 Well, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. My name is Heather Conley. I'm senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic here at CSIS. And we are delighted. I don't know if it's something you should talk about, the Arctic in August, cool thoughts, warm weather. But we are delighted that you are here with us. I have to say today is a little bit of an unusual day for me, because normally when we host a public event, I briefly welcome and introduce our guest speaker. I let our guest speaker give us some brilliant insights, and then I get to ask questions that were on my mind and let you all ask questions. But today we're going to do something a little different. I'm going to sort of be the speaker for a few brief moments, because today's occasion is to launch a new report that we've issued today. Just in the PDF form, we'll have hard copies available later in September. But of a new report that we've entitled, The New Ice Curtain, Russia's Strategic Reach to the Arctic. But I'm not going to bore you simply with the report. We've invited two extremely thoughtful and insightful colleagues. So after I present to you a very quick overview, because this is 124 pages, so you know I'm only going to do a quick overview of the report, then I'm going to invite two colleagues to join us for a discussion about the Russian Arctic. In fact, both of our guests have visited the Arctic, the Russian Arctic this summer. With us, we have Dr. Marlene Lorel, research professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Marlene has written a fabulous book on the Russian Arctic, which I think was released two or three years ago, and has done some marvelous research. She's been a very important thought leader for me on this project. And we also have joining us Steven Lee Meyers, correspondent with The New York Times. Steve has been a long-serving New York Times correspondent in Moscow from 2002 and 2009. He went back recently for a brief stint. But most importantly, Steve has a new book coming out, The New Tsar, the Rise and Rain of Vladimir Putin, coming soon and also spent some time in the Russian Arctic and Murmansk and also just visited the American Arctic. Because not only is it fun to talk about the Arctic in August, our timing is actually fairly good because President Obama travels on Monday first to Anchorage, Alaska to speak to a State Department hosted conference, and then he is going to visit Kotzebue and Dillingham, the first American president to visit the Arctic Circle. So we maybe talk a little bit about that trip and put some geopolitical context into our report. So let me very briefly, in some ways, tell you a little story, how we got to this report and to thank the MacArthur Foundation for giving us the research funds to do this. We began this research in January of 2013 and there is two purposes for our report. Number one, although in the United States there is limited understanding of the Arctic writ large, there was even more limited understanding of the most dynamic player, the biggest player in the Arctic and that was Russia. So the report was designed to help, particularly Washington policymakers and a Washington and American audience, understand why the Russian Arctic is so important to Moscow. But then we thought the timing was critically important because we were looking forward to the U.S. chairmanship of the Arctic Council, which we now assumed since April of this year and we thought this is an unexplored area to strengthen U.S.-Russian bilateral cooperation in the Arctic. So with those two goals, to understand the Russian Arctic more and to see if the Russian Arctic would give us a better sense of the future direction of Russian development and then again a roadmap to strengthen the cooperation. A funny thing happened on the way to doing this report. The geopolitical environment changed fairly dramatically and so while still the report focused on understanding why the Arctic and the Arctic is so important to Russia, we began to see an evolution of policy, not only in the economic situation, particularly global energy prices dropping 50% Western sanctions imposed on Russia, particularly its Arctic energy exploration and in the security and the military dynamic. We started to see all of this change and we thought, wait a minute, we need to capture this. We need to help provide some context to this. So the report began to shift a little bit away from unfortunately the U.S.-Russia cooperative format but to try to describe this evolution, but most importantly, how can we preserve and protect Arctic cooperation in light of these changing geoeconomic and geopolitical factors? So I promise you a very brief PowerPoint presentation but what we thought we'd do is just walk you through a little bit of the report. I want you to remember three things if you can out of 124 pages. Number one, the Arctic is incredibly important to Russia. It represents 20% of its GDP and we'll go and talk a little bit about the economic importance of it, the strategic importance of it. Russia's strategic nuclear deterrent is based in the Arctic and the Northern Fleet. Then I'm gonna tell you a little bit about this evolution, the change that we're seeing. Talk about what I call the duality of Russian Arctic policy because simultaneously Russia seeks international cooperation to develop its economic potential. At the same time, it seeks to project power, to preserve and what we're seeing is a heightened role for security in the Arctic and those two run side by side and you'll see both of them and for some they wanna see the partnership and the cooperation. Others wanna see the change in the security setting and I guess my overarching sense of this, after working on this project for over two years, they are both and they work together and they send very different messages and it's very confusing for policy makers to separate out and to understand what Russia's true intentions are in the Arctic. And then of course a policy report at CSIS would be missing if we didn't make some recommendations about how to rethink Arctic cooperation and I'll run through those in just a little bit. So this and maybe if we can dim the lights a little bit, I don't know if you can see or try to use the sideboards that may be a little easier. Let's talk about the importance of the Arctic. This was a quote in 2008 from then President Dmitry Medvedev. Our first and main task is to turn the Arctic into a resource base for Russia in the 21st century. And this is a picture of course of the first offshore oil platform that is now producing oil in the Arctic. And in fact, the Arctic will play potentially a tremendous role in Russia's future energy base but again, the global landscape for energy has changed so dramatically and it's unclear whether this very aspirational vision for energy, Russian Arctic energy development will in fact transpire. So again, as I mentioned, for any national leader who's looking at 20% of their gross domestic product, there's going to be an enormous amount of importance placed in that location and that is the Arctic and of course 22% of its exports. The numbers on gas reserves, coal, another area we don't talk about as much and I know Marlene will talk about her visit to Norelsk, the minerals, nickel, iron ore, zinc, palladium, rare earths potential in the Arctic. This is also an incredible source of potential revenue for Russia and of course again, the energy reserves are staggering potentially. This is a picture of Mormonsk and Steve has spent some time in Mormonsk as well as Marlene and they will, I hope, offer some reflections. Mormonsk is really the transport hub, if you will, for the Russian Arctic. The vision for Russia and its strategy is extremely aspirational and as the economic situation in Russia has changed, we've seen those aspirations change. As we've seen fields like Stockman, considered to be one of the largest natural gas fields, have to be postponed for development because now North America no longer would need LNG from Russia. That has changed the development picture for Mormonsk. So you're seeing a tremendous aspiration, ambition, economic reality beginning to change that view. It's not just the energy, it's not just the minerals, it's the transportation route. The Russian government has an extremely ambitious vision for the Northern Sea route that as you'll see here, passes east to west, west to east, depending on the direction of the shipment. In March of 2013, Russia has developed a Northern Sea administration. They are designing search and rescue centers along this route, 10 of them are anticipated. There is an enormous vision for making the Northern Sea route an international transit route. But again, the economic reality is quite different from the ambition. Last year, international transits through the Northern Sea route were 53. That does not make a Suez Canal passageway as we understand that. But there's the vision, there is the hope, there is the aspiration. And so the transit route is an incredibly important issue of development for the Russian Federation in the Arctic. I jokingly tell my staff, I try not to have icebreaker envy when I show you this slide. But again, I want you to understand why Russia is a very dominant player in the Arctic. This is a slide of their current icebreakers, 41. Some are in plans. Budget cuts have fluctuated those. As I always like to tell American audiences, your quiz, how many icebreakers does the United States have, technically one and a half, one heavy ice strengthened icebreaker, one medium strengthened icebreaker. So you see the difference. But of course, Russia holds over 50% of the Arctic coastline. They do require a much more robust infrastructure presence. But again, it gives you the scale and the scope of Russia's Arctic presence. So while there's great economic benefit for Russia in the Arctic, because they hold over 50% of the Arctic coastline, they also are going to be the most impacted by the changes we are seeing happening to the Arctic. This is a picture of a pipeline that has succumbed to permafrost thaw. These are some of the incredible changes we are seeing in the Arctic from coastal erosion, ocean acidification, permafrost thaw will change the reflection of both Siberian and Arctic areas. And this is something that quite frankly, the Russian government understands that it's going to be a major challenge, I think is trying to figure out how to build resilience into that. And it's not just pipeline infrastructure, this is a picture of a home, foundations are cracking, crumbling, because they were built on the permafrost that is adjusting and shifting. Again, people don't appreciate that there are four million people that live in the Arctic. The greatest population is in the Russian Federation, a little under two million, I believe. There are major urban centers, like Mormonsk, that are going to be dramatically impacted by the changes that we are seeing in the Arctic, how will the Russian government respond, be resilient to these important changes? And this is a picture, this is sort of a mystery and maybe there's some scientists and much more knowledgeable people in the audience than I am on this. These are sort of these methane sinkholes, if you will, that are appearing, particularly in the Yamal Peninsula, but in Siberia, they're just these massive craters that are just dropping and they believe it's just a massive methane release, again, from permafrost thought. It's unclear, again, it's baffling scientists, but how do you deal with that and what does that mean for the future? So Russia, again, incredible economic opportunity, incredible challenge as they deal with the impact of climate change. So I just wanted to, again, underscore the importance. In our report, very lengthy discussions of the economics, we go through great detail, energy, mineral, transportation, infrastructure to give you a very detailed sense of why the Arctic is so important to the Russian government. Now let me move to the evolution. So in our report, we have, and I would have loved to put them up, but I think you would not have been able to read the type. So we'll welcome you to go to our report. We discussed three phases of evolution of Russia's Arctic policy. I have to say one of the hazards of my job, I'm very frequently asked by journalists when something happens in the Arctic, what does this mean and is it important? So when Russia resubmits scientific claims to extend its outer continent on the shelf, what does that mean, is that good, is that bad, or something like that? And what I think one of the most important aspects of this report, we actually take the long view, which is what our job is, that this is the strategic part of our work, and looking at the evolution of Russian Arctic policy. We began, we put it into three phases, from 2004 to 2009 is the first phase. I would say this phase is what I call the territory of dialogue phase. Russia was just beginning to formulate some very important strategies about its Arctic. It was looking at a regional development model. We were even hopeful that this would signal a decentralization, give more power to the regions to help economically develop the Arctic. But that evolution began to change from the 2001 to 2013 period. I actually signaled this, was really the return of President Putin to the Kremlin in 2012. We began to see a significant shift in Russian domestic policy, obviously, and an internal constriction of NGOs and civil society and the Russia's indigenous groups, ripon being constricted in what they could do in the Arctic. We were then beginning to see a more highly centralized model. President Putin was replacing governors and leaders in very new development, the creation of a Russian Arctic commission, a very centralized body, which is being led by Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Dmitry Rogozin. For those of you who follow security, Ambassador Rogozin was Russia's ambassador to NATO before he returned to Moscow. He is also in charge of the military industrial complex. He's a nationalistic leader. And in our report, we offer you some very quotable quotes from Mr. Rogozin about the Arctic. Most recently in April, he traveled to the North Pole, where he declared that the Arctic is Russia's mecca. So you can tell that the nationalistic sentiment is starting to come and an enhanced security posture. We then, and the final evolution is 2014 to the present where we've really seen wholesale changes in Russia's strategic approach to the Arctic, highly centralized, and then we really see much greater security activity from the largest exercises we've seen in the Arctic, the Vostok 2014 exercise, and the Far East, but also included the Arctic and the new Siberia Islands to March of this year, a SNAP military exercise consisting of over 45,000 troops that had land, air, maritime component. It was the most complex exercise we had seen and it was unannounced. This is what we need to avoid. And this is the duality, as I mentioned. On the one hand, Russia is a very welcomed partner at the Arctic Council as the eight countries are struggling to work through and the environmental questions, the scientific and the research questions at the same time, it's launching unannounced military exercise. It's turning military aircraft transponders off, endangering civilian airlines, and this is the mixed message. So which is it? Is it a partner or are we turning into something much more significant? And this picture in some ways represents that duality. Again, in my apologies, it's very difficult to see from this far away, but President Putin declaring we are returning to the Arctic and must possess all instruments of power for the protection of our national security interests. So we went in that first phase from a description of the Arctic as a territory of dialogues. We had an enormous amount of regional development strategies to one that is highly centralized. Russia, the Arctic is Russia's Mecca. We have the Arctic now described in Russia's military doctrine where Russian Defense Minister Shoigu has declared that they're now growing national security threats in the Arctic. And so we're seeing now new announcements of reopening military airfields. Again, if you have a very ambitious vision for an international transit route, you need that infrastructure, but you don't need this much infrastructure for 53 transits in the summer months. And so our sense is that while, I don't know if you could give a percentage, 60 to 70% of Russia's military posture in the Arctic, I would say, is understandable because of its enormous breadth to cover the search and rescue, oil spill prevention responsibilities. Unannounced exercise is strengthening Russia's nuclear deterrent strategic submarine assets. Looking at the overarching response that we're seeing of Russia's approach to the Arctic, I would say we're looking at an emerging picture of anti-access, anti-denial. And that's a very different message than we had seen even 12 to 16 months ago. So this is the challenge. As I said, what I get asked every day, what does this mean? Is this important? You have to see the totality of the evolution to understand we are in quite a different place than we were even a year and a half ago. Again, this is a picture of President Putin, again, calling the Northern Fleet to full combat readiness. That was the unannounced March exercise that I mentioned. And finally, this is the picture of that very famous, I think Mr. Rogozin may have tweeted this. This is a picture of Russian scientists visiting their North Pole research station with, again, his line that the Arctic is a Russian Mecca. So, and you can find our report at this and it's on our website. Again, 124 pages we're trying to do our part for the environment so we're not producing too many hard copies, they'll be coming later. But again, if I can just offer final reflections, the incredible importance of the Arctic to Russia's future development, we have seen a historic evolution of Russia's Arctic policy that I would not call a partnership. I would call it both a challenge to both Arctic and non-Arctic states and that's part of that duality of international cooperation and enhanced security. And finally, what do we do about this? What are the recommendations? I have to say, and we've been doing research on the Arctic for well over six years and this is the most challenging part because you would think this is an area where we can be the most creative but it's been challenging. So, as I looked at the totality of the Arctic, the economics, the security, which unfortunately the Arctic Council cannot address, it is forbidden to address security issues and now we desperately need a forum to discuss these emerging security issues and of course the human dimension, the indigenous that live, the phenomenal environmental changes that we're seeing, I started to see three baskets emerge and many of you who know the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe know three baskets, security, which provide confidence building measures and transparency. So, in our final recommendations, we sort of call for maybe a dramatic rethink of how we look at the Arctic, maybe thinking of more of an organization for enhanced cooperation in the Arctic, where there is a security pillar, where we would get Russia to agree to a military code of conduct in the Arctic, no more snap exercises, they must be notified 45 days prior to, again, getting back to OSCE Helsinki principles. Giving a little more focus on the economics, that's what Russia is so interested in. Unfortunately, the United States is less interested in that as a topic, but can we bring Russia more fully on the economic side as we did 40 years ago through the Helsinki Final Act, encouraging that and finally that human dimension, never forgetting that four million people live in the Arctic, this is a human rights issue, we need to build greater resilience into all of those challenges that I showed you. So, perhaps we need a little more innovation as we think about the Arctic, the Arctic Council has been a wonderful tool, I think it's insufficient for the challenges that I have suggested. And before I welcome Marlene and Steve up, let me stop and thank an incredibly important member of our team, Carolyn Roloff, who is my co-author, and she's in the back. Carolyn has worked tirelessly on this project and we could not have done this without her, so my thanks and special gratitude for my wingman on this project. So with that, and I have gone on for much too long, let's start the discussion and let me welcome Steve and Marlene up, thank you. I'm so much happy to be in this seat, not up at that podium. So we've asked Marlene to start and then we'll move to Steve and then we'll have a little conversation up here, maybe talk a little bit about President Obama's great adventure next week, but Marlene, thank you, and she's again an incredible contributor to our report. Thank you, Heather. First, congratulations for the report, that's really, I think that's a very timely report for there were reasons you already mentioned, but also it's a very long overdue, analyzed by the American policy community on Russia's strategy in the Arctic, and I think that's strange enough, but during year there was very few things on Russia's policy in the Arctic or only at a very superficial level. Was Russia just a critical actor? You don't have anything going on really in the Arctic without Russia participating in it. And what I really like in the report is, and you made your point I think when you're during the presentation, yeah, that's this duality issue is really something very important and I wanted really to kind of congratulate you on being able in the report to maintain this kind of duality of the analysis because generally the, I mean, also showing the kind of cooperation pattern that Russia has been showing in the Arctic has become more and more difficult to appreciate here in DC given the current geopolitical tension we have with Russia. So there are several small elements I would like to mention and just also give some feedback from my trip there that you still can find in the US media or things like that, this kind of narrative with Russia conquering the Arctic. Well, Russia is not conquering, Russia is in the Arctic just by its geography. Russia is the key actor in the Arctic because it's on Russian territory. A large part of Siberia is Arctic or sub-Arctic situation. So very often we tend to analyze other foreign policy issues, things that in fact are Russian domestic policy on how Russia is able or unable to manage its own regional development. So I think that's something that I like in the report that we can appreciate this kind of Russian domestic policy element. I think also it's legitimate for Russia as for any other Arctic to try to both protect and develop the region. And I think that's a kind of contradiction which may have some specificities in the Russian case but that's something that you see also in the other Arctic country look at Canada where you also may have this discussion on what do we develop, what do we protect and how we can have both at the same times. Something also very specific and you mentioned it briefly that you have long historical patterns that you need to take into consideration which are that the first town, for example, emerged in the 16th century in Russia. So this kind of urbanization processes in Russia they are just history of Russia and Siberia since several centuries. The fact that more than 90% of the Arctic population I mean the Russian Arctic population is European people or Soviet people living in Arctic cities make also a very specific set of question on the way Russia is looking at the indigenous issues because it's less than, it's about five to around five percent of the Arctic population so that also explain you what these indigenous issues is often kind of considered very important by Russia. So I like the way the report is balanced between recognizing the legitimacy of Russia to work on its region and looking at the international aspect of the discussion. To give you just few elements of the trip I made in the Arctic in July I think it's really good news for Russia and for its Arctic neighbor that the Russian state is reinvesting a lot of attention in the region because it's good for every state to look at all its geographic, all its territory. And I'm especially, I especially think that we should be happy to see this kind of interest into soft security related infrastructure that the Russian state have been demonstrating and just to give you an example so I spent two days in Doudinka you had it on the map where you have this newly created Arctic center from the Ministry of Emergency Situation. And then you can find about 40 young committed people who are rotating there and who are trying to secure the region and Doudinka is a very important region because that's where you have the port for Norilsnikel that allow Norilsnikel to then export its mineral on the northern sea route. They are working on, you know, every kind of emergency you can find in a region, fire, road accident, people in difficulties in the middle of the Tundra and so on and it's a relatively modest structure. I mean 40 people, they are still waiting for having helicopters so they just have kind of road equipment and it's really a great help for the population living in such difficult and remote condition and when you discuss with the population not only in the Arctic but globally in Russia you really have this general consensus that it's normal for the Russian state to be proactive in redeveloping, reinvesting in its Arctic region. Something that a lot of people also mention and that I think we also need to take into consideration because seen from the US or the Western perspective that doesn't seem obvious for us is that given the remoteness of some of this region given also the kind of logistical challenges given the fact that human capital is something which is fragile in Russia it's very often only military and paramilitary groups that are able to take care of such conditions. That's why also you have all this investment in the military or paramilitary because they are the only one which are young, well-trained, committed and so on. So that's the kind of maybe specificity of the way the Russia is reinvesting in the Arctic. And then I travel to Norilsk and Mormonts and here that's too good example on this duality you just mentioned that Mormonts is a relatively open city, a lot of cooperation going on with the Nordic countries of course, Norway is everywhere visible there. It's very diverse economically, it's fishing, the northern sea route, extraction, the northern fleet. So it's a kind of real social fabric of 300,000 people living in Arctic condition at the big normal city but just in the Arctic. And on the other side you have Norilsk, 200,000 people close city for foreigners, you need an authorization from the FSB. It's a corporate city, 70 to 80% of the population working for Norilsnikel. So the social role of the corporation is just huge and it's really a reminder of the Soviet system of having these big films, taking care of all the welfare and all the everyday life of the cities. The city is very polluted, it's the most polluted city in Russia and I think the second in the world. It's very challenged by as you say, the permafrost towing. At the same time it's still relatively functional giving the condition it's working, you have even a kind of flow of population going back to the city especially a lot of migrants because that's a place where you can find a work. And so that's also a good example on how for this population, having still as this kind of corporate city that we would consider as totally non-sustainable. It's also a guarantee of welfare, social stability and that's really what the population is looking for. So these cities have kind of good reputation not at the environmental level but in term of being able to provide some social stability to their own population. So that's these kind of elements that I think are important. And then last element I wanted to mention is that going on the other side of the coin that you discussed is that all this disturbing trend that we are seeing in term of foreign policy. And I think the one that I found the most disturbing is this vastly increasing number of incursion by Russia's Arctic air patrol on the territory of the other state. And all this overfly without authorization and so on. So I really like the recommendation about the kind of code of conduct in the Arctic because that's a risky behavior. That's a kind of difficult to interpret and we had long discussion, the two of us and the three of us. In fact, with Karen in about the intention, the issue, how do we address the issue of intention? Is that power projection, is that self assertion why this need to test the other country? And that's where you have a risk of misinterpretation that you would like to avoid. That's also where you see that unfortunately, the spillover of the Ukrainian crisis and of the general deterioration of the US-Russia relationship or West-Russia relationship is visible in the Arctic because that clearly seems to be a spillover. And then last point, and I will stop here. I think what really remained the main issue is that seen from the Russian side, the re-militarization of the Arctic, it's just part of a big process of just the state reinvesting in the Arctic. If the state reinvesting money, reinvesting energy, trying to delegate things to powerful people around Putin's inner circle, it's the will to repopulate the Arctic, to re-urbanize the Arctic. So seen from the Russian side, this re-militarization is just one element to allow the repopulation and the reintegration of this Arctic remote region into the global Russian framework. But of course, seen from outside like us, we, of course, see mostly the re-militarization element. But the main problem is that the main driver and almost the only driver of all that, it's just a state. It's not really private actor, except if you consider Norris Nickel being really a private actor. But even if it's technically private, it's still part of the big Russian state structure of managing richness and the kind of welfare, Soviet welfare system that you have. So the problem is that it's financially non-sustainable to have millions of people living there. It makes sense historically, it makes sense in terms of national identity perception, but it's very costly. And if everything is coming from the state in a time where we know that money is becoming rare for the Russian state budget, then we have a real issue about the sustainability of this reinvestment that we have seen this last year in the Arctic. And given the fact that the Russian state is decided to invest so much money in military spending, what does that mean for the region if suddenly there is not enough money for all the other aspect I mentioned? And that's really something that I think we should take into consideration because no one in Russia wants to live again the trauma of the early 90s and that the big fear generally that everybody wants to avoid that to come back. So I think Russia is really as a kind of economic crossroad today and the decision that are taken today, they will really shape the next decade and the fact that this choice of military spending, even if it's thought also are the way to kind of help framing the global reinvestment in the Arctic. It's something that I found relatively disturbing because we also would like to see more public spending in everything related to the sustainability of these big Arctic issues and to investment in human capital. And I think that's really one of the big challenge of the Russian state is that if you invest in military capital, it's usually means you are not investing in your human capital. And that's kind of the sad side of the story and I would just stop here. Thank you. Thank you so much, Steve. Excuse me. First of all, it's flattering to be asked to speak here because I'm just a reporter and when I set out to work on Arctic issues, Heather is the first person I call and I think the report highlights her expertise. I highly recommend it. I would start by telling a story from last year when I was in Salahard on the Arctic Circle just below Yamal and I met the director of the museum there, Ludmila Lipatova, a wonderful woman and she told me this story, which might be legend, but it's a good story, so I check. During World War II, the Great Patriotic War, the local Manets people, one of the herders, reported back to the Soviet authorities that they had seen a giant fish in the Obe Gulf and that there were men walking on the fish who then got off the fish and came ashore, went back onto the fish and disappeared. They had no idea what they were doing, what they had seen. And as she told the story, the Soviet authorities realized that this was a Nazi submarine that had actually landed in the Arctic. And as a result of that, they realized that there was exposure, that the northern flank was in some way vulnerable to an incursion like this. And as a result, through the gulag built up a lot of the infrastructure in that area, including a railroad that became known as the dead railroad, not because so many prisoners died, though thousands did, but because it was never really completed and it ended up going nowhere. And she told the story and she ended by saying it was just like NATO today. And I think she was joking. But she touched on something that I think is really behind a lot of what we're seeing. The idea that Russia's Arctic flank, if you will, is somehow exposed or vulnerable. And as Heather pointed out, the report points out, this is an enormous part of Russia's economic and national security, 20% of the GDP. And it's something that they obviously have put at the center of their foreign policy. And I thought of this when I was in Murmans more recently and if you've been there, you know there's an enormous monument to the war, the soldier, Ilosha, and it's dedicated to the defenders of the Arctic. And the war, as everybody here knows, resonates so much more deeply in Russia because of the proximity, obviously, the horrible cost that the Soviet Union paid to defeat the Nazis. And I think it resonates more deeply than we appreciate in policies today. It's not just a matter of the propaganda or some sort of rallying of national unity. It's something that's felt almost by every single Russian. In fact, when I was up there, I went to this town called Teterberka, which is on the Kulia Peninsula a couple hours from Murmans. And I went with this guy, Igor, who was a terrific guy. He was a tour guide. He has this dream of sort of building a yacht club in kind of a tourist center in this tiny little village. If you don't know, it was the scene, this location for the film Leviathan, which came out, one of the bleakest films I've ever seen. But I highly recommend it anyway. And as we were driving along with Igor, he was explaining to me places where, you know, the Soviet Union had airfields during the war, you know, where they, you know, Murmans had much more fighting, obviously, and the old golf did. But, you know, it was a visceral part of his life. And he's the young guy. He's 30. He's not an old veteran of the war by any means. So it's this notion of conflict in the Arctic. It's not as strange as it might seem to some of us. You know, we had fighting in the Aleutian Islands during the war, but I don't know that many people know much about that. So, by the way, after we were there in the village for about two hours, the FSB called him and asked him what he was doing with two foreigners in town. So the idea to me anyway of an invasion of Russia from the North is preposterous. I don't know who would conceive of it, but I don't think that it's so crazy to the people in the Kremlin, especially Vladimir Putin, you know, who has his own family history from the war. And it's often very close to the surface of the policies that you see. Again, the idea of an invasion might seem crazy, but if you remember the case of the Greenpeace International boat at Arctic Sunrise, it went up to the oil platform that was on one of the pictures. They did it actually a year before in 2012, went back into 2013, and you know, the Russians the second time responded rather vigorously to that protest boarded the ship and as you know, put them in jail for about 100 days before they were all amnestyed. And I think that it's not unreasonable to imagine that Russia or at least some people in Russia could have seen Greenpeace basically as a probe, you know, a test of Russia's, you know, defenses up there. And Russia failed, to be honest. I mean, out of these guys get up on that platform, you know, it was, and I think that's partly why they responded so harshly. And it's not coincidental, I don't think, that you saw a lot of the increased rhetoric about defending the Arctic, some of the military buildup come after that protest. It obviously coincided also with the invasion of Crimea and the annexation, the continuing war in Eastern Ukraine. And from the Russian perspective again, I think that the first shot, if you will, that has been fired in this cold war, this new cold war, if you will, is from their point of view, came from the American side. Very specifically, the sanctions that were imposed after the annexation of Crimea targeted not just oil companies that operate in the Arctic, but specifically technologies designed to help Russia exploit the natural resources up there. Technologies that they now don't have, it affects the financing. Projects that were on the books have been put on hold, the Exxon-Vrosneft project in the Karasi, and there's been a continuing trickle effect that seems to be hurting a lot of companies, including Novotek's project in Yamal and the other major projects up there. And given, again, how important the natural resources that are contained in the Arctic are to Russia's economy, what the US did was a strike right at the heart of its security. Whether or not that's the right thing was the right decision. It's not for me to say. Some people would like to see the US respond even more harshly, based on what's happened in Ukraine. But nonetheless, it's a signal. It was a very deliberate choice by the US to target its Arctic assets. So when you talk about cooperation in the Arctic, which many people do, this administration does, certainly the Arctic Council does, but it's important to understand that from Russia's side, there is a competition underway, and they're not the only ones making provocative moves. You know, the last Arctic Council meeting was overshadowed by the tensions out of Ukraine. And I think that it's going to be something that continues. John Kerry organized this big summit that will be up in Anchorage on Monday. I hope to get to go. And they've invited the Russians, all the ministers. But you know, very pointedly, I think Russia declined to send Lavrov and is sending its ambassador from here, which is a fairly low-level representation, given the importance that at least John Kerry put on that. You know, Heather and Marlene both talked about the duality. And I did hear from a lot of the Russians that I spoke with, Rostad and Float and the like, about the desire for cooperation. You still hear that in all of the Russian statements that they don't want to politicize what's happening up there. But I think that that's already happened. And I think the people who talk about, you know, the desire for cooperation are largely the kind of people who will talk to a foreign reporter like me, the ones who aren't willing to talk to me or the ones who are making the decisions right now. So I think the duality exists, but I think it's tipped definitely onto the security side of things from the Russian point of view. And with that. Well, thank you so much to you both. And two points, I just, I thank you so much for highlighting them. And we talk about this in the report, but I want to emphasize it. The strong sense of history for the Russian Arctic, not just, you know, what is sometimes referred to as the Red Arctic, which was Stalin's incredible modernization. It was sort of that man conquering forces, the industrialization, money of which we see today. It was the heroism, the famous rescues of Russian scientists. In some ways, we fast forward to that in 2014. There was the other first Russian airdrop onto an ice flow. Again, it sort of hearkened back to that. So this use of sort of, you know, national history, national narrative, it is impressive to them. And they are pulling that narrative forward. And I think in many ways, Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin's comments try to pull that great history of accomplishment and trying to return to that in a 21st century context. But as Marlene mentioned, and Steve, but you need foreign help with that. You need the technology for a 21st century Arctic development, and they're pushing that away. And it's being sanctioned. And you're absolutely right. I'd never thought about the sanctions being the first shot, if you will, to try to challenge Russia's Arctic development as it perceives it. I think that's an incredible point. Marlene, I really appreciated your remark about if you only see remilitarization, because that's sort of the methodology for reinvestment. That's how you interpret it. And it is a much more nuanced domestic sentiment. As Marlene, we had lots of great debates. And so to tell you where I come out, I sort of agree with Steve. I think we've tipped. I think for a variety of reasons why we've tipped both domestic development, the geopolitical environment, and again, hearkening back to the great patriotic war. In some ways, the Arctic is Russia's access to the North Atlantic, and to keep that is quite critical. And then finally, there's sort of a question, and we've mentioned in the report, this sort of sense, well, maybe there's some sort of Arctic exceptionalism or the Arctic is going to be immune to all of this because we all need and want international cooperation. Again, I think if there's one thing I hope our report says, the Arctic is not immune, it can't be immune. It's too important to Russia. Both the US missile defense architecture and Russia's strategic nuclear deterrent are in the Arctic. It's too geopolitically important. We can, I think, again, create a framework to try to return back to confidence building, transparency, so we don't misinterpret each other. And that's what's starting to happen. But the Arctic is not immune. And calling Russia a partner in the Arctic is not going to make it immune. We have to deal with what we're seeing today. If I'm gonna just throw a question to Steve and Marlene, and while you guys start thinking of some questions that you may have, and you can ask all three of us, but I'd really like you to focus on Steve and Marlene. Just kidding. But let's talk about the president's trip to Alaska, as well as the Secretary Kerry hosted conference. I think my frustration about describing this is I'm not sure how to describe it. It is not an Arctic Council meeting, although the Arctic Council members and observers are invited. It is not a preparatory meeting for the Paris Climate Change Summit, COP 21 in December, but it's gonna feel a little bit like that, and that's in sort of its purpose. So it's to highlight, obviously, the Arctic is really feeling the biggest impact of global climate change, warming two to three times faster than any place on the earth. The president's going to highlight that in his travels to highlight the need for climate change. But is this a missed opportunity? Should the president's Secretary Kerry be addressing, although it's not designed to do this, these other issues, or should we just stick to something safe, which is not safe, it's very dramatic, the climate change agenda? And I just welcome your thoughts on, with all the geopolitical dynamics we've talked about, is this a missed opportunity, not to try to get at these issues, or is it a safer play to focus on the climate agenda? But I think the problem is that if you want to have a consensual, some consensus you need to talk about climate change, even if it's not always consensual, but clearly if you want to begin addressing the fact that the Arctic region is really meeting this kind of confidence-building measure and something more about a security issue, then it would, of course, re-open, make the door largely open for geopolitical even more of the arting that it is. So I think it was a kind of safe choice. But there are some other, I think the good point about also discussing climate change is that it's really maintaining the door open for everything related to scientific cooperation. And that's really a key issue where the US-Russia cooperation is going well, in fact. And that's really something where it could even be more developed. Look at the cooperation in space, knowledge. That's something which is going relatively well, and that's something where this cooperation is important for both sides. And I think all this kind of polar knowledge, scientific cooperation going on between the two countries is something that we should be pushing for, like Cold War time also, remember for those of you who remembered where the American-Soviet cooperation was very much a scientific one. So I think that's through the climate change, you can also try to maintain this kind of line of dialogue. But of course, we will be missing the confidence-building elements dramatically. I would just say Admiral Papp, who's the State Department's envoy, I saw him a couple of weeks ago, and I asked him about the conference. And I think that the most interesting thing he said is that the real goal of the conference as well as the President's visit is to raise awareness of the Arctic, not for the other Arctic nations, the ministers who will be there who obviously don't need to be told of the importance of the Arctic, but for the American public. And that there is a broad feeling in among people I talk to that the United States doesn't really think of itself as an Arctic nation, and it's particularly compared to the way that Russia does, as we've just talked about historically, as well as in terms of economics and security. I think that may be overblown a little bit. I think people who are smart understand that Alaska's up in the Arctic, but I think that there is a feeling politically for the President, certainly, that as he pushes his climate change proposals that showing the impact that it's having on the Arctic, on the people who live up there, he's going to Katsabu, he's gonna see coastal erosion and these kinds of things. He's, by the virtue of a presidential visit, will have tons of reporters following him, and that will focus some attention on the Arctic issues in terms of the administration's climate agenda, particularly. In the secretaries part of it, the big conference will have, I mean, I think that it's always good diplomats will tell you to sit around and talk, but the, you know, Secretary Kerry did invite Lavrov to come, so yes, there might have been an opportunity for these issues to come up. I'm sure they will in Anchorage, either formally in the agenda or on the sidelines, but the fact that the Russians are coming means that it's not, that part of it is not gonna be taking place. I think the one question, just looking on the Arctic climate change agenda and as the picture showed that the Russian Federation is gonna have to build an enormous amount of resilience to the change that's already happening, the change that will come. I don't sense in, I don't know whether in your conversations when you were visiting the Russian Arctic this summer, whether, you know, are we going to see substantial change in Russian environmental policies? You mentioned Norilsk, they have, because it was becoming a political issue locally to try to prevent, but I, you know, as much as the Arctic Council is going to focus on, you know, trying rightly to reduce black carbon emissions, I don't sense that, you know, the Russian government is gonna slow gas flaring down because of the concern about environmental sensitivity. Russian strategies have incredible depth on sustainable development. It's not that it's not written. I just don't see where the practical application is happening to either prepare for the change, mitigate some of the change that's going on. And so how does, you know, as the United States is going to speak in much more forcefully on climate change, obviously, will we see any modification in Russia's environmental policy, again, as their economic situation is increasingly precarious? Steve, have you ever thought on that? One thing that I've noticed in Russia, and this goes back to a project I did on the Arctic 10 years ago, is that there is much less of a consensus at least on a government policy level about the impact of climate change and the cause of it. And I think one of the deputy director of operations for Adam Float, which runs the ice breakers that I saw in Vermont, he said, you know, this is a cycle. Yes, there's unquestionably been warmer climate. That's why they can open the northern sea route for longer periods of time and so forth. That's their whole mission. But he said, you know, the after the ice was at its lowest point in 2012, it increased again. And he said, and I hear this often from Russians, much more than I do from the scientific community here, that this is not something that's inevitable. It's not permanent. And I think that that, as it does with people who oppose efforts to reduce emissions in this country and other countries, they don't see it as necessarily an urgent problem. And so the Russians being very practical as well, I think that they're just looking at what's around them right now. They've always operated in the Arctic. And you know, if it's a little bit warmer and there's a little bit less ice for now, they'll take advantage of that. But they won't plan that it's a permanent change. And I don't think you see much of the change in at all in the environmental policy that you were talking about. I totally agree. If you look at the Russian School of Climateology, it's much less consensual on climate change and the reason for climate change than the Western School. And also you have this Russian narrative that trying to impose kind of strong environmental policy would either way by the ways to slow down the economic revival of Russia. And Russia cannot afford that, especially now. That said, I mean, at the local level, you can see at the municipal level and also at the firm, the private company level, you can see that they try to mitigate at the kind of everyday level things. Norris Nikhel, which is one of the most polluting. Big firm in Russia has been making some improvement and so on. So you have this kind of policy that for people at the everyday life, they can say, okay, it's now a little bit better than it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago at the collapse of the Soviet Union. But that will not be a big kind of policy because that would be considered so costly for the Russian state. And I think a key element to understanding that just Russia, I mean, the Russian authority think they need to gain time. So if they try to invest in the, I mean, to make this costly investment in trying to have kind of clean energy, it would be so costly, generally for the state of the Russian economy, that in a sense they just hope to postpone the moment and to find a way to mitigate or to become more resilient. And then when the issue will be really there, as you said, there will be pragmatically dealing with it, but there is not this kind of long-term perspective because the long-term one is just economic revival. I think that's incredibly helpful to think about that. One final question, I'm gonna zoom out to the geopolitics and then I'm gonna ask our audience to jump in and start asking some questions. One thing we talked about in the report but we did mention here is the increasing presence of China in the Russian Arctic brought there obviously by energy resources and cooperative projects in the Yamal mega project of science, bringing Chinese scientists, China is constructing its second non-nuclear icebreaker now and observer state to the Arctic Council. They're sending a representative to the Anchorage meeting. How in some of our analysis, we felt some of the enhanced posture of Russia, security posture in the Arctic, certainly had a lot to do about the West and NATO in the US but it also had some element of China and again the duality on the one hand, seeking Chinese investment very much so right now because of sanctions wanting greater Chinese engagement in the energy sector and as a client but feeling very uncomfortable about an increased physical presence there. In fact, again, Russian Defense Minister Shoigu even saying the non-arctic states, I'm badly paraphrasing sort of the hubris that they are becoming much more proactive in the Arctic and sort of again, maybe if you could talk and I know you've done some research on the Russia-Sino relationship maybe you can give us some insights on that and then again, audience gets your questions ready, we'll turn to you. I think that's the right point and you see the same duality and in a sense if we try to summarize that it's kind of yes to China on the land part because you need Chinese money and Chinese firms investing in energy extraction but not to China on the sea. So that's this kind of sea land difference which because the Russian state also understand very clearly that if really the Arctic Ocean became open to navigation not only along the Northern Sea route but just globally it's also mean that all the money that the Russian state may hope to do along the Northern Sea will not be there if ships and especially Chinese ships are able to cross the middle of the ocean and that's clearly probably one of the Chinese key long-term perspective. So that is duality yes to Chinese investment on land but not to kind of Chinese control or management or ability to be very active on the sea part of the question. I would just add that the Russian submission to the UN on the seabed territorial expansion is directed really at that issue. If they can stake a claim all the way to the North Pole that would preclude the notion of independently ships being able to go through without essentially paying the Russian fee to go through the Northern Sea route. And in fact again we know this in the report. I think this was brought home very clearly. I believe it was two years ago when a Russian iceberg or scientific vessel had gone to Svalbard had traveled there and on the way back it was September the sea ice was at its lowest they were able to travel outside the easy the Russian easy. And again that's pretty dramatic because you can't capture the fees which allow you to build the infrastructure and to do the development. And then there is a question of control and feeling again that vulnerability Steve as you mentioned the Northern vulnerability of that. So I think again the transits are so small it's nothing to get too wildly excited about but it is at a long-term perspective that must be understood. All right now it's your turn you will unleash our audience any questions they have about the Russian Arctic well if you can raise your hand and we will get us started and Caitlin is the perfect person to get us started. Another noted scholar on the Russian Arctic so look out. I'd love for you to have turned that map upside down and showing it in a more polar perspective because from that perspective it looks like a giant Gulf of Mexico. And if you look at the type of bases we have in that region this isn't very threatening. I mean it's the type of thing you do if you have a coast. But I came across a video a couple nights ago of American troops marching through Vladivostok in 1919. In fact I can understand a Russian concern because during World War I when Russia had pulled out of the war we had a lot of concern about military material in Murmansk and troops were sent in there. But for some reason we also sent them in through Vladivostok, invited 70,000 Japanese troops in. So I mean there is a concern given Russia's respect for history or maybe not respect but a more awareness of things like this. I could see that being an additional driving force and concern for protecting the Arctic. But for the most part these are the air bases are airstrips. It's just not overly threatening as I understand it. Except for submarines there's been no construction of ice capable naval ships, no warships on the surface. There is construction of Coast Guard ships but those are not armed like even like our national security cutters. So to me it still looks like a domestic approach to the Arctic not an internationalist, not an outward looking but a local defense activity. So I just throw that out as I think that's important because when we say military we think aggression. When we say Coast Guard we think defense. And as I look at it I see much more of that. Once you get away from Murmansk where they have their submarines and it's a strategic issue. So if you could talk a little bit about how Russia really perceives that and whether they are looking aggressive or defensive in their approach to the Arctic. I would say a couple of things. You're right about the history of course and the Soviet Union and Russia historically have always feared invasion. I think they've always felt vulnerable to that. I do think that after the collapse of the Soviet Union we had a period of what two decades where I think the paradigm certainly shifted here. Maybe not entirely among everyone but I personally have never come across like a secret plan to dominate Russia militarily. I mean I think that we were, there was a period where through several administrations where we saw an opportunity to integrate Russia into a sort of global community, global security architecture. That's failed now I think and I think the administration understands that and is still trying to figure out like how do we deal with now a hostile Russia again. On the question of the resources that are being put up there I've asked people about this and there's not an enormous amount of concern yet in the United States military. Admiral Pap again he said he'd like to see us do in Alaska what Russia is doing there in terms of having more search and rescue capability. I was just up with the Coast Guard's cutter that Alex Haley which is spending a few weeks up there floating around for domain awareness but also for the shell projects the drilling that's underway right now and that's all that the United States has up there right now and they're gonna send a few more ships so there's even the Coast Guard coming on will tell you that he's strained in terms of the resources that he has to be able to deploy up there as human activity increases not just shell but ships passing through the barrens on the way to the Russian Northern Sea Route but also up to the other projects they're going on up there, increase fishing, even tourism and so forth. So I think in some respects what the US from the US or NATO perspective what's happening in the Russian Arctic is not necessarily provocative. I think what is as the Heather points out the report points out the provocative military exercises the nuclear saber rattling that's going on which is always very dangerous kind of talk and the air patrols that they're doing quite aggressively along all the Arctic as well as Baltic Sea including in Alaska buzzing up to the border and so forth. That's the Cold War stuff we did for a long time but again in 91 it stopped and we kind of thought we'd move beyond that and I think we're gonna be back into that that era of testing provocations and so forth. Yeah to follow on that I think that's why I mentioned you know this Arctic center of the Ministry of Emergency Situation because this Arctic center by this ministry I see them really are just managing remotedness and difficulties. It's purely domestic it has no other goal and in fact their ability I mean their scope of activities is relatively modest so if a ship's in difficulties at the level of the port of Dixon this Dundinkas center can even not help. So you will have this Ministry of Emergency Situation taking care more at this kind of domestic level and then you will have the FSB Arctic Brigade that will be most kind of coast guard border but even that I mean in case of difficulties of a ship in that part I mean the bar and sea being a kind of on the side but all the other part of the Arctic it would be very modest things you would have between 20 and 60 people there rotating with we don't know which kind of equipment on the paper it looks great it's very costly and so I think it's very modest and we should be happy just to have anything functioning in terms of search and rescue if something happened. Then the other element is that the northern sea I mean and the northern fleet it's another issue it's in the Arctic maybe if we want to see it but I think it's really it's another issue because that's really the bilateral US Russia relationship and nuclear deterrence issue that is going on. So I see it really I mean the northern fleet is really linked to a kind of spillover issue than this air patrol also why what is going on after I mean after you part the the the bar and sea the bar and sea is for me more kind of domestic or managing of crises and anything else. The commandant of the Coast Guard told me that he is the only one of the service chiefs who can now meet with his counterpart in Russia and they do still meet and they on the issue of search and rescue oil spill response the things that the Arctic Council have proposed have actually pledged to develop jointly there is still progress going on and they cooperate on the fisheries enforcement along the border the maritime border with Russia and the barren seas excuse me and that as long as I think they can continue that level of cooperation it might be one of the kind of confidence building measures I think it's the military aspect again that I think is the concern. And Caitlin I think to your point and this is one of the recommendations in the report we need I think the US government Washington policy makers need to assess what this is and I think we try to scrub the facts and sort of try to understand what's domestic what's not or excessive to domestic use and I think on the soft security side the Arctic Coast Guard Forum which will be formally launched this fall which will invite the head of the Russian FSB here to New London Connecticut to the Coast Guard Academy is an important part but that's sort of the safety the stewardship what we call the soft security the real missing piece here is the hard security stuff and as we were seeing absolutely the search and rescue centers we all don't have enough and the Russians have the most infrastructure that we can have but we're starting to see where it's dual use. Okay so what does that mean? So is it just for civilian law enforcement? Does it have something else? It gets to the transparency part and we just don't have that mechanism to understand if it's a problem if it's not a problem. I just worry because we're not thinking through and we're not developing a forum for discussion because if there's not a NATO Russia council that's working right now we are just we're gonna misinterpret each other a little too quickly and that's what we need to get our arms around but I'd like policymakers in the intelligence community to assess this and if they come out and say yeah you know we're okay with it but I you know I think there's some warning signs that we need to understand but that's a great question. Great I see a couple of hands so why don't we bundle a few questions? Anna we'll start up here at this quarter and then we'll go and take those two questions thank you and again please identify yourself with your name and affiliation. Yes hi Eugene Babel from the Stevenson Foundation. A quick question to anyone who wants to take it. Are there any specific projects that aim for environmental protection in the Arctic that Russia is doing? Any initiatives at all? Marine protection, land protection, anything? Thank you. Thank you. My name is Anita Parlo recently advisor to the Harvard MIT Arctic Fisheries Project and may I congratulate you on this remarkable presentation that tries and did in fact bring together a variety of very complex dimensions and attempt to both separate them out and look at them together and you brought it to a point for questions I would like to ask. One is when you're looking at the Russian perspective and you brought it back to World War II and the sense of immediacy of what happened and you could probably go back to the Czars and Napoleon so when you look at NATO and the claims are articulation of NATO enlargement and the sense of feeling pushed and what that might mean should it move to the Arctic which Canada right now does not want to see and in the context of Russia's utilization of international law to state and make its claims and a sense of as you pointed out 20% of its economic development and a significant amount of its forward vision in terms of economics and development being in that area might there be a rethink in terms of our policy of how we think we might want to utilize NATO or not utilize NATO in that part of the world and might that a diminishment of that or mitigation of that lead to a greater degree of trust on both sides and therefore a capacity to communicate where otherwise they might not be because why do you want to communicate with somebody who's pushing in a military sense if you see it that way as a matter of perception and second part was on the environmental questions and the discussion about what comes first environmental protection or development which is certainly a question since the industrial revolution including our own and if you've been to North Dakota so you could run the whole state on gas flaring every year in terms of what has been flared so in terms of a we approach rather than what are you doing that isn't this is a question might it make sense to look at that dimension as well and then the increased presence of China I thought that was extremely interesting point and the question would be your exact question so if you're building economically et cetera and you think about NATO and you want to move forward not only with your constabulary capabilities but also your military capabilities and you look at what's opening up economically and you got melting ice going on do you not want to protect your northern shores so thank you. Linda Fernandez, Virginia Commonwealth University quick question with dynamics changing in China would you envision a wider involvement perhaps from Korea other Asian players for Russian capital? I think CSIS needs to do a report on Asian actors in the Arctic that may be our next one so we have US Russian environmental cooperation NATO's role in the Arctic and question about China and Asia presence who would like to begin? See. On the environmental steps if I understood the question right the you've seen some steps that all the Arctic nations have taken pledging good stewardship and so forth there was recently agreement among the five to suspend unregulated commercial fishing in the Arctic until they can figure out do more science essentially on the stocks that are there. Putin despite his perception well deserved the he's a bit of an environmentalist or at least a conservationist and one of the projects that has gone on in the Arctic is to clean up some of the debris that's been left by the Soviet Union and the bases they did abandon and if you've ever been up into the Arctic you know it's a difficult environment so when your car breaks down you just leave it there you don't take it out so imagine the massive Soviet military might that was up there and so all along these islands and I saw it in places like Tixie you see it around Murmansk you see it at Taraberka the village I was in that this sort of military detritus is all over the place and they've announced projects to go and clean some of these spaces and it's gonna take a long time of course but they are doing it they've also created more preserves and sanctuaries and so forth so in that sense you know it's not like Russian ignores the environment entirely. Yeah to follow on that it's really the Russian and it's in fact a Soviet tradition of what is called conservationism and not environmentalism which means that it's easier for example they have been recreating several kind of national parks that are protected from any kind of human activities you can say it's relatively easy to decide for when you have a huge territory with little population it's kind of free of charge decision that doesn't really tackle the big issues but yeah there are some initiative in term of managing waste from the Soviet system and otherwise it's really done at the level either of municipalities so it's very modest or at the level of cooperation themselves if they feel pressure not by their own state but just by their kind of reputational issues globally. On the NATO things I think and probably either would be the best to answer that I don't think NATO can be a solution in the Arctic. On the issue of cooperation with other Asian states so Russia is cooperating in fact with Japanese and Korean films in terms of ship buildings and that's a relatively big field where Korea is becoming very very active but the three Asian countries plus Russia are still having kind of fishing tension in the Northern Pacific you have a lot of illegal fishing things going on between and really kind of tensions between the four countries. The big question for Russia is that if they really want to try to turn more toward Asia without turning totally toward China they need to put Japan in the picture if you really want to put Japan in the picture you need to sit and discuss what you will do with the cruel island and try to solve that I think one of the big issue that Putin is following closely but he still has to make a decision that if you don't want to kind of be in a uniquely bilateral framework frame with China you need to find a way to build something more solid with Japan. On the environmental cooperation and we really tried to explore that as a way again sort of that softer side to keep dialogue going. The practical challenge is because of the NGO law because of the foreign agent requirement it now in some ways it's an anathema to have a Western scientist or even academic contact and that's just a practical issue that's going to make scientific cooperation more difficult. It is occurring at the Arctic Council through the working groups but again I think the hope for doing some larger efforts and again in the 90s if you remember the AMAC the Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation where we were sending a lot of Western assistance Norwegian funds and elsewhere to clean up the radioactive units that were still left behind that type of cooperation just simply doesn't exist so I think that's an area where we need to do some more exploration but it's going to run into some practical applications. On NATO's role in the Arctic Article 5 extends to the Arctic full stop but NATO has no formal role in the Arctic at all so I agree it's not going to be a vehicle right now to bring in that type of cooperation but there should be no misunderstanding the treaty obligations do extend to the Arctic and I think it's been very interesting watching the Asian dimension towards the Arctic obviously when the Asian countries joined as observer states to the Arctic Council all the observers are trying to figure out their way they want to be more involved obviously there's great commercial interests in shipbuilding, oil platforms and certainly the Asian technology is fantastic but there's also, there's a lack of understanding about the Arctic and so I think that will evolve over time but it's been a very interesting because there's been this tension between well we call them the Arctic Five the five littoral states, the Arctic Eight of the eight Arctic Council members and even there's tensions between the five and the three and now you have 12 observer countries not let alone non-governmental organizations the Arctic table's getting very big and there's some concern that that's crowding out the voices of the region, particularly the indigenous so watch that space you're really seeing where the Arctic is becoming a more global discussion topic but there's a lot of resistance because the coastal states in particular as Steve mentioned this regulated this fishing agreement was for the central Arctic there are no fish in the central Arctic so it was a preventive sort of proactive diplomacy to say we need more science so but that was at the five and there was even controversy I'm looking at the Icelandic ambassador here there was a little tension with why was an Iceland included in that so these issues are going to have some really challenging dimensions in the future I think we're going to take one more quick rapid round and then we'll let our panelists conclude I see Ariel there and then there's one question up at the top good morning Ariel Cohen, the Atlantic Council as we are watching the Russian economy declining and the oil prices projected to stay in the 40 to 60 quarter probably into 2020 that raises serious questions about the profitability of any Russian oil and gas projects in the Arctic and if the money into the Russian budget is going down and these projects are not viable why on earth you would spend billions of dollars if you're in Moscow if you're the Kremlin why would you spend this money shoring up the Arctic I understand if these are great projects in the Karasi and you know Stockman well Stockman is not really Arctic et cetera but looking into the future looking at Shale in West Siberia that would be cheaper than the Arctic looking at the US continental North America and other places Iran coming online Iraq hopefully peace pacifying and producing more oil and gas why would you even bother thank you thank you very provocative question Ariel thank you we have one more question right here in the front and then we will conclude hi it's Emily Meredith from excuse me from energy intelligence and I also have an energy related question and that's just you all talked a little bit about how the imposition of sanctions on Russia's oil and gas sector were viewed and I was wondering if you could just speak a little bit to how the US's own Arctic drilling program that's been permitted recently is viewed Steve I'm gonna just have you start and then we'll close up those are both great questions I would ask alright I would say you could ask Shell the very same question they put seven billion dollars so far into the field off of Barrow and oil is 40 bucks so you know it's not gonna be profitable at that level at that price Shell says in their defense that they're looking way ahead and I think the Russians are doing the same thing I mean there's at least according to estimates so much oil and gas up there that on the assumption that we continue to consume natural resources eventually that's gonna be accessible the question I think and certainly this administration is pushing in and many others are is whether or not you can you know wean yourself from the reliance on oil and gas that would make drilling up there not necessary and you know can that happen I'm not an oil expert so I don't know but there are some people who would like to see that happen in which case you would have to rethink the amount of money that you're investing in these fields Stockman was a big project and the town I went to is because that was where the terminal was gonna be and they built a road through town they built all this infrastructure and then the market changed and you know Stockman's not gonna be built anytime soon even Putin says it's for the next generation so to some degree I think the uncertainty of both the economic situation but also the climate situation is partly why you see the investments continuing but maybe a little less vigorously now certainly a lot have been put on hold not just in Russia but in other parts of the Arctic in terms of exploration projects and so forth Shell is pressing ahead and I think they'll make a decision based on what they find this summer you might see that project also go on the Shell for a while Yeah, to follow on that I think one of the that's a big issue especially for Gazprom because the investment made in the Yamal Peninsula are really based on something that is totally unrealistic and that's given the correct market and that's why also you see so much Russian interest to try to have China financing that or to try to sell to China because even if the market the price are collapsing well you can still consider that looking toward Asia in the next 10 year you can still sell or at least that the Russian projection of trying that I think the point for Russia is also more complex is that many things in the Arctic are not related to Orenga they are related to mineral extraction that's the point of Norilsnikel I mean you don't have Orenga they just extraction of metals so if the price of nickel, copper, zinc whatever collapse that's also impacting largely where you have the big urban infrastructure and that's a big issue so they also are looking very closely not only at Orengas but also at the market of minerals because in term of urban structure and ability to maintain this kind of population in the Arctic that's very much more now linked to the world price of minerals globally than to the Orengas sector Yeah, we call it the Arctic paradox and in some ways the president's visit is a perfect example of that paradox so he's traveling to Anchorage to highlight the impact of climate change and to reduce green gas emissions to try to mitigate this at the same time, but Shell is doing two exploratory wells that the administration agreed to and in fact is anticipating extending more leases for the Chutky Sea that's the paradox that you have but Steve is absolutely right it's because the reserves the potential reserves are extraordinary these development horizons are 20, 30, 40 years out that which goes down may eventually go up and so these are very long term strategies but I'm going to be fascinated and I hope we do some public discussions about this after Shell season hearing what their assessment is because I think they've been very candid that this is really going to be a make or break decision for them about going forward as well as our preparedness now the Coast Guard goes up there seasonally that's when we have presence but that is our infrastructure it's only seasonal we're not thinking as a country for as a long term development plan for the American Arctic we certainly don't have the aspirational vision that the Russian government has on it's economic development but I assure you if there is an accident in the Russian Chutky it will be an accident in the American side of the Chutky and that's what we have to prepare for well this has been a fantastic conversation after two years this report is almost like a birthing process I feel like the baby is out we've nurtured this for a while but we hope you'll read it it's online we hope it stimulates further conversation and again my very special thanks to Caroline Roloff who's been absolutely instrumental in developing this this is her last week here with us at CSIS so as I ask you to applaud both Marlene and Steve for fabulous insights I want you to share that applause for Caroline as she leaves CSIS for greater adventures thank you