make sure we're all on the same page. Dean, can you start the slides please? Thank you. Next slide please. So I'm sure you're all familiar with change occurring in the Arctic region. It's getting widely covered in the press but I wanna give you a few extra details to make sure that you understand the full ramifications of Arctic change. So warming is occurring in the Arctic faster than anywhere else on Earth and that means that Arctic sea ice is melting very rapidly. On the right-hand side of the screen you can see a chart that illustrates the decline in Arctic sea ice over the last three decades. But sea ice is shrinking in three different dimensions which a lot of people don't realize. Not only is the spatial extent of Arctic sea ice shrinking but so is its thickness. It's becoming thinner and thinner and the graph on the left shows you that thinning out of Arctic sea ice. So on the left-hand side of that graphic you see areas in red that's very thick old sea ice and you can see how we're losing almost all of that. So these days Arctic sea ice is much thinner which means it's easier to break up with an ice breaker for example. In addition Arctic sea ice is occurring for a shorter and shorter period each winter. So the sea ice is decreasing in space, in depth or thickness and in time. And the fascinating thing about this ice retreat is that it's happening faster than almost all of our climate models had predicted. So it's happening really, really fast. One of the reasons it's happening so fast is because when you replace bright white reflective sea ice with dark blue ocean water that dark blue ocean water soaks up a lot of solar radiation and it warms and it melts more sea ice. And that's a process called Arctic amplification. So the Arctic region is warming very, very quickly. It's already warmed by about three or four degrees Celsius and we are likely to see an Arctic ocean free of sea ice in the summer probably by around 2040. And obviously that's gonna be for a very short period of time in September which is the annual sea ice minimum. The Arctic will refreeze in the winter time but by the mid to late century we're likely to see a period of navigable water throughout the Arctic ocean for at least a few weeks in the summertime. And obviously around the margins of the Arctic there'll be much more time and space for ship traffic. Next slide please. Another important thing to note about the Arctic region is that there are multiple definitions. So that blue circle on the map here is the Arctic circle 66 and a half degrees north. That's a pretty standard definition. In US policy however, the US Arctic Policy Act of 1984 includes the Bering Sea and all of the Aleutian Islands in our definition of the Arctic. So there's multiple definitions out there and it's always important to check whose definition you're working with when someone's talking to you about the Arctic ocean. Because for example, Europeans are often surprised that we include the Bering Sea as part of the Arctic because it's so far south. When you look at this map you can also see that Russia clearly dominates the Arctic region. It's got about half of the coastline. There are eight Arctic states. The United States is an Arctic state by virtue of Alaska. Then you can see Canada, Greenland which makes Denmark an Arctic state because Greenland is part of the kingdom of Denmark. Then you have Iceland which just skims the Arctic circle. And then you have Norway, Sweden and Finland and Russia. So those are eight Arctic states. There's two major governance regimes in the Arctic, the Arctic Council and the Arctic Coast Guard Forum. They have a chair that rotates in tandem and Russia will be taking the chair of both of these this month. Now just because Russia has the chair doesn't mean that it can suddenly start driving decision-making in the Arctic. Both of these institutions are consensus-based. So the Russian program for its chairmanship has been publicized and voted on and accepted by all of the other Arctic states in advance of its chairmanship. But it does mean that Russia will be hosting important meetings of the eight Arctic states on its territory for the next two years. Next slide please. Change in the Arctic is also opening up shipping lanes which are getting a lot of attention. There's three major shipping lanes that I wanna talk about. On the left side in red is the Northwest Passage which cuts through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Now the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, all those islands to the north of Canada is one of the last places that Arctic sea ice is going to hold on. It's got some very shallow dangerous passages and Canada has emphasized environmental protection in its management of the Northwest Passage. So we're not seeing much commercial shipping interest in the Northwest Passage at all. Mostly we're seeing cruise ships which are very interested in this route because it's very scenic. Across the center of the screen in green is the transpolar route. And this would be a direct route across the central Arctic Ocean. It is not yet open yet. There's still too much sea ice. It will not be open until the very end of the century. On the right hand side, you see the northern sea route. That skirts the Russian coastline. Russia is very interested in developing the northern sea route into a commercial shipping route. And there's also been a lot of ice retreat. So right now the northern sea route is being used for limited commercial traffic. Next slide, please. Russia has also been building out its Arctic islands and coastline. They are investing in this region in ways that haven't happened in several decades. And part of what they're doing is militarizing the area. New military infrastructure and capabilities in the Russian Arctic include early warning sensors, air defense systems, and airfields, as well as new vessels and other platforms. And I'm pretty sure Walter and Lars will be talking more about the Russian Arctic in just a few minutes. Next slide, please. The next actor I wanna talk about is China, which also obviously gets a lot of interest in the Arctic region. China is not an Arctic state. Right now, their interest in the region is primarily scientific and economic. And so here you see some pictures of China's two icebreakers, the Juelong-1 and the Juelong-2, which have been conducting scientific research in the Arctic region every year for several years. And in the center, you see a joint opening of a satellite ground sensing station in Kiruna, Sweden, which was a joint project of the Chinese government and the Swedes. China has been conducting a lot of scientific diplomacy around the Arctic region, including with Russia, the Nordic states, and even with Greenland. They've made a lot of scientific overtures. And so that's something that we're watching pretty closely. And Walter may be talking about that as well in a couple of minutes. My dog will not stop barking. And so I'm going to wrap up and pass this over to Walter to get into more strategic topics. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dr. Pincus. I appreciate your articulation of the key challenges and changes that we face in the Arctic region. And with that background in mind, I'm going to highlight why and how the United States must strengthen efforts in the Arctic region to protect our interest and to her aggression from our adversaries and our competitors. Just to start off, and I believe China is the single greatest strategic threat of the century, a threat that expands across the globe, including in the Arctic. Next slide, please. So a great deal of attention has been placed on Russia's military development and for good reason. Russia is modernizing its military capabilities and postures, just like Dr. Pincus mentioned, particularly in its northern fleet with implications for our naval forces to improve command and control, to improve its infrastructure as well as employing their joint forces. And the fact that they're doing this isn't necessarily a problem, but it's how they're doing it. It's the assertiveness and lack of transparency that really concerns defense planners and from the US and our northern neighbors. And surely we shouldn't turn a blind eye to it, but we shouldn't expect anything less from a nation, in particular this nation, who wants to be a regional power and who wants to defend their interests and sovereignty. I think it's first important though, before we move forward just to highlight what we are for. And when I say we, I mean the United States. The United States is for a free and open Arctic. So what does a free and open Arctic mean? It means that free societies respect individual rights in liberties, they promote good governance and adhere to international law. Free also means that people in nations can partner in trade with whomever they choose and to do so free from fear or coercion. Next slide, please. Now, when we say open to me, it goes all the way back to President Woodrow Wilson's 14 points proposed during the First World War and codified today and through the United Nations Convention on Law on the Sea. And that means that our seas and our airways are open to all people in all nations, whether you're coastal state or you're landlocked. And to ensure that nation states have access to markets, to resources and to critical sea routes within and through the Arctic. Many of those routes that Dr. Pincus mentioned. Next slide, please. Now, free and open Arctic where all indigenous communities and nation states where they're open, they're able to openly invest where people in infrastructure are secure and where trade is fair and reciprocal. Open also means free access to all commons and that includes space and cyberspace as well especially for the Arctic's most vulnerable communities like the indigenous peoples who have limited access to capital and limited access to broadband. Next slide, please. Now, China's vision for the future is not necessary or free and open Arctic. Now, the PRC or the People's Republic of China views the Arctic as a critical link to its one belt, one road initiative. And we've seen PRC capital and technology try to influence various countries and in the shipping routes. Next slide, please. We've seen the PRC build really invest in the shipbuilding, both polar capable cargo vessels, LNG tankers, liquid natural gas tankers and nuclear powered ice breakers as well as investing in some of the port infrastructure to improve its access in the Arctic. Next slide, please. Now, China's investments, right? They're global fishing fleet. They're scientific, economic and academic linkages to people and the institutions of Arctic states including joint ventures with Russia. I think we'll continue and likely rise over the decades and the decades ahead. And I also expect that we'll see an increase in Chinese naval deployments both on below and above Arctic waters. Next slide, please. Now, why do I say this? Well, first China is investing a ton in modernizing its military to develop fourth and fifth generation fighters to modernize its warships and submarines as well as their ballistic missiles and cruise missiles and missiles that can be launched from the air from their own territory and from sea. And they've done so at a dramatic rate especially their conventional ballistic missiles of all ranges and all types. Next slide, please. And their exercises are more frequent. They are more complex and integrated and they're farther away from their shores. They're fielding and testing more advanced command and control systems and sustainment capabilities. So taken together, these developments enable China to extend its reach further and further away from its shores to in through the Arctic into America's Northern shores and into the shores of all Arctic states. Next slide, please. So from a military perspective, here's what I believe is required to reverse this trend so that the US can defend our interests and our values across the region from Alaska to Maine and everywhere in between. And so I think we need a new American defense strategy that does four things. First, next slide, please. We need to take a better job taking advantage of the joint force and the forces that we have today and continue making strides and developing more capable cold weather forces and more lethal forces. And that includes advancing interoperability of our surface forces and subsurface forces, further developing and integrating uncrewed or unmanned capabilities and building new ice capable surface vessels. Next slide, please. Actually, I'm sorry, can you go back one slide? So secondly, we also have to enhance our force posture. And so today we rely heavily on a relatively small cadre of forces operating from far away bases, far away to the Arctic Circle. And that's Naples, Norfolk, San Diego, Yucusca. And despite being an Arctic nation, the US Navy and the Marine Corps does not have permanently deployed forward bases nor do we have forward rotational forces in the Arctic. And I think that needs to change and change fast because in order to have influence, in order to deter and rapidly respond and to really make a difference, we have to be present. Not sometimes, but all the time, not on an occasional exercise here or there in the summer months when the weather is best in the September when the ice is less, but all year round, especially in the long harsh winter months. While the Navy remains committed to deploying about a third of its fleet at all times it struggles to meet that ratio. And an opening Arctic and a blue Arctic will only make that harder. So that means we really need to think more about how we can take advantage of our geography, especially bases in places in Alaska, up there at the top of the screen, as well as in Maine. And that allows us to bring our forces closer to the fight. Now the strategic importance of Alaska and Maine grows every day as the Arctic becomes more blue, as it becomes more accessible and navigable. First and foremost, because it's U.S. homeland. We have citizens and indigenous peoples here. We also have very important strategic facilities in Alaska. Fort Wayne Wright, Elmendorf Air Force Base for Richardson are our largest bases in Alaska. We also have Coast Guard bases and Kodiak, Valdez and Juno. We also have some of the most profound airfields in the region capable of employing everything from our small fighter planes all the way through logistics, lift, tankers to our suite of bomber capabilities. We're also building a new interceptor for our ground-based mid-course defense system in Alaska. And that's important because it protects the United States from intercontinental ballistic missile threats. And so we do need to put a little more thought about how do we as an able force and as a military force defend that apparatus. And so it's important that we have the right defense posture for the Arctic region to protect U.S. citizens and to protect indigenous peoples and to facilitate current and future multi-domain operations in the Arctic. Now, as I mentioned, the Navy Marine Corps currently does not have bases in Alaska, but there is at the top of the screen in that graphic there is an extraordinary harbor in Port Clarence, which could be the home of a future port for a U.S. Northern Fleet, where we have U.S. attack submarines or surface vessels or surface combatants where they're home ported along with the maintenance, sustainment and those command and control systems that support all of that. Now, down at the bottom of the screen, Maine is a little bit of a different story that we have historic and essential our shipyard in Portsmouth. We have Air National Guard bases in Bangor and Portland. We have Coast Guard stations in South Portland and in Booth Bay Harbor. So we need to think more about how our naval services, our naval forces can deploy, integrate and build upon what we already have in place today. Now that also means we need to think more about bases and places across our Northern constellation of allies and partners. In Norway, Iceland, the Kingdom of Denmark and Iceland's key ally and its strategic location provided the U.S. Navy a great opportunity to test a maritime operations center a couple years back. And that's important because it provides U.S. naval forces the ability to command and control forces to provide indications and warnings to enhance situational awareness and also to issue orders and provide reach back home. Now Greenland is strategically important not only from a maritime perspective but from an air and space perspective. The U.S. is Northern most military bases to the air base in Greenland which has a wide network of sensors that provides early warnings, space surveillance and control. So these are critical places where we have capability but in some cases where we need to continue to improve our access in our intelligence sharing with our partners to enhance our force posture and to put forth a better deterrent and a better rapid response force. But we can't do this alone which brings me to our third line of effort here and that's strengthening our partnerships with allies and partners. And I'm quite encouraged by the level of cooperation exercised by like-minded nations, Arctic allies and partners but also with those who don't have Arctic territory or coastlines countries that remain committed to the peaceful development of the Arctic. And one particular ally, in this case, Norway we have a strong relationship with especially on the United States Marine warfare, air warfare but also with Canada on air missile defense. And for example, just last month the U.S. and Norway signed a defense cooperation agreement which allows the U.S. to build infrastructure on three bases and a Navy facility along the Norwegian coast. Of course the U.S. pays for it and we're not permanently station forces there. But I'm also encouraged by the kinds of things that and kinds of forces and resources that Denmark is buying as well. So strengthening our alliances and partnerships above all is one of the most important things that we can do because we are stronger together and this network of alliances and partnerships is something China doesn't have. And only by working together can we ensure that the Arctic remains free and open. Now we also, next slide please, we also need to increase or think more about how we can create new frameworks for dialogue and confidence-building measures to prevent miscalculations, accidents and potential conflict. So as the Arctic becomes more blue military activity will continue to rise and the Arctic Ocean and the seas and straits that connect them will likely see more naval activity in the years to come not only from Arctic states but by non-artic states with strategic interest in the region. So this is why we have to find ways to strengthen cooperation and dialogue with non-artic states. So on one side, you have countries like China, India, South Korea, Singapore, Japan. And then on the other side, you have countries like the UK, France, Germany, Italy and others. These countries have Arctic strategies of their own. They have capabilities of their own and the countries that best understand them I think have the best chance of avoiding any type of conflict. And they have the best chances of achieving their shared interest. Next slide, please. And in that light, one thing we far too often we kind of dismiss missions like search and rescue and disaster response as purely the responsibility that the Coast Guard or the US Coast Guard. One that's covered by the Arctic Coast Guard form that Dr. Pink has mentioned. And I'm guilty of it as well. But that really couldn't be further from the truth because naval forces do have a critical role in the Navy, US Navy, particularly has a critical role and one is help assessing and preserving the Arctic environment. It also means we need to think more about the key missions, functions and tasks that we bring to the table for search and rescue. And a good example I depicted here on the screen is rescue and recovery operations of a submarine. You know, this unique mission set provides an opportunity potential opportunity to collaborate with countries that we might not normally collaborate with or cooperate with. And that's in this case, Russia and some of those more sensitive missions which helps increase trust and confidence. And the last pillar I'll talk to is next slide please is enhancing our readiness and through education, through wargaming, exercises and experimentation. So we need to first leverage the talents that are resident within our professional military education institutions. We should build upon the joint service exercises we have today, but it really is going to be hard to do more with the resources funding that we have now. So we need to invest more in building the capacity to do more exercises and different exercises in the region. And so, when you think of low hanging fruit, you know, we can move out on a number of areas. And one area in particular is personnel exchange programs and this helps our people and those are our allies and partners gain real world experience while strengthening relations. And so certainly we can learn a lot from our allies and partners, which is why I want to turn the virtual mic over to my friend and colleague, Professor Lars Sonis. Lars, over to you, my friend. Thank you, Professor Burbrick. And thank you for having me here and good afternoon to everybody. It's a pleasure to be here. Could I have the next slide, please? So, why Norway? Norway has a history of exploring the Arctic and but Norway is a maritime nation. You are an Arctic nation and you have global maritime interest. But I think also on a personal level, we share a lot of values with the United States in how to develop the things around us. So for Norway, you know, the Arctic policy resolved around security and stability and also interest-based international cooperation. So for us, both foreign and domestic policies converge in the Arctic in a very, very strong way. And if you think about it, 80% of our economy is actually from the maritime industry we have. Fishery, oil and gas and technology. We are one of the biggest seafood exporters of the world. And just as a pragmatic intro to that, we do that together with the Russians and the Russian-Norwegian Fishery Commission is actually managing a lot of the fishery resources in the Norwegian Sea and in the Barents Sea. So this is sort of the interest of Norway is that we have always been sort of in a dialogue even though during the Cold War and now we have a different security situation. We need to balance that business realism, as I say it. So next slide, please. If you think about the Arctic for Norway, I think the Arctic is important in Norway, but it's getting to be more and more important for the world too. And our international policy focuses on the international picture. A relation with our neighboring countries in the Barents region, the northernmost region of Finland, Norway and Sweden. We call that the Nordic, the Nord Kalat, which is the hat on the top of your head. And the development of Northern Norway is crucial to us. Further developing Northern Norway as a strong and dynamic and highly competent region is the best way to safeguard Norwegian interest in the Arctic. And the region is really rich on natural resources that contributes to economic growth for our country and also neighbor countries like Russia. And the economic and social development of this region is therefore a matter of national interest to Arctic states. For Norway, international cooperation is one of the key issues in developing the Arctic region. There's always been a pragmatic approach to business development in the high North, but we have a history of knowledge development. Fishery cooperation, as I said, with the Norwegian Russian Fishery Commission, one of the most productive and well-managed fish stocks in the world. We have developed oil and gas technology and we also have a people-to-people relation on education. We have the universities of the Arctic that also connects with the other universities of Arctic states. So the climate change that Professor Pinkes was talking about has changed the region. And what it meant to me as a former commoner of the Coast Guard and the Navy is that the first that struck me was the lack of infrastructure and preparedness. And this is in one of the most challenging operating area on the world, in the world. So that was the most challenging thing I saw ahead in 2012 when I took the helm of the Norwegian Coast Guard. But, you know, then the access to the Arctic and the rising tension within global power competition actually created a new security dilemma in the high north. And Norway is, again, again, in the middle of the great power competition with rising tension between the United States, Russia, perhaps China in the other. So next slide, please. But Norway is saying we need to have at least a couple of lines of operations. So the Norway Arctic strategy is actually encouraging to say we still have low tension. This is a peaceful, innovative and sustainable North. It's based on balancing environmental and social and economic limitations. So what do I mean by that? I think the problem most Arctic nations have today is actually how do you keep people in the Arctic? There are four million people in the Arctic and one million of them is in Russia. And if you want to have peace and stability and predictability, then you need to have a sustainable development. So what we look at is how to make an integrated ecosystem-based management. You have to balance the number of people you have with the activity you can actually sustain. And it must be based on international cooperation and the international legal order. So we want to create a stronger base for employment, value creation and welfare. And Norway is a welfare state. So that means that we need humans. And so if you lack humans, you will not have growth. And if you lack humans, you will not have a regional balance either. Because then the balance will shift in the Arctic. Next please. So that is why I think a lot of Arctic nations, not only in the Arctic, but also Arctic observations, some of them call themselves near Arctic states, see that there is a necessary cooperation and forums in it all. So the most important thing is the Arctic Council, where the government of the Arctic states agree on, for instance, area of search and rescue, how to prevent oil pollution and recovery, how to share science. And they developed a management system that is based on their own authority. So for instance, now we have a ban on Arctic ocean fishery that we lost at least 15 years until we have enough scientific background to decide how much fish we can do that. We also had a Nordic cooperation and a Russian dialogue in the parents region. So we do rescue exercises together. We have agreements so we can actually fly to Russia or fly to Norway if an accident occurs and we want to help your neighbor. And on the top of that, we have the UN the international maritime operation organization who has enforced the polar code to enhance the safety of seafarer in the Arctic. And I've been working in the North East Atlantic Fishery Commission and the Atlantic Fishery Commission to see how we can improve security. And lately we had it also, as Pinkham said, the Arctic Coast Guard Forum where we try to share information and awareness among the Arctic Coast Guards. So that is the matter of governance. And you know, that is the operation line I think will sort of bring the Arctic peacefully into the future where Arctic states are respecting each other, working together, acknowledging that there are some competition but it's not a security competition. But we also have the other part of the coin, the NATO Northern flank and actually the deteriorating security situation between Russia and NATO forces countries in the region. So we can see that through the exercises that we currently are going on in the Arctic. In 2018, NATO were doing Trident Juncture demonstrating how 55,000 airmen, sailors, and soldiers could demonstrate Article 5 the defense of NATO territory. Of course, that created a reaction with the Russians. And in their SAPA exercises the following year, they showed how Norway came behind the defense line of Russia by joining the Baltic fleet with the Northern fleet and demonstrating how they were going to stop NATO. So why do we have LA training in the Arctic? And why it is so important? It is important to deter from military aggression and it's necessary to facilitate a political dialogue because Norway as a small country next to a military power can express themselves freely as they are part of a military alliance. And that is really important to recognize because this is the Northern flank of NATO and Norway is bordering the Russia with a strategic military complex. Next please. So what is Arctic condition? So this looks like a walk in the park, nice pictures and I did that deliberately because I've seen the other side of that. But it looks nice when it is dark for three months. And the only thing you can see is what you can put your light on. And it's challenging to operate there. It's also in the summer when you have the summer and midnight sun, it's different to operate in that area. And in 2012, I wrote in Norwegian ice break in Svalbard, which you can see there. We tried to go as far north as we could and we couldn't find ice until we passed 84 degrees north. And it's 90 degrees to the north pole. And two years ago, we actually went to the north pole with the ice breaker. So the ice is disappearing. But you should be aware that this is really a big challenge anyway because you have polar low pressures, you have really rough conditions. And if you're not built to be there, equipped to be there, trained to be there and be there regularly, you are actually a part of the problem. So because the conditions are shifting so fast. Next please. And we have seen that. So we have seen some experiments of that. So if you go back to Max and Gorky, which was a Russian passenger liner with about 900 passengers on board, they went to ground and they had to let people onto the ice. And I found in an article in New York Times, there was an interview of a passenger and he said, suddenly there was a terrible crash that almost shocked me from my bed. I said Rudolph Ludwig at 67 years old from Weissbaden in West Germany. We were told to get into the light boats. He said for five hours and everyone was calm and the Russian sailor gave us vodka and whiskey in the boat since it was so cold. And then within 24 hours, 900 passengers were rescued by an Norwegian Coast Guard vessel of 3,500 tons with a crew of 34. You can imagine how that was with two toilets on board. And we see that also repeated in 1997 and also in 2018, I think there was a crew of a Russian research vessel working for the University of Rhode Island academic love who went aground in 2018. So this is a catastrophe that is bound to happen. And I was able to tell my government that this is gonna happen. So how do you prepare for it? Because you have about in the summertime pre COVID, there were about seven to 8,000 passengers on ships like this operating constantly in our audience. So it bounds to happen something, something, you know. So if you think about distances, climate condition, available resources and infrastructure, you know, if something happens along our coast, you have plenty of emergency responders. If you do that on the north side of Svalbard, you have a snow mobile and probably have to wait a couple of days for a Coast Guard. Next please. So that is why Norway investing in trees, a really large Coast Guard vessel. The previous class was about 3,500 tons. The new class, which first one will be delivered next year is about 10,000 tons. It has two NH90 helicopters. It's got a hospital. It can rescue people and it can also take care of people as a command ship in the army. So this is how we are preparing for what we think will happen. And I'm sure it will happen. Next one please. But if you look at the security issue on this. So the Arctic development is crucial to Norway and Norwegian security. And even though we say that the major tension between competitors are still low in the Arctic, it's growing. And we can see daily that the high attention to Russian military buildup is creating debates in the Pentagon, in Congress, in Senate and in the Arctic parliaments because they are modernizing their strategic weapons. They are trying to limit the freedom of movements in the Northeast passage. And they are attracted to the transatlantic link with the new submarine systems with long range precision weapons and besides. And for Norway, this is really challenging as we are the Northern flag ordering nature. So even though we have a practical cooperation, we think the Arctic is the new hotspot in our security policy. Next one please. So what are we doing about it? Next please. So we observe that the Russian military presence is very much a denial operation, area denial of NATO to protect their strategic forces. They do that with their surface ships, their submarines, their aircraft, their air defense system, the new missile systems. And they are more or less operational at the moment. They are actually covering a defense region from the former Iceland, UK gap all the way to the Bering Strait, the new missile system that are operational today. And they operate in international waters and more and more off the Norwegian coast. That's legal to do that. But you see that their behavior is getting a little bit more provocative. And it is also a response to what NATO do when we deploy French, US, UK forces to Norway. And we get the reaction. Next one please. So to sum up, so in Norway, we have developed a new military strategy which we call Arctic Guard. And we think about being smart how to maintain stability in a region where you have a military power like the revisionist Russia next to us. And they like to show up. And we can never stop back. So we rely on the NATO Alliance providing deterrence. But we also see that to have Norwegian presence in that deterrence row when allies are operating of Norway is important to Russia. So what do we do to monitor the activity in the region? So first of all, our most important task is surveillance and intel collection. As you know, we have what we call the Globus II radar which is a US Norwegian system. Along the border to Russia. And so we can actually in detail follow every space movements in the Arctic. We have P-8, we are investing in P-8 replacing our P-3C maritime patrol aircraft which are constantly on patrol in the Barents Sea and monitoring the Russian submarines and other maritime activity. We have two spy vessels. And perhaps you can see one on the lower right and one in the middle of the top. Marietta, this is perhaps some of the most advanced intel collectors for underwater, on the bottom, on the surface, in the air and on space monitoring systems, you can think about. But as part of this, you also invest in F-35s as part of our surveillance and range together with the United States. We are building a new satellite radar communication system over the Arctic that will from 2022 give us much more ability to connect our forces. But we're also improving our capabilities in anti what we call a sea denial capabilities like new submarines. And we are building a credible force with new missile systems like our joint strike missile and naval strike missile, which is also a joint endeavor with the U.S. Navy at the moment. So where did we go from here? Currently, our strategy is based on deterrence, but we lack dialogue. And you all know that if you have a security dilemma and you have two fighters against each other, if they're only sort of showing off, then tension will rise and someone will hit. If you have a dialogue, you may avoid that. So at the moment, Walter and I are looking at sort of how to avoid conflict prevention and security cooperation in the Arctic region, realizing that there are actually very, very little security dialogue in the region. So that's an interesting field where we are looking into, should we include more than the Arctic States? Should we invite China? Should we invite India? Should we invite France, Britain into a security dialogue in the Arctic? That is sort of the aim of our next research program. So looking forward to your discussion and your questions. Thank you. Thanks, Professor Saunas and Pikkis. Tons of great questions out there and I'm sensitive to everyone's time. So what I'm gonna do is combine a few. And so my apologies up front if we don't get to yours in time, but we are assessable afterwards, the email. So first question you wanna pose was posed and Dr. Pikkis is gonna take that. And that's regarding that the current status dispute between Canada and Denmark over Hans Island. The question being framed in the sense of being it's a small land mass, could it be an obstacle to cooperation or to countering Russia in the years to come? And so Dr. Pikkis will tackle that question. And then Professor Saunas will, there's a couple of questions that I've kind of formed into one question for you to think about. One is simply is the low lab of activity, Russian activity in the Arctic comparable to what it was in the Cold War. And the second question to you, Lars, is how do you see the future of Norwegian-Russian relations evolving given where things are at now? And if we have time, I'll tackle one here shortly. So Dr. Pikkis, the virtual mic is yours. Thank you. That's a great question. Hans Island is one of the most fun international disputes out there because it is so amicable. Hans Island is a tiny little island in the Naray Strait between Canada and Greenland. As I mentioned before, Greenland is part of the kingdom of Denmark. Hans Island is rocky. It is barren. It is about a kilometer wide. So it's about 300 acres or so, and it has no economic value. And the Canadians and Danes have a maritime boundary that is agreed upon on either side of Hans Island, but they have not yet resolved sovereignty over Hans Island. And it's certainly an ongoing point of discussion, but these discussions are very amicable. And while periodically the Canadians and the Danes will send armed forces to Hans Island to plant a flag, they also usually leave a bottle of whiskey or schnapps for the opposing forces. It's extremely charming. A Canadian brewer teamed up with a Danish water supplier to brew Hans Island beer using Canadian and Danish hops and water, and they titled the beer Hans across the water as a sign of friendship. So it might be the only international dispute that has its own beer. So it's very fun. Yes, it is an ongoing territorial dispute in the Arctic region, but it shows no signs at all of being an actual impediment to international cooperation in the region. And there's ongoing discussions, but without any economic value, there's sort of no urgency. And so it probably won't get resolved until the two governments decide there's something significant at stake, but it's definitely not an impediment to cooperation. Thanks. Thanks, Dr. Pincus. I have to figure out a way to get my hands on that beer. Lars, over to you, my friend, on the question regarding Russian military activity and the future of Norwegian-Russia relations. Well, first of all, I have to say, I sing in a handling of the Cold War on my submarine in the Bairse in 1989. And I took this picture of a U.S. carrier up there. And it's true periscope, though. And this was the sort of Lehman doctrine, ocean venture, pushing the Russians up into their backyard. Since then, most navies in Europe has about 70% reduction of forces. But so numbers, share numbers doesn't mean a thing, but the lethality of the weapons we have today compared to the torpedoes of 8,000 yards range I had and my submarine that time is totally different. So the lethality of the forces developed in the Northern Fleet and in Allied navies and air forces today are much greater to concern, especially the long range strategic precision weapons in many ways can replace nuclear attacks if you think about it. So this is another game. It's another game and it's not the Cold War at all. It's different. So what you should ask yourself is what little winning look like in the Arctic today. And I think that will keep people in a great zone challenge for a while. Thank you. Lars, there's a question here, a couple of questions regarding security cooperation and who owns security and a couple other, and a question on forums for Arctic security. And so we've mentioned the Arctic Council, which primarily focuses on environmental protection and sustainable development, the Arctic Coast Guard Forum, which focuses primarily on the soft security issues, you know, tackling issues like oil spill response and prevention, fisheries and disaster response. But the question here is regarding given what's the likelihood that we might see kind of the Arctic chiefs of defense meetings being restarted as a result of a conversation between President Biden and President Putin just recently, last month. And I actually think the prospects of those discussions being restarted, I think are quite moderate to high. And Lars mentioned our work for the New Port Arctic Scholars Initiative last year tackle the issue of looking at analyzing current frameworks of security prevention and security cooperation in the Arctic region. And in the chat, I just, I posted a link to the video in the report if you have some time to take a look at it, if you're interested. But essentially what we found was that current mechanisms and frameworks are really insufficient to have dialogue on security and defense issues in the Arctic, specifically both at the higher levels amongst political military leaders, but also amongst naval leaders and chiefs of Navy. And so when we briefed out the Arctic heads of Navy last year, their charge to us was, hey, can you focus on some type of mechanism, some type of form that brings together chiefs of Navy to have discussions, to have dialogue on some of the hard security issues, some of the issues that aren't covered in these other mechanisms. And so that's our charge this year in the hopes of informing a potential development of something like that. But both great questions because there currently is a void or a gap in mechanisms to have dialogue and strengthen cooperation on Arctic security issues. And with that, I turn the virtual mic back over to Professor John Jackson. Well, Walter, thank you very much. Thanks to the panel for a terrific discussion. We had over 150 people on at one point, which is an indicator to me of the importance that people take of Arctic issues. And I take great pride in the fact that the Naval War College has been making tremendous progress and has been really looked to for their expertise in this area. And so Mike, congratulations to you, Walter and all the other scholars you're working with. We have had Admiral Chatfield join us and I'd like to offer her the opportunity to make a few comments if she'd like to. Over to you, Admiral. Well, thanks very much. I was delighted to catch this lecture. My husband and I are on vacation in Colorado. And so we had snow yesterday, so it was perfect time to talk about the Arctic, I guess. And so I wanted to thank Dr. Pinkest, Walter Burbrick, Admiral Larsanis for a fascinating walk through the challenges that face us in the Arctic. Thank you so much for the presentation today and for all of our guests who have joined us. In addition to our spouses and community members, I see membership from our Naval War College Foundation, members of the community. So nice to see Brigadier General Zweck and so many others on the line today. Thank you again for joining us and what a wonderful lecture we had. Thank you very much, Admiral. It's amazing what you can do with Zoom these days. So, okay, at this point, we'd like to pause for just five minutes and we will then begin our family discussion group meeting. So we'll invite you all to take a quick break and we will come back at 5.35. Thank you.