 Welcome to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. You know we're going to have a great day when we're already having to put more seats in the room to have a great conversation about future cooperation in the Arctic. Let me also welcome you on behalf of my colleague, Dr. Andy Cuchins. Where is Andy? Right there. Andy is my partner in crime in some ways on a project that we're currently working on that examines the Russian Arctic, looking at interesting developments in that portion of the Arctic and as well looking at a cooperative roadmap, if you will, for future cooperation in the Arctic. And this research that we have been engaged in has been due to the generosity of the MacArthur Foundation. We have a very rich day of discussion ahead of us and I think it goes without saying that as we've been working on this research about creating this roadmap for international cooperation, we've had a few significant geopolitical twists and turns since the annexation of Crimea for this roadmap that we are creating and it has challenged us to look at the Arctic cooperative terrain, if you will, in a very new way and it further challenges us to think about some assumptions that we have had about the future of Arctic cooperation. So this entire conference, this day of conversation is designed to fully explore this new terrain and to dive deeply into the most promising areas of Arctic cooperation, although it is by no means an exhaustive list of many of the cooperative programs that we are engaging in the Arctic. But what we want to do is today assess where we are and then where we want to be in the future. So if I may talk you a little bit through the day's conversation. So our first panel will offer you, if you will, a Google Earth view of this terrain and giving us at the big strategic level what does the future of Arctic cooperation look like and why is it important. And then our subsequent panels on science and research, marine safety and shipping, economic development, fisheries and the marine environment is going to be more like a Google map. So how do we really figure out where we're heading in these areas of cooperation? And then our capstone of today is to have a discussion of what all of this means for the upcoming chairmanship, the U.S. chairmanship of the Arctic Council, which begins in 10 months. I have been talking about the U.S. chairmanship for five years and to say it's in 10 months makes my heart pound. It actually causes a heart attack for Ambassador Bolton, I'm sure. But here is, so what we want to do in looking at 10 months that are coming up very quickly, we want to figure out with our map how do we move this important agenda forward. So that's sort of the madness behind the method of our conversation today. So with that, I just want to give a concluding reflection, but I'll go ahead and ask Ambassador Bolton and Ambassador Yeltsin and Dr. Zagorsky, come on up here because we're going to slide right into that Google Earth look at the Arctic. But I want to end with just a reflection. I often hear from my Alaskan colleagues a wonderful story. So in the north, neighbor must help neighbor. It's a matter of life and death, of survival. So the story goes, and this was told recently by Kip Knudsen, who is the, who directs the Washington Office of Alaskan Governor Sean Parnell. He mentions that, you know, when in Alaska or in the high north, when someone has a flat tire and is on the side of the road, they can't seem to change the tire. Why? Because everyone is stopping to say, can I help you? Can I help you? What do you need? How do you, how can I be of assistance? Now I can't say that this same spirit is felt on the Capitol Beltway where someone has a flat tire. But it is certainly a very present among the family, and I consider this a family, of Arctic officials and experts and academic colleagues. Their generosity and willingness to give their time and their talents to talking about the Arctic absolutely is representative today. We have colleagues that have flown from Moscow, from Fairbanks, from Canada, and they have willingly said, yes, I want to come and talk about the future of Arctic cooperation. So it is my great thanks that in particular our next, our first panel, absolutely represents that spirit of help and generosity. So with a very warm welcome and thankfully it's so hot outside, thinking cool Arctic thoughts is probably the best thing we can do today. We welcome you, we thank you for your attention and for your participation in this event, and without further ado, I'm going to switch places and we will talk about the future of Arctic cooperation. Thank you. Good morning. I'd like to thank Heather, Andy, CSIS for organizing this event and for inviting me here to speak. I guess, yes, a Google Earth overview is in order to start. What I did to prepare is took my to-do list for the Arctic and turned it into a kind of Google Earth review. That list has not changed particularly despite recent events. The ability to get some of this done may be a little different, but I thought it was important at least to start this conversation by going over the things that I think need doing in the Arctic over the next few years. Some of this will relate to our upcoming chairmanship of the Arctic Council. Some of it will not. Some of it is outside that framework. So I'll divide my remarks into three short, very short segments. First, a set of what I call unfinished business, things that are already are in train that need finishing sometime hopefully soon. Second, a couple of steps that I think the United States needs to take in effect at home to be an even stronger Arctic player. And then a sort of look ahead, things over the horizon. These don't break down as entirely separate categories, but I think you'll see as I begin what I'm talking about. There are huge topics in the Arctic about which the countries and stakeholders involved have already been engaged for some significant time, but there's more work to be done. One has to do with the oil and gas, hydrocarbon and other minerals that are there. We have an agreement among the eight countries on oil pollution preparedness and response. We need to implement that. We need to continue with the work on oil pollution prevention. There is more to do there. In addition to working as a group of eight with our industries and other stakeholders, there are also for the United States some bilateral relationships we have on oil pollution issues, including with Russia, with Canada. We need to build those out. The IMO also, the International Maritime Organization, obviously has a role here as well with respect to oil pollution from ships. Similarly, we have in place now actually the very first agreement among the eight Arctic nations on search and rescue. But it is still a work in progress in terms of actually providing effective, adequate search and rescue capability throughout the Arctic region. Most people would say we are not nearly there yet. We have a framework, actually multiple frameworks, for working on search and rescue. We are beginning to work together more effectively to prepare for emergencies in the north, but we are not what I would call ready. The nations in the high north have boundary and continental shelf issues that are on their way to getting resolved but are not yet fully resolved. Those of you familiar with the law of the sea process know that in the central Arctic there is an area that is going to be subject to overlapping claims to continental shelf by five nations. We are sort of somewhere in the middle of the process, I would say, of the process of submitting claims to the commission on the limits of the continental shelf and then ultimately resolving boundaries where they overlap. The United States, of course, is on the outside of this process in some sense looking in and I'll talk more about that in a minute, but this is part of the unfinished business of the Arctic resolving overlapping claims. And for those of you who think or some people in the press who think that we are going to be sending battleships up there to do that, no, we are going to be sending lawyers and geographers and oceanographers and hydrologists and those are the ways these will get resolved. There are three other topics of great interest to me that will be the subject of later talks today so I'm not going to say very much about them other than the fact that these are part of the unfinished business of the Arctic ensuring safe and reliable shipping. Dr. Brigham will be talking more about that. There is very good work underway, much more still to do. There is the prospect of unregulated high seas fishing in the central Arctic. We need to prevent that and there is work heading in that direction about which I'm actually pretty excited and we'll be talking more about that on a later panel. And we must strengthen our understanding of Arctic science. We must improve cooperation related to scientific research and that too is a subject of a later panel. This is work underway primarily through the Arctic Council. We'll be hearing more about that later. Those to me, that's the package of unfinished business that I see. Here at home we have a couple of things that really we must do. One is to finally exceed to the law of the sea convention. The convention has some real importance in the Arctic. We are the only Arctic nation not party to this. It is hurting us in the continental shelf area. But it also undermines our credibility elsewhere in the world in lots of ways to be on the outside of the convention looking in. And the Arctic seems to be one of a couple of the strongest arguments we have to persuade the remaining doubters that it's really in our national interest to join this treaty. The second thing we really need to do at home is to prepare for our upcoming Arctic Council chairmanship. And let's talk a little bit about the timeline for that. This too will be the subject of a later panel. The plan for any country's chairmanship gets embedded in and adopted at or embedded in documents and adopted at the ministerial meetings of the preceding chair. We are currently in the Canadian chairmanship. We'll wrap up next April or May. And we need to be creating a program for that that the other seven countries of the Arctic and the permanent participants of the stakeholders will ultimately agree to and put into the documents adopted at the Canadian ministerial. That negotiation with the other nations is likely to take place late next fall through the winter in the early spring. In order to prepare for that, we need to solidify our thinking here at home. The agencies involved in the Arctic, the federal government, have been working on this for some time. We have some pretty good ideas that are in hand. We need to seek and fold in input from a variety of people in our own country who care a lot about this, including the state of Alaska, the Alaska congressional delegation, the indigenous peoples of Alaska, other concerned citizens, industry, et cetera. And we ultimately need to get a blessing from this at the highest political levels here. And then we can then we then and only then will we be in a position to negotiate this program with the other others involved in the Arctic Council process. As chair, we don't dictate what happens in the Arctic Council. We do have some significant influence, but ultimately it's a consensus-based organization. We need to sell it. We need to sell a program and listen. We need to listen to the ideas of others. But looking ahead, what will that chairmanship likely touch on? Well, we don't really know yet, but I have a pretty good hunch about a few things, and I bet you do too if you've been paying attention. Climate and climate change is likely to be at least some focus of what the Arctic Council is involved in the next few years. Certainly here in the United States, this administration has a renewed focus on climate issues. There is climate work specific to the Arctic still to be done, some of which is already underway. I'm guessing that some large feature of the U.S. chairmanship will involve climate issues. Another sort of basket of things that I think will figure prominently has to do with improving the economic and living conditions for the people who actually are in the Arctic. This is something that's already started, particularly under the Canadian chairmanship. That is still a work in progress, but it has a lot of support here in the United States, particularly in Alaska. I could talk more about that later. Health issues, another issue of particular importance to our indigenous communities in Alaska. The third thing, and this is the one where maybe your input, all of you, particularly the think tank community, would be most interested to hear about, is what can we do during the U.S. chairmanship to actually strengthen the Arctic Council regime? We have an evolving set of ideas. The Council itself is stronger now than it was 10 years ago. A lot of that change seems to be accelerating in some ways. Is there prospect for taking it another step or to what would that look like? What more can the Arctic system look like and what can we do as chair to lead it in that direction? That is a really interesting question to me, and I'd be eager to get input from all of you on that. That's the 60,000 foot view, Heather, as least as I see it. Thanks very much. Dave, thank you so much. I was so excited about your remarks. I failed to introduce you. My big apologies for that. I assume that you need no introduction, but that's not right. Dave is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and Fisheries in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs. That's a big title. Dave, his responsibilities are overseeing U.S. foreign policy related to the Arctic and Antarctica. He also has a Global Fisheries responsibility. The Arctic is your focus, but you were very involved in last week's extremely successful Oceans conference, so we congratulate you on that, and we thank you very much for making time, as you always do, to be with us. I'd like to now introduce Ambassador Ken Yalowitz. Ken is a global fellow at the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center. Prior to his engagement at the Wilson Center, Ken directed the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College, where he was very engaged in an Arctic research effort, something that I was involved in as well, and has really been a thought leader on many of the diplomacy, if you will, of Arctic policy. Ambassador Yalowitz had a distinguished career in the foreign service, previously serving as U.S. Ambassador to Belarus and to Georgia, and is very familiar with Russian affairs from two tours in Moscow, so Ken, we're grateful that you were here. Thank you for taking time to be with us. Thank you very much, Heather. My congratulations to you, to Andy Cuchins and CSIS. You guys have done a brilliant job in bringing Arctic issues to the forefront in Washington and preparing for the U.S. chairmanship of the Arctic Council. I just, on a personal note, I wanted to say that this is a very unusual situation for me, usually with why I'm always the last speaker at everything, and for once Dr. Zagorsky is here, so, you know, as I said, I look forward to hearing his comments, but for once I'm not the cleanup hitter, so this is very, very welcome to me. I wanted to just very briefly talk about, you know, some of the challenges, areas of cooperation, but then focus more on some of the political, strategic issues, you know, that I see coming. In terms of areas of cooperation, I think David has really, you know, you know, mapped them out beautifully, but I wanted to add just a few others, just from my own experience and what others have talked about, that I think are going to need to be a face. One of the things I know from Lawson Brigham, who's here, is that so much of the Arctic, you know, the waters are simply not been charted. We don't really know a heck of a lot. And it strikes me that, you know, when we look at areas, you know, for cooperation in the future, that's an area that's in everyone's interest and needs to focus on weather conditions, also another area that I think could be, you know, could be very, very productive. I think we'll get into this in a little bit, but you know, and that is our military-to-military cooperation and Coast Guard cooperation. As Heather mentioned, you know, we're in a different, you know, environment right now, but I still see, you know, very good prospects, you know, moving ahead in those areas as well. But let me talk about some of the political challenges. We're obviously not going to have a new Arctic Treaty along the lines of the Antarctic Treaty and my own feeling. And a lot of my thoughts on this have been shaped by working with Professor Oren Young, and that is that, you know, there is, you know, a basic structure in place. There is not going to be, you know, a likelihood a new Arctic Treaty and the structures that are in place, you know, can be modified and worked with, as David has suggested, to meet the challenges of the future. But what are some of the major concerns that are on my mind? One is I think we all keep reading about, you know, the new great game up in the Arctic. Periodically, there's a very bombastic article talking about, you know, military buildups on all sides, the wealth of, you know, oil and gas up there and, you know, from the realist perspective, inevitably there is going to be conflict. Well, obviously there is potential, but I don't think it's a very great potential. And to me, that's probably the greatest challenge, you know, not only to prevent that from happening, but also to deal with the steady flow of bombastic articles to get the correct story out there in terms of what actually is going on in the Arctic. And David, again, you know, talked about on the boundary issues that it's going to be fought more in the courtroom than anywhere else. And I think that that's absolutely correct, but I think in terms of the public consciousness, that has to, you know, to change. Obviously, I'm sure Dr. Zagorski will speak about this, but, you know, the U.S.-Russian relationship obviously has been complicated, you know, by events in Crimea and Ukraine. It's certainly my hope, and I believe, you know, everyone that I talk with that the Arctic, you know, will be able to go forward. President Gorbachev was the one who first opened up, you know, the possibilities of cooperation in the Arctic at the end of the Cold War. A few years ago, President Putin talked about, you know, the Arctic as his own of peace, and I very much hope that, you know, that those sentiments are going to remain the same. It's not a given, but certainly that is one of the areas that we're going to have to watch very, very carefully. Another question in talking about the Arctic Council itself and governance. Several countries, you know, were brought in at the last ministerial as permanent observer, but I think, you know, in terms of the issues facing the Arctic Council, this is going to be a very significant question. What will be the role of these, you know, new observers? How are they best going to participate? And particularly, China, which I think has made clear, you know, that it really wants to be a player, you know, in the Arctic. How are we going to be able to manage the desire of countries, you know, to play a much more important role in the Council when the Council to date, you know, has primarily been an organization, you know, of the Coastal Five plus Three. And I would submit, you know, that that is another issue that we're going to have to face, not being in the U.S. government any longer. I think I can talk about this, but there is a sense, you know, that the Arctic Council on the part of some has been a little bit on the close side, sort of a gentleman's club, if you will, of the eight, you know, permanent members, and that, you know, that the voices of outsiders need to be factored in more and more. And we keep saying that the Arctic, you know, is international, that all the issues of climate change are really international. They're not just, you know, focused on the Arctic. So I think we really are going to have to focus on this question of how to bring in, you know, the other players, you know, in terms of what's going on. David also mentioned the decisions on the extended continental shelf. Obviously, these are very important. All the countries concerned have committed themselves through the Elulisat Declaration and other documents, you know, to the law of the sea, to diplomatic solutions to these questions. But we haven't yet come to the point where decisions have been made and perhaps some countries are going to win and some countries are going to lose. And I think that's another, you know, issue that is out there to be watched for is what are going to be the reactions, you know, when these decisions are made. I certainly hope that this will remain, you know, an issue in courtrooms, but, you know, we don't know. And I mentioned also in that regard, you know, the question of whether the various, the two major north, you know, north channels, shipping channels, are they international waters or are they, you know, domestic waters? Again, so far these things have been handled, you know, very peacefully and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't continue. But again, issues that need to be kept in mind. And finally, as sort of a semi-political scientist and aware of the various schools of thought, you know, in political science, the liberals, the realists, the Arctic really is a test case in many ways, you know, for which school of thought is going to prevail. And I go back to where I began. The realists are positing continually, you know, that with all the oil and gas up there and the riches, the minerals, then inevitably there will be conflict, you know, between states. The other side of the equation is that, you know, the law of the sea convention, diplomacy, the Arctic Council, that the mechanisms are there to handle all of these things. I personally agree with that, you know, completely, but just posit, you know, that this is an issue and we're going to have to keep that in mind very clearly. Thank you. Ken, thank you very, very much. I'm going to have a slightly lengthier introduction, Dr. Andrzej Zakurski, by way of explaining a bit. As CSIS has embarked on nearly a two-year study about the Russian Arctic and developing this international cooperative roadmap, our partner in this project has been the Russian International Affairs Council. And Andre, although he is not part of REAC, the International Affairs Council, has been really the scholar in charge, as I would like to say, of working on this project and his scholarly work has been really extremely helpful in helping us think through how we could expand our cooperation. The Russian International Affairs Council in December, in partnership with CSIS, as well as Pew Charitable Foundation, was also involved in that, put on an extraordinary conference in Moscow in December. Dr. Bolton was a participant. David Hayes will be coming, part of our panelists. Some of us, we brought a delegation over to talk about this. And it was clear in December how much of a priority the Arctic is to Russia and how eager we were to explore and really be ambitious in our views of how to expand that cooperation. And Andre's work has really been instrumental in this process. Clearly, events have changed the mood and the tenor of this approach, but Andre Zagorski has been a complete stalwart in looking at a pragmatic approach to Arctic cooperation. Andre is the Director of the Department of Disarmament and Conflict Resolution at the Institute for World Economy in International Relations. He has served as a senior researcher at the Moscow Institute of International Relations, has had a distinguished career, has written well over 300 publications and extensive written materials. It's not easy in this current climate to be pragmatic. And I think we should recognize and applaud. Thank you, Dr. Zagorski, for being here and offering a very pragmatic perspective on this. And he's been a great colleague to work with on this project. So with that, Dr. Zagorski, you are, as Ken would like to say, our clean-up and we thank you. Thank you, Heather, for this kind introduction. And thank you for organizing this event. This is very helpful in taking further, at least discussing cooperation, but I'm also looking forward to increase cooperation on the Arctic Council as such. I understand our panel is sketching the issues it's taking on the agenda of Arctic cooperation. That's why I will be general in my remarks and we will look into more details going into specific sectors of cooperation. And also probably to take away before I go into substance exactly to the December conference, Ambassador Bolton and I were talking on the panel on the U.S. Russian agenda for cooperation on the Arctic and we did not diverge march. The number of points was, I guess, particularly the same, but we were complementary in addressing several different issues and putting this on the agenda, which I see very much reflected in our discussions here as well. So let me offer you the way of structuring Arctic, the agenda for the Arctic cooperation by looking at three major issues, because A, the agenda for the Arctic cooperation is very much affected by the expectation of increased economic activities in the region and we speak primarily, although not exclusively, about marine Arctic. Secondly, the agenda is very much affected by the associated challenges which occur as more economic activities occur, particularly in the marine Arctic, but also in the terrestrial Arctic. And number three, it is opportunities for cooperation which are linked to both, to the opportunities for economic activities as well as which are linked to the concerns and challenges which arise as we move towards working more actively in the Arctic. So let me briefly stop at these three levels. Probably the shortest list would be the one which is related to the economic activities because it's mainly three major areas in which economic activities are already, either already expanding or are expected to expand very much unevenly if we look at the marine Arctic and the pretty low pace if we look at the core marine Arctic. One area is, of course, attracting much of the attention in public, looking at the possibilities for exploring and extracting mineral resources of the Arctic. Much of the debate has been triggered by the US Geological Service estimates which were totally misunderstood by most public because many people were expecting that indeed one quarter of total energy reserves were located in the Arctic. But this is a growing area although we see very limited activities in that area, particularly in the marine Arctic. The second is we already observe a growing vessel traffic in the Arctic, in all parts of the Arctic, although again pretty unevenly expanding. And there are expectations that shipping will grow in the years to come, thus generating particular concerns as regards the various maritime security issues. And number three, probably the first industry to expand in the Arctic is fisheries, which is pretty intensive now, but at the margins of the Arctic, so to say, at the western and eastern part, and expectations are linked to the particularly melting Arctic in the summer and the possibility for the emergence of fisheries grounds in the Arctic Sea. So the happening, already happening, growing economic activities and expectations and anticipation of further growth are related to secondly concerns which have been increasingly raised in the debate over the Arctic more recently. Those concerns and challenges are mostly linked to issues like the preservation of the environment and the protection of the ecological systems of the Arctic and the biological diversity. Everything which we include, this is not only concerning marine Arctic, this is also terrestrial Arctic everything which includes both environmental and environmental human security in the Arctic. Concerns grow with regard to the maritime security, particularly as shipping is expected to grow and particularly in the remote areas of the Arctic, with very harsh climatic and weather conditions. The danger is growing and the concerns are growing that this may result in incidents which may lead not only to the human aspects of security but also to oil pollution or whatever other environmental damage else. We have the whole set and colleagues have addressed this issue already. A whole set of issues which are linked to the sovereignty or sovereign rights which includes boundaries, although there are not many issues left open in terms of boundaries delineation. This makes me pretty sure that there will be no conflict concerning the delineation of the maritime boundaries in the Arctic but definitely everything which is linked to the extended continental shelf establishment of the limits of the continental shelf is highly emotional, at least in some countries of the Arctic Council and at least a domestic debate will not be very easy despite the fact that the countries have agreed to an orderly procedure and they stick to this so far as long as we see. But this is a longer term issue because I don't expect decisions to be fallen within the next 10 to 15 years. If I look at the whole procedure to go not only submitting claims to the commission but also going through the commission deliberations including every countries, only one country has done it so far. Norway, Russia has submitted its claim but not a single other country has yet. So we are at the beginning of this road. I believe one issue which often remains outside our view is the securitisation of the Arctic although I see an evolving consensus among both governments and scholars over the past years that we shall not be very much concerned about military security in the Arctic. Still we do have a lot of securitisation debates and definitely the current international environment does not help to diffuse those concerns and we need to find the appropriate way to address the issue and desecuritise the Arctic debate. Finally, last but not least, of course, everything which is linked to the third countries, non-Arctic countries, activities, rights and commitments obligations is also very much emotional in several countries of the Arctic Council and although we have moved ahead on those issues very much, particularly last year with extending the number of observers in the Arctic Council, I see that we still have to address many issues which involve third countries. That's why my third block is this is best done if we look at opportunities for cooperation which open up in parallel with the operation opportunities in the Arctic, the opening of opportunities for economic activities but also if we look at the concerns and challenges which we share in the Arctic. My basic assumption is that if this were about the Arctic we would have very little ground for any conflict although we see that Arctic is not isolated from more general developments. So there are many opportunities for cooperation although I would probably say from the very beginning that not every opportunity for cooperation is linked to the Arctic Council only. There are multiple institutions through which we address issues so we do have a lot of things which are done at the bilateral level through bilateral cooperation. We do have the Arctic Council as the leading regional cooperation forum although we do have a few more in the region and we do have several universal global regimes and institutions through which we address specific issues. Not everything fits exactly on the agenda of the Arctic Council. So when I try to bring together the opportunities for economic activities and opportunities to work together on the challenges which we share in the Arctic, I come to a pretty long list and I will give you a short version of this. So this is a whole host of issues which are linked to the sustainable development and environmental security in the Arctic and certainly this set of issues is most intensively addressed through various working groups of the Arctic Council which provide invaluable contribution to common assessment of the developments and problems existing in the Arctic and also looking for solutions, making recommendations on how member states of the Arctic Council may move ahead in addressing those issues. We do have a whole set of issues which are linked to the adaptation, particularly the indigenous population to them to the changing climate in the Arctic. In some countries the awareness of those issues is very clear, not only in Canada but I believe also in Alaska if we go to Alaska because some programs which address the issue of climate change consequences already go in Alaska. It is a growing awareness of those problems in Russia particularly because it also involves a lot of changes in the Russian Arctic, not only with regard to the indigenous populations which are numerous in the Russian Arctic but also with regard to the old infrastructure which is really very much damaged by the changes, ongoing changes. We do have a whole set of issues of developing infrastructure in the Arctic, developing infrastructure which will be up to date and provide both the possibilities to grab the opportunities which are opening with the changing Arctic but also which would give us the possibility to operatively react to any problem which may occur like an ecological disaster, oil spill or whatever else because when we look now and talk for instance about shipping we definitely recognize there is a pure lack of infrastructure of providing secure shipping in any part of the Arctic Ocean having virtually no deep sea ports, having no bases where you can repair a ship if anything happens to you with some growing capabilities for providing disaster relief but certainly if we look at the search and rescue capabilities of coastal states they are absolutely insufficient even for the modestly expected growth of economic activities. So looking at the infrastructure issues from every single point of view is an important element an important opportunity for Arctic Councils and not only Arctic Councils I would say to work together in the Arctic. We have several issues which are closely linked to the maritime security issues. One of them is looking forward to the development of a mandatory polar code which would provide for more harmonized regulation of vessel traffic in the Arctic waters not only Arctic or Santa Arctic but particularly in our interest for the Arctic waters. But there are many other issues which occur in this regard and I would particularly hear in Washington draw attention to an upcoming issue of the vessel traffic through the Bering Strait which is increasingly in the focus of our attention both in the U.S. and in the Russian Federation. Next we do have two Arctic Council agreements or other agreements of Arctic Council member states because it's not formally Arctic Council agreements as such one on the search and rescue and one on the oil pollution preparedness and response and I believe a very important work ahead of us is to look forward to how we can boost cooperation of our countries in implementing those agreements because both agreements A provide for the areas of responsibility of coastal states as regards search and rescue or oil preparedness and response and secondly provide for the ways of working together on specific issues. This involves of course much closer bilateral cooperation on those issues but also opens away for multilateral cooperation for making the existing not sufficient search and rescue and disaster relief capabilities to be interoperable and for the respective services to start learning to work closer with each other. In this aspect I would give one example because we do have improving Russian-Norwegian cooperation or rather Russian-Finnish-Norwegian cooperation on these issues which is supposed to provide an increased interoperability by providing joint training of Russian-Norwegian-Finnish capabilities in this area we may look forward to developing something together with the United States but certainly this would take a better political climate I believe to move ahead on this as well as on many other issues. So developing constabulary cooperation on the soft security issues which we are challenged in the Arctic is in my view one of the most important challenges and it will be particularly challenged also to forthcoming Arctic Council chairmanships. I believe there was a very interesting proposal in the US implementation plan suggesting that every Arctic chairman, Arctic Council chairman should organize annual exercise of evolving capabilities from all Arctic states which address the questions of such and rescue etc. and I am eager to see that the US chairmanship would implement this proposal and invite all Arctic Councils to join in such exercise. We have a host of issues on fisheries. Most of them have been raised so far let me simply emphasize that we do have bilateral fisheries issues among several Arctic states which is a very cooperative way so far but we also have some challenges ahead of us and one of them is fisheries in the central basin of the Arctic sea and we will talk more in detail on this specific panel on fisheries. Virtually in every section of Arctic cooperation agenda we have science involved and we will have a special panel on this and may look deeper because on every issue which is involved we need more research and more cooperative research and sharing research data and expertise and I would go as far as to say that if we look at the three major sectoral areas of activities we may embark on a way of looking forward towards bringing coastal states together in developing integrated ecosystem-based management approach towards different parts of the Arctic so far but probably at the end of the entire Arctic as such. We do have some experience and we have made some progress between Russia and Norway in extending the integrated ecosystem-based management of the Barents Sea which is operational already in the Norwegian part of the Barents Sea but we are pretty close to finalizing the research work and introduce specific plans for introducing a coordinated approach to the Russian part of the Barents Sea. We may look forward to introducing similar ways of looking at Bering and Chukchi Sea and as I understand every single coastal state in the Arctic is embracing the integrated management approach and we may see where we go in terms of extending integrated management towards the whole Arctic Sea. My final point on agenda is security cooperation which is getting difficult. Again, my point is I don't see any military classical security issue to become a problem in the Arctic. I see mainly the task of desecuritizing the Arctic agenda and we did make several steps forward in developing some rudimental forms for discussing security issues such as two meetings of the heads of general staff and coast guards such as a round table of senior officials of coast guards and defense. This is probably an area which is most affected by the current political situation but I'm looking forward that we overcome this crisis and move ahead in terms of not compartmentalizing working in this area but working together on several issues. Let me stop here and say my last point would be to say I see more opportunities for cooperation on the Arctic on common issues, on shared challenges it is up to us whether to take those opportunities or whether some of them remain unfulfilled promises. I don't see any challenge of confrontation in the Arctic but again the level of utilizing opportunities for cooperation is something which is very much on the agenda. I'm looking forward to the US chairmanship and I'm eager to learn more about the forthcoming agenda which is important for Russia and I hope very much that the US during this chairmanship on the Arctic Council would contribute to helping all of us to utilize opportunities for cooperation rather than to miss them. Thank you very much. That's absolutely. Thank you. Thank you Andre. That was a terrific, terrific overview and thanks as well to Ken and Dave. You have kicked us off in a very great fashion because you give us a very broad brush of all the issues and it's a massive to-do list quite frankly Dave. We have about a half an hour in conversation. I'm going to kick off and ask our panelists a few questions. I could actually ask them a ton of questions but I'll restrain myself and then we'll turn to you. We have microphones if you could just raise your hand give us and I a warning about this wonderful room sometimes you really have to get close to that microphone and speak very clearly for us to hear up here. If you give us your name and your affiliation we will take a few questions and then we'll ask our panelists to respond. With that are you guys ready because I'm ready to fire away here to some questions. First for Dave I'm extremely interested in how US governmental leadership will tackle this impressive to-do list and anything, any whisper, any hint you could tell us about the US special representative that was led by Secretary Kerry in March but again give us a flavor for how this works. This is a profile opportunity for both your work as well as many, many interagency colleagues that will be engaged in this. Help us understand a little bit about the structure of how the US government tends to lead this process and then I'm seized by the public diplomacy opportunity that this presents for us to understand about what the responsibilities are of an Arctic nation and our role and I don't know these are early days so I'm probably getting ahead of myself but what are some of the thinking about the public information that can be shared particularly for the lower 48 it's not the state of Alaska but we need to educate on this and I'm just wondering if there are some early thoughts for you on that. Andre I'm so grateful that you raised your hand to me about this economic development because one of the newest features of Arctic cooperation under the Canadian chairmanship has been the creation of an Arctic economic council it's not part of the Arctic council it will be a stand alone body and understanding where the private sector fits into this conversation economic development, how do they, the various industries and sectors how do they help keep and what they're seeing engaged in this very important Arctic conversation I'd love both Andre and Dave to respond to the role of the private sector in the Arctic and then finally a question on sort of the geopolitical environment in which we are all working and Andre to pick up on your thought it seems to me there's sort of two schools of thought that sort of are emerging in Washington about what all of this means for the Arctic the one school of thought is that there will be what we call strategic overspill that's the buzzword that we're using at least the thing tanks are using strategic overspill into the Arctic because not only because of the importance of the Arctic to Russia's future development but as we were reading headlines today the potential for spillover of sanctions and what it means for technology exchange the other school of thought is actually the Arctic is going to be the place where we can begin to rebuild trust because it's something of mutual cooperation and like the famous Gorbachev zone of peace speech that sort of allow the Arctic to become a place where we could have a conversation perhaps this is a place to rebuild and quite frankly I can make a rational argument for both cases so I would like to welcome the panelists thoughts and whether this is how they see this playing out so Dave I'm putting you in the hot seat first my apologies but I'm going to make your work today so thank you thank you Heather well you asked a number of different questions let me see if I can try to respond Heather asked about the approach of the US government tackling this to-do list everybody here I'm sure is well aware that the United States federal government is a seamless web we are linked up efficient and yes but you know we have taken some steps to try to become the seamless web we ought to be on this some of it is out there in the public the president issued the national strategy for the Arctic region about a year ago and we followed that up with an implementation plan these were efforts to try to identify our priority actions in the Arctic at least speaking to ourselves as federal agencies what are we trying to accomplish there but it was also a messaging tool to the US public to the other governments out there these are the things we're trying to do and it does demonstrate this process was led by the White House very high level interest in this region and many people in this room representing various agencies were involved as was I part of that national strategy and the implementation plan are about the Arctic Council and about our coming chairmanship we actually have put into these documents some thinking what we hope to accomplish as chair generally speaking on the Arctic Council the Department sort of is the lead representative but it is a very collaborative collegial exercise at least among the federal family when the United States assumes the chair our secretary of state will be the chair of the Arctic Council at least as long as he is in office one thing about the coming chairmanship is that it is going to span into the next administration right the end of our chairmanship will be in the spring of 2017 we will have a new president and new secretary of state that is part of the thinking now we need to be prepared for the fact that this will have to cross over into another administration with that I will share a piece of thinking that is out there in the public this administration may wish to have some large event relating to the Arctic on its watch usually the biggest moment in any Arctic Council chairmanship is the end the last moment the ministerial meeting that you host in which you showcase all of the good work that has been done for two years you pass the torch or the baton to the next chair and you look ahead to the future that will take place as I said in the next administration so it is possible that in this administration perhaps in 2016 some other large event on the Arctic could take place and we are actually looking for right now yes secretary Kerry announced now some time ago that he would appoint a special representative for the Arctic region and I don't have any real news to share about that with you except to stay tuned I think an announcement is likely to hit quite soon speaking personally this is good news for me we have been wanting this person on board to help with the preparations for the Arctic Council chairmanship and to help lead oversee a lot of the other work going on in the Arctic even beyond the Arctic Council that's about all I can say about that at the moment one more thought and then I'll stop you asked about public diplomacy we the United States have one operated one disadvantage relative to the other seven Arctic countries and that is most of our citizens don't think very much about the Arctic even today despite all the new attention that has been turned to the Arctic and the press and otherwise I see our coming chairmanship as a chance to help educate people in the lower 48 about your profound US interest in the Arctic about the Arctic region as a whole and why it should matter to them on a lot of fronts so it's a kind of bully pulpit that I'm hoping we will use to get effect to make our fellow citizens aware of this region thanks Dave do you want to chime in on any or all of the questions and then we'll have Andre finish up first of all you asked about the role of business and I have absolutely no doubt that that's a very important area that's going to have to be worked together in cooperation the Arctic unlike the Antarctic is being developed some of the largest mineral mines in the world are there this is not something that's starting from scratch this has been a long process that's going on for a long time and I know though from other discussions the question of how to bring business in is not going to be easy there are many different types of industries there are many different companies involved and how you sort of capture all of them is not going to be easy but I think David is very capable of doing that this is something I think that should be very integral to the U.S. chairmanship very important point I also wanted to talk about the two scenarios that you mentioned the inevitable strategic spill over or the Arctic being able to move forward and I think Andre was very clear on the areas that are there for cooperation and I very much hope that that is the case I think that there are good possibilities in the Arctic things that we probably haven't touched on that may contribute to the more constructive element one is that the oil and gas development the business development as Andre mentioned some of the decisions on the extended continental shelf may not come for 10 to 15 years there's time there's nothing there's no pressing issue on the security side that's going to cause us to move one way or the other there's plenty of opportunity to work on these environmental issues the cooperative side and to help prevent any of the untoward effects obviously we're going to watch very, very closely I am one we just had an op-ed I think I hope it comes out today but we were talking about the impact of public opinion and we were quote unquote new cold war and we were pointing out that both in Russia, in Europe and the United States there really is no popular desire to move back to a cold war obviously what happened in Crimea is very popular in Russia but that doesn't seem to extend to extending hostilities across Ukraine or doing anything much more drastic so my hope is there may be a floor or a ceiling however you wish to describe this obviously the relationship is badly frayed and is going to have to be rebuilt but I do think the Arctic is one area where we have enough common interests and enough time to be able to do that as I said the realists disagree but I'm also a realist and I disagree with them but and I know I don't want to steal Lawson Brigham's thunder because he's going to do a great presentation on some of the maritime issues but we are seeing some very interesting developments on the security side the creation of an Arctic Coast Guard Forum which will be formally launched in the fall we do have this conversation we're searching for this venue but it's a search because we need to cooperate we need to implement agreements that have been signed and how do we put them in practice so I agree with you we're not going to move for work there but we're formulating and our US Coast Guard is taking a great leadership role in that Andre sharing your thoughts and then we'll unleash the audience on you Thank you and let me be brief my understanding may be wrong but my understanding of the purpose of the business council was to allow the Arctic Council member states and the businesses which have interest in the Arctic to start talking to each other about the issues which are of interest to them because the basic intrigue was that every government although to a different extent was interested in getting businesses involved particularly on issues such as developing infrastructure there are certainly businesses which have a stake there particularly those looking at the mineral resources development etc but otherwise businesses on their side were very much ignorant and had little interest in what to do until a moment when the Arctic Council member states started to produce agreements and then businesses were waking up saying hi guys look here you start regulating here something and you don't talk to us you don't look at our interest so businesses are of course most of the businesses are rather hesitant in going into the Arctic except for getting contracts for doing something like construction of a new harbor of Sabeta in Russia or whatever else but the moment Arctic Council states begin regulating specific areas of operation and there will be more of such regulation not necessarily through the Arctic Council but if you look at the polar code this will affect construction plans for the ships etc etc businesses start getting interested in at least understanding what is approaching to them this was actually exactly what I was discussing with businesses in Russia with businesses which are involved in the Arctic looking for funding from the side of some of our research and telling okay we are looking at Arctic Council and the Arctic Council begins talking about rules which may be tougher over time and this is something if we do research we can make you know what is forthcoming what is being discussed and you also can see for the ways you can affect those decisions so my understanding is that the business council so far is an attempt to bring governments and businesses together and start talking about those issues well realizing that the interests are different so far but starting an approach which is very helpful for looking at Arctic economics on the geopolitics well I will understand that you can reasonably argue for both cases because we do see both and we don't know yet what is going to prevail spillover to the Arctic or the possibility for cooperation because in fact before the Ukraine crisis we while working on the Arctic Cooperation Issues within the Russian International Affairs Council our basic idea was to explore new opportunities for cooperation for US-Russia cooperation in order to establish more cooperative platforms like working together on the chemical weapons in Syria for instance establishing more cooperative platforms to expand cooperation to different sectors and to look for new avenues for cooperation well understanding this would hardly be a game changer but one more element of cooperation on the issue which is of importance to Russia at least publicly it is an important issue it is important for the establishment and this is something where cooperative experiences would be of importance in terms of building trust etc so we now see that we do already have some spillover because military to military cooperation is suspended and all other related activities are suspended on which we counted we do see increasing compartmentalization particularly in security activities in the Arctic this raises a lot of suspicion in Russia which is traditionally linked to the NATO alliance saying look four of the five are NATO member states they now expel us throw us out from cooperation no longer invite for observation of maneuvers do hold maneuvers more recently as well with a different scenario than before and this of course increases mistrust at least supports those groups within the country which are bringing alarm bells saying no there is no cooperation going to be there because the others have their special idea on this so we do see both these tendencies we also see the trend that although having different policies with regard to Russia in the current situation basically all Arctic Council states have spared much of the effort to shield the Arctic Council to the extent possible from the overspill so we do see intention within the Arctic Council to go ahead there have been few cases where Canadian authorities were not attending meetings in Moscow but basically the agenda was proceeding as it was anticipated in the Kiruna ministerial meeting my point would be very simple we can go either way we can either go the way of increasing compartmentalization in the Arctic or we can improve cooperation it will depend very much on decisions we take on the Arctic but also will depend very much on how successful we are in overcoming the current crisis over Ukraine and definitely if we have a situation like we have now no cooperation on Arctic issues would change it so I would not expect a cooperative spillover from the Arctic to the Ukraine crisis the Arctic cooperation is vulnerable to us but the moment we overcome or move towards overcoming the crisis and the moment particularly in the situation when the chemistry doesn't work between the two countries the moment any government is interested in making steps towards cooperation we can grab the opportunities which exist in different areas and particularly in the Arctic so even small steps could be a sign of moving ahead and thus helping us to overcome the fall out of the recent crisis fantastic all right I see the hands are flying that's what we like so again colleagues get your pens and pencils ready because you're about to get a lot of incoming here so I'm going to begin with the Tom Axworthy and then we'll go to Caitlyn and then we have a colleague over there and I promise we'll hit this side of the room we're going to bundle so keep our questions short and then we'll let our panelists offer their reflections good morning Tom Axworthy from the Gordon Foundation in Canada I'm just going to put the question out I was going to have some of my remarks this afternoon but the security issues have been raised several times in this morning's panel so the basic point I want to make is that it's just not extremists who are raising the security dimension of the Arctic Hillary Clinton six weeks ago in Canada talked about how Canada and the United States should vigorously protest Russia's renewed militarization of the Arctic because of the opening of the naval base and the airports and runways and so on so this is a large issue growing at very high levels not just the usual suspects so the main issue that I wanted to make though is that if this is important we have no forum at the moment to even discuss it military security is explicitly in a huge mistake but nonetheless excluded from the Arctic Council I believe I can be corrected but I'm pretty sure on this that the NATO Russia forum has never ever really discussed the Arctic there have been informal meetings of chiefs and staffs and so on but there's no institution around arms control, confidence building measures or the usual infrastructure we have to exactly put a peaceful dimension to the security dilemma, nothing exists in the Arctic so one of the essential questions is what mechanism do we use in order to ensure that the action response mechanisms which we're just starting to see in the Arctic someone does something and someone gets worried about it and someone does something else what is the forum that begins to lower that temperature do we have to create a specific task force or set of meetings around those states can we put it on the NATO Russia forum agenda but we're not going to have any progress on this until we have an actual institution mechanism to really talk about it great question Tom thank you so much Katelyn Katelyn Antrim, rule of law committee for the ocean I want to go in a different direction from the previous one here in Washington we look at Arctic as if Washington and Ottawa and Moscow are in the heart of the Arctic we didn't see much happen with the US Russia reset because that was mostly a federal government to federal government initiative what can we do in the Arctic to promote collaboration regionally and in the different sectors industry, environmental protection fishery management those things that involve the people in the Arctic can we make that work without having everything funneled through the Arctic consul and funneled through the federal government Penn Moore comes to mind and regional collaboration excellent I think we had Oliver a questioner there Leandra Bernstein Ria Novosti this is a question on the prospects for the volume of trade in the Arctic I know that last year we saw the first Arctic voyage by the Chinese and from what I understand they used the requirements of the Russian Federation to make their voyage so what what are the prospects for volume of trade in shipping also the prospects for crossing the Bering straight via railroad and just those challenges and if you could further address the challenges of of the conventions for this I want to make sure if there aren't any more wonderful we have a hand way over there and then with that question we'll let our panelists oh yep we have coming over there Fatima Tvisvosev of America my question is probably related to the issue of trust many experts agree that the Russian media has become a mirror of Kremlin's intentions a fairly accurate mirror so right now we see on Twitter and in Russian media trending topics cream-nash, hashtag cream-nash which means Crimea is ours equally trending is the hashtag Alaska-Nash which means Alaska is ours how much this represents the intentions the true intentions of Kremlin and is there really an issue of trust thank you oh dear I'm going to give you time to think on that when Dr. Zagorsky I'll just keep we'll go Dave, Ken and then Andre thank you again for the very good questions it's a very good question on the forum let me tell you that many people have been raising the issue and it was discussed in various ways well first of all I would like to state that in general in Russia there is an openness to discussing the issue and introducing issues of security and cooperation or security as such into any framework of Arctic cooperation Russia-NATA Council is not a venue for Russia to address those issues, I believe some other countries also wouldn't like to go to NATO or NATO-Russia Council so this is out of passion for Russia I haven't seen any proper discussion on whether or not Russia would be open to changing the Ottawa Declaration and admitting security issues into the Arctic Council framework, my feeling would be that if that would be an option acceptable to others Moscow would not be against it but basically this would be the third option, the expectation in Moscow was very simple so Moscow was looking forward to increase cooperation including cooperation on security issues and well aware of the hesitance on the side of some other Arctic Council member states Moscow was prepared to a formal approach expecting that something would grow out of the initially small formats we have had particularly the heads of staff meetings that could be eventually institutionalized at some point in time but already seeing this as a very important avenue for heads of staff meeting with each other and talking about Arctic issues particularly talking about challenges and operational situation and opportunities of cooperation in what to what extent military structures can contribute to addressing soft security issues in the Arctic so we do have the security round table which also involves some Arctic countries which was a low key element for Russia which was less political and I practically don't see references to this venue in the Russian sources and there have been several of few other because we do have it in the North Pacific and in the North Atlantic frameworks for coast guards to meet and talk to each other as I understand the North Pacific forum has been so far closed for Russia so again Russia was not pushing on the issue but Russia would be open to discussing and expecting that some of the initial rudimental forms would grow out and if not necessarily directly included on the Arctic Council but would be in some informal way linked to this as we have seen this on other instances because Arctic Council was in that sense a very flexible flexible structure when we had a meeting of environmental ministers it was not formally within the Arctic Council framework it was just simply formally Swedish initiative during the chairmanship but it was linked to developments within the Arctic Council and sort of affiliated activities would be welcome and indeed Moscow is open to discussing this issue but it is not pushing well understanding the reservations of other countries it is a lot of things to be done to improve cooperation among the people and let me first of all state that many things do happen now already there is a lot happening in the western part of the Arctic through the Barents Arctic Regional Council which has spent much money on a lot of projects not only on environmental projects which are a key interest but also many projects trans-border projects including bringing businesses together mostly along the Norwegian-Russian border but also extending this cooperation to some other areas we do have we do see a role of different Russian regions in various I don't speak of the indigenous population because they are sitting on the Arctic Council as a permanent member and are involved very much in the circumpolar cooperative structures of indigenous population organizations but regional regions of Russia have been to a different extent active in promoting their agenda both vis-à-vis Moscow also within different regional structures it is better established within the Barents Sea Euro-Arctic region because we do have there a special regional council regions which are represented on this which are a parallel structure to the council as such there is also a northern forum in which several regions like Yakutia Yamal are pretty active and this needs to be encouraged because the more we have direct cooperation the better it is and on the shipping issues I am not skeptic but I am cautious in projecting shipping growth so far although we do register developments not only along the northern sea in Russia but also as I mentioned last year 22 transit shipping about two thirds of this being international which is remarkable development I would say for Canada but for me if we speak of a proper transit shipping which means the one originated outside the route and ending also outside the route this is mostly experimental for many various reasons and the articutions for a civil time not fit for the container shipments so it's mainly about bulkers and tankers and it's very much experimental my expectation is that particularly vessel traffic along the northern sea route is going to grow over the coming years but primarily for the destination shipping which means bringing necessary staff into the region particularly for the construction which is now over 40% of the whole shipment along the northern sea route and then increasingly by exporting from marine exports of the resources extracted on the shore and if I particularly look at the capacities of the new harbour of Sabetta which is 15 million tonnes and another one oil terminal in the same region my expectation would be when I look at different projections 40 million tonnes 40 to 50 million tonnes from 2020 and beyond maybe the most reasonable although conservative estimate but it would be destination would be not so much transit bearing state we do see the increasing traffic there it has grown by a factor 4 over the past 6 years and if we project more destination shipping I would expect that particularly in the summer season there would be more traffic there and this presses on us to introduce some regulation which will be environmentally friendly particularly since both the bearing state bearing sea is a biologically very very productive region and both US and Russia have a lot of interests in the conservation of biological resources and the rational exploitation so we need this is why we also say in our report we need to look into the issue of how we best manage the traffic to the bearing state and we do some groundwork to offer our government some proposals on this and well Alaska Russia or Alaska I think this is very different from the Crimea issue but to to add to the joke to add to the joke there have been some non-governmental organizations in Russia who tried to sue the US for not leaving up to the conditions of the purchase of Alaska and particularly by violating the traditional understanding of the values by the originally Russian population of Alaska and this is linked to the Gaze rise etc etc violating the understanding of values etc but this all has failed of course there is some debate it's not very much debate on this but there is some debate in the internet particularly but this is definitely not the governmental policy where we go from there go right ahead I will start where Professor Zagorski left off so hashtag Alaska is ours I want to start a hashtag be careful what you wish for I don't regard this as a serious point of view from within Russia but the larger question you raise about the need to continue to build trust is a serious issue that is true but the only answer I really have for that is to continue to pursue the interests we share with Russia in the Arctic and they are profound both of us need a stable rules-based Arctic it's in both countries that is why we have seen the type of cooperation even back in the days of the Soviet Union but really in the last 15 years in particular that is something that links our two countries destinies a stable rules-based Arctic and that is not a bad place for much to build continued to build trust I don't have very much to add but there are some aspects for trade and Arctic shipping and answer to that question to our professors of course Ki has already said to the question about what are we doing in the region that is a good question as well and yes there is a tendency to especially places like this to think about the Arctic from a remove one of the things that the Canadians deserve credit for in the way council work back down to the level of the people who actually live there to engage the industries the indigenous communities even more that has been done in the past something I would like to see us continue and if you spend time in Alaska you will know that the Arctic is not exactly a single region we have two immediate neighbors in the Arctic Canada and Russia and there is a lot that is already going on I would say at the regional level that our federal government is not necessarily involved in any event in the lead on but is nevertheless of great interest to the people who are there and perhaps our best role is to facilitate and get out of the way Tom Axworthy I don't know that I have a good answer to your question it is an important one I can tell you that people within our government now are trying to figure it out do we need you seem to start from the assumption that we absolutely do need some new place to go to take these issues I would say the question being debated is whether we really need something new or whether something that already exists can be adapted for this purpose and we don't have an answer yet and you we'll talk about that later in your session Ken did you want to Ken even the last minute wrap up just a very few brief points I agree on the need trust has clearly been broken and it is going to have to be rebuilt I'm hoping as I've said I'm not going to repeat myself I do believe the Arctic can be a region where we can the trust we've probably had closer cooperation in the Arctic than in many other areas this is a long standing area of cooperation there have been very strong relationships that have been built up between scientists and a whole variety of people and I do think that does give the hope that you know can remain you know a I won't call it an island but an area where we can cooperate very very much and I think Caitlin's point on the regional cooperation is very good I would love to see a conference devoted to regional cooperation in the Arctic because my guess is that there is an awful lot going on that we're unaware of and could really buttress our moving along in a rather constructive way I'm always reminded in this country you know that we often look to states and local government you know to do things on environment on other issues when the federal government is paralyzed or when congress is paralyzed and I think you know we can actually learn much more on Tom's point on the security forum my guess is that in the current environment it's probably going to be hard to come up with something new and I think the best possibility because I think there is a need we've seen you know the two binding agreements now that have come you know through the Arctic Council shepherding and my guess is that this is a need that is increasingly you know going to be felt and whether it's going to be a new forum ultimately or a subgroup in the Arctic Council my guess is that this is something you know that we will see so I think you're absolutely right in pointing it out and I would like to see some progress on it. Okay well my CSIS to-do list regional cooperation conference security forum further discussion thank you I now have a nice to-do list myself thank you to our panelists for again starting this conversation off in the right direction this discussion Ambassador Bultman Dr. Zagorski are going to come back in the afternoon and put their fisheries hat on talk a little fish and marine environment and so here's my instruction we are going to take a five minute break literally to reset up here and to ask our next panelists to come up if you have to dash refill your cup of coffee but don't go away because if we run too far over lunch is in jeopardy time wise so thank you so much please join me in thanking our panelists