 Well, dear friends, welcome to our virtual presentation from the Newport Artics Scholar Initiative. I would like to recognize Admiral Burrera, who has joined us today, and also Ambassador Judy McLeanon. Welcome to this presentation and release of the 2020 Newport Artics Scholar Initiative on Complete Prevention and Security Cooperation in the Arctic Region. This report reflects the consensus about among 19 scholars and military practitioners on the future development of security frameworks for the Arctic regions. It illustrates the US Naval War College longstanding commitment to advancing excellence in education, research and international maritime cooperation. But first, let me thank the support from the President of War College Admiral Chatfield for advice and leadership that have been crucial to our research. I would also like to thank the deans Tom Calora from the Naval Warfare Studies and Dean Mangel from the International Program for their support throughout the work, and a special thank to our event department for all their support arranging this and other events during our work. The group of scholars and military professionals from seven Arctic countries have evaluating existing security frameworks and governmental institution covering the Arctic region. And we will present bold new initiatives that may contribute to shape a long term stability of the Arctic region. This report provides leaders in government and academia, practical steps to open channels of communication and enhancing cooperation on areas of security and defense interest among nations and navies in the Arctic region. This research builds on the 2018 Newport Arctic Scholar Initiative work presented to Arctic heads of navies at an international seapowers symposium in September 2018. Arctic nations and navies recognize that the existing Arctic security architecture have significant limitations and have tossed our scholars to find better security frameworks that recognize the new circumpolar development. The world is changing, and what seems certain is that the Arctic is becoming increasingly prominent in the defense and security policies of major powers in and outside the Arctic region. Arctic states increasingly stressed the need to defend their maritime approaches, exercises their sovereign rights and protect their northern territories and waters. To Russia, the Arctic is core issues regarding security and economic development, but also other Arctic and non Arctic states are slowly increasing their awareness of Arctic issues. The Arctic is a new corridor between Asia and Europe and connects three continents on the top of the world, and to analyze international relations in the Arctic is complex. It covers a broad spectrum of interests from the national level to several regional levels, all existing within the international global system. Our Arctic studies have the advantage of working with the US Naval War College like the Russian and China Study Institute, as well with dedicated experts in faculty and international partners. This approach provides a unique circumpolar holistic view of Arctic research and strategies, focusing not only on the Arctic as a region, but Arctic development as part of global trends and challenges. In the frame of great power competition with China and growing tension between Russia and the West, it may be hard to see a way forward. Inviting Russia in hard security dialogue or cooperation on confidence building measures seems to be our biggest challenge. The continuous challenge from Russia as a revisionist power, not only regarding annexation of Crimea, but increasingly additional sanctions due to use of chemical weapons and other political warfare issues, seems to prevent necessary military dialogue in the Arctic. However, the growing tension has strategic and environmental consequences in the Arctic. The current situation drives Russia closer to China, and they are becoming strategic partners in Arctic development and may become more global strategic partners in the current security environment. The current strategy is necessary. We need to deter from further aggression. But are there alternatives for the long-term Arctic development, like isolate the Arctic for Arctic countries or include non-Arctic in the shared Arctic governance? This report have explored existing frameworks and looked at new ways and means to get a peaceful end state in the Arctic and leaves the option and consequences of implementing the options to our political masters. But where do we go from here? The Arctic is key strategic terrain. Plain former Secretary of Defense General Mattis in his confirmation hearing in 2017. The U.S. Air Force has just issued their new Arctic strategy and the father of the U.S. Air Force, General Billy Mitchell said, You know, whoever holds Alaska holds the role. It is the most strategic place in the world. The Air Force represents about 70% of the Department of Defense budget allocated to the Arctic. And the U.S. Navy and the Marines is currently working on a new Arctic strategy. You all hope the Arctic will remain a region of low tension, where Arctic states pursue responsible stewardship and all states support an international rule-based order in the Arctic. But hope is not a strategy. And the U.S. Navy work, Navy War College will continue to provide both visionaries research and advice to support our U.S. Navy, U.S. Marines and our strategic partners. So, lastly, let me thank all the 2020 Newport Arctic scholars for lending their knowledge and expertise and experience over this challenging year. And I would like to recognize my co-leader and the leadership of the Naval War College, Dr. Walter Berber, who directed the program and this report. So now I will leave the floor to my friend and he will take us through today's program. Thank you very much. Thank you, Lars. Appreciate it. And again, welcome everyone and I want to echo the thanks to our leadership here and more specifically to the 19 sailors and scholars from Arctic nations who lent their time and expertise over the course of the last 10 months. And it really has been challenging, but we've been able to adapt and we've been able to develop consensus on a number of findings and recommendations that you'll hear about today over the next hour or so. And again, what we'll do is we'll spend the first 30 minutes or so discussing those findings and recommendations in a few key areas. And then we'll transition to about a 15 minute Q&A session where you'll have the opportunity and we very much encourage you to submit your questions via the chat function here. And firstly, what we'll do is we'll hear from Commander Rachel Gosnell of the United States. We'll talk about key policy drivers. We'll then transition to Dr. Will Greaves of Canada, who will discuss some of the border and boundary issues. We'll then transition to Commander Johannes Revere of Denmark, who will talk about some of the key geostrategic hotspots in the region. And then we'll hear from Dr. Commander Stefan Lindquist of Sweden. We'll highlight some of those current multilateral forms that we delved into over the 10 months. And then finally, we'll conclude with some key recommendations and implementation from Admiral Saunas in the years ahead. And again, I want to remind all participants and panelists, if you're not speaking, to go ahead and mute your mics. And again, throughout the presentation, we very much encourage you to input your questions in the chat function and I'll go ahead and consolidate those and get those teed up for our Q&A discussion following our last presenter. And with that, I'd like to now transition and hand the mic, the virtual mic over to Commander Rachel Gosnell. Thanks Walter. Appreciate it. It's great to be here today virtually with everyone. So looking forward to the discussions and hoping to share some of our findings. So I'll start off with some of the findings for the policy drivers that we were looking at specifically to help inform our recommendations. And we first defined the region. We went with the standard internationally accepted region of the Arctic, which I think most folks know is defined as that region north of the Arctic Circle. Understanding there are many different definitions, but that was the most applicable to our purposes. And overall, we found the Arctic is a very unique region. It's more a subset of multiple subregions. But the commonalities are such that their vast distances throughout the entire region, tremendously inhospitable conditions, a lack of infrastructure, and a very sparsely populated region, about 4 million people. And so when looking at some of the changes and some of the implications for the future of the Arctic, we really narrowed it down to four primary drivers that we're going to see have an increasing impact on the region. The first of that would be the geopolitical drivers. So we're seeing increasing geostrategic competition in the region. Although the Arctic has largely been peaceful, it's known for a region of low tension and a region of peace and security. Five of the Arctic nations are NATO members, two are NATO partners, and the final the eighth nation is, of course, Russia. But we found the Arctic nations are largely adhering to international norms. There is some room for interpretation on how to look at those rules, particularly for international straits and continental shelves, and some of my colleagues will discuss that further momentarily. But we're also increasingly starting to see non-Arctic nations present in the region, and that brings certain challenges as well as opportunities. So that brings us to the economic drivers. A lot of those nations that are involved in the region are looking at the economic potential. There's no doubt that there are vast natural resources in the region worth tremendous amounts of money, although they're increasingly difficult to access. But we're getting, they're becoming more accessible as the region warms. You have maritime routes opening up. You're seeing a lot more accessibility in terms of ice coverage is that diminishes with the warming of the region. But even time accessibility isn't necessarily a new thing. The Northern Sea route was opened back in the 1930s by the Soviet Union. It was restricted to Soviet flag vessels until the end of the Cold War. But since 1991 you have had limited usage of non-Russian flag vessels along the route, although it's largely remained an intra-Russian transit way. But things are changing. Russia has recently implemented new rules on the Northern Sea route that challenge kind of the rules-based Arctic. And that will be discussed a little bit later. And we're also seeing the implications of technological advances in the region. So that's our next driver. As you're starting to see some of the pursuit of economic resources, those natural resources in particular in the region, you're seeing the introduction of new technologies, enabling the accessibility of those resources and the trendsmanship of those to market. But those technological drivers are also bringing some vulnerabilities, particularly in the realm of the cyber attacks, central for dual use capabilities. So things that we're really looking at that potentially impact the presence of other Arctic states and non- Arctic states in the region. Finally, that brings us to the military drivers. So there's no doubt that there's been an increase of military activity in the region. We saw Trident Juncture 2018 bring more than 50,000 NATO forces to Norway and the shores and the seas off the coast of Norway, which is the largest post-Cold War exercise that NATO has done. You have a lot of Russian activity, Russian exercises, as well as bilateral NATO and unilateral nation exercises in the region. So there certainly is an increase of military activity, but we're not seeing a, I guess, a moderate increase in the dialogue between the nations, particularly on security matters, simply because there are no really good mechanisms to do that. And we'll talk about that more in some of our recommendations about the implications and what the potential is to increase that dialogue. Because as of now we have NATO nations, Russia and allies and partners increasing the number of forces, the number of bases in the region, with no real commiserate means to mitigate some of the tensions to potentially mitigate the Arctic security dilemma, which could potentially become a problem. So overall we saw those four drivers as being kind of guiding us whenever we're looking at our findings. Those would be concerns that we have for the future developments of the Arctic, and these will impact both our recommendations and hopefully future policy action in the region. Thanks, Walter. Thanks, Rachel. I appreciate those thoughts. I believe we'll maybe having some issues connecting right now, so we're going to transition to our next speaker, Committer Johannes Revere. Thank you very much, Walter. I hope everybody can hear me. So I will just give you a shot in a wrap up on the Geo-strategic hotspot in the Arctic, and if you go through the report you will pretty much see that it line out two area of importance, the first being the islands of Svalbard and the other one being the island of Greenland. And these are Geo-strategic hotspots very much for different reasons. We just have to take a globe and have a look at it and probably we'll have an idea why. We start off with Svalbard. Everybody is aware that proximity to Russia and the Russian Northern Fleet and such of course is in the vicinity of Russian security matters. But also what the report lines out is the Svalbard Treaty which actually decides or lines out how Norway can govern the islands. And to some extent these treaties is somewhat different than what you normally would see when it comes to governance and sovereign rights to landmars. One of these of course that the Svalbard area should be a non-militaried area, that's the first thing. So there are very strict limitations what kind of military things you're allowed to have including from the Norwegian side. And furthermore the agreement on resources both from the land and to a certain extent also in the sea which means actually that everyone is more or less allowed to come to the islands and to fish and hunt and actually to do any kind of economic exploitation if they want to. So that is of course different compared to what you can see in legislation in other countries. On top of that if you are signature of the treaty and you are a foreigner coming there you also are allowed to become resident. This is a visa free area so to speak. And therefore of course you know foreign countries have an access to the islands in a different way or more easier way than you will see most other places in the world. And then of course the dispute especially on official rights because the treaty of Svalbard of course is almost around 100 years old and it means that the device was signed and agreed upon long before that we have unclossed regimes, things like that. So of course, you know the agreement points out that there are resource right or agreement resource out to I think it's around four nautical miles but beyond that, what should actually be decided then should it be done cross regime or not and upon this actually for example, if you look at the continental shelf, if you look at the continental shelf, extension of the continental shelf, is that a part of the Namikian continental self or is it a separate part of Svalbard. And that of course can give somewhat a disagreement between of course other states that have an economic interest in the area. That said, Norway has actually claiming a fishery protection right since the 1970s, and it has, you know, overall be respected, and maybe not approved or recognized but at least respected by our countries. And as such, you know, there is an exception of course that that that Norway has has he actually has some kind of right over at least fishery. But might save Norway, you know, in this dispute because, you know, it's not just a question about Russia and everybody else on one side and one side Russia on one side and other country on the other side, for example, Spain has important fishery interest also the active area. And it seems that, you know, especially that not of most Western world and the US will support, you know, at least through silence, you know, the Norwegian claims, or the way to the industry of the area, simply because they want to open the Pandora box and invite Russia into that debate as well. And then I think maybe the biggest, you know, not maybe not the elephant in the room but definitely in the future look into actually what would be in the this they have for example tried to book the treaty source to do scientific research, which you know, has been denied by Norway, but it's, it's, it's sacrificed very well, you know, how else they can try to use the treaty to get a footstep into the Arctic. When we talk to green and of course it is somewhat a different story. But how is not, not less interest. I think it's, it's quite important to notice this and that comes as a surprise for many things as well. For those who do not understand why Denmark represent the Greenland in this matter is of course they are part of the Danish Kingdom and Denmark represent a Greenland in any kind of foreign and security matters. What it means actually the Kingdom of Denmark is the third North American state so to speak from a security perspective again have a look at the globe and you will see and understand why. It's important to of course understand that the Greenland is doing a very high level of autonomy and are able to decide a lot of things on their own. And that comes from the agreement between the government in Copenhagen and the government in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. And one of the things that they can decide in Nuuk is the foreign investments that be in mining, fishing, infrastructure, things like that. In those cases, the Greenland or the Greenland government are allowed to take decision and sign contracts without asking in Copenhagen. And it doesn't take much of imagination to see that that can be challenging when you know that there are some states again, China that combine security with economic interest. So there has been a fear that China will invest heavily in Greenland, both in resources for also in infrastructure and we have also seen cases and moved it will from China in attempt to do so. The second part is pretty much as Kingdom as a whole and as Denmark is actually the ability to show sovereignty in the Arctic. As it is right now, Denmark are not able to survey the Greenland airspace. So you can actually breach the Greenland airspace without anyone noticing. And even if you were noticing, we don't have any fighters to go and scramble to go on the wings and see who's actually coming in to Greenland airspace. And that is just an example actually how difficult it is for Denmark to actually survey Greenland in the air, on land or at sea. So, so in that context, there is definitely a different kind of hotspot and again, the importance is of course understand, you know, how can other states that we that we normally see as competitive to, to let's say the West, you know, how can they explore it and how can it actually see if they in one way or the other can get a footstep into the Arctic area. Thank you. Thanks Johannes, over to you, Stefan. Thank you, Walter. Well, I would like to turn your attention then towards regional frameworks and there is a range of regional frameworks for cooperation in the Arctic. And the Arctic Council is the region's leading political forum. Among other areas engages in many aspects of matter of safety, fruits, emergency prevention, preparedness and response working group. And we're a close links between the effort of this working group and the Arctic Coast Guard Forum. On the sub regional level, the Barrens, your Arctic Council promotes dialogue among its member states and synchronizes efforts to meet common safety challenges. Over the years, I would say it has served to strengthen and create new regional structures. However, the Council lacks the prerequisite to mitigate conflict in the Arctic region and facilitates no security discussions beyond soft power. There are also existing political military forum Arctic and NATO has a long history of Arctic operations, but represents only five of the Arctic states. Russia, for its part, has a strange relationship with NATO. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, it is the world's largest regional security organization. And Russia views it as one of the backbone organizations of Europe. But we conclude in our group that its ability to serve in preventing military conflict in the Arctic is limited. And that is given to the diminishing natural commitment levels to this body and its sole focus on soft security issues and human rights. As Newport Arctic scholars, we instead stress the need for restoring, reinforcing and scaling to existing military forum in the Arctic. Namely, the Arctic Chiefs of Defense Conference and the Arctic Security Forces Roundtable. We also note the need for linking them with existing Arctic political forum. As the title suggests, the annual Arctic Chiefs of Defense Conference was designed as a top military leader meeting. In 2012 and 2013, it served as a military forum to bolster cooperative security among the Arctic aid and strengthen their defense relationships. But also to improve joint search and rescue capabilities and address Arctic environmental challenges in parallel with the Arctic Council agenda. As a result of canceled military-to-military cooperation with Russia in 2014, all further Arctic Chiefs of Defense meeting were suspended. Re-inviting Russia to military-to-military discussions that may be controversial. However, we think, based on our analysis, that the seniority of representation by only the top military leaders could ease Russia back into an Arctic Security Forum with mutually beneficial outcomes. And we conclude that it would be better and real logical military remains better to reduce the ever-increasing tension in the Arctic and promote a rules-based order. While the Arctic Chiefs of Defense Conference would be most effective if all Arctic aid Chiefs of Defense being represented, we believe that it will still value of restarting it, even without Russia. The Arctic Security Forces Roundtable. That's an annual gathering focused on improving communications and met in doing awareness in the Arctic Circle. And this forum is co-hosted by the United States European Command and designed to broaden partnerships and cooperative efforts among participating states. Representatives of 12 states used to attend the meetings, namely the Arctic Gate, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. Russia, however, hasn't participated since 2014. Except for the NATO-Russia Council, there are currently no regional fora that include all Arctic States, whose discussions are focused on military security. On the other hand, all military and civilian cooperation through the NATO-Russia Council has also been suspended since 2014. Yet the last meeting of the NATO-Russia Council in Brussels in July last year concluded that while NATO and Russia hold fundamentally different views, both are committed to continuing a dialogue. The current Arctic multinational governance structure centered on the Arctic Council and its working groups are crucial for maintaining an international rules-based system and enhancing regional safety and sustainable development. However, the complexity of international law and great power competition poses hard challenges to the Council's approach to multilateral governance and cooperation. To facilitate a dialogue on hard security, we think we need a high-level political military forum for the Arctic region that can function in parallel with the Arctic Council. Based on our analysis, we conclude that the Arctic Security Forces roundtable offers a substantial architecture to discuss relevant Arctic security issues and could be linked to the Arctic Council. A sole military focus, however, wouldn't necessarily be conducive to maintaining peace and security in the region. We therefore suggest that this forum should be tasked to focus on civil military efforts through a comprehensive approach, in line with the Arctic Coast Guard Forum. We also recommend that the Arctic Security Forces roundtable considers reviving Russia to its meetings. Thank you. Thank you, Stefan. And before we transition to those key recommendations and implementation, I wanted to give folks an opportunity to hear a little bit about some of the key border and boundary issues. And I'll just highlight a few, given the work that Will and Ingrid and others led throughout the program, but Will, unfortunately, is having little connectivity issues. So with that, you know, and these are issues that should be addressed through bilateral and multilateral negotiations and an increasing order of both complexity and challenge to resolve. The first being Hans Island between Canada and Denmark, the Beaufort Sea between the U.S. and Canada, the Northwest Passage along Canada's coastline, overlapping claims at the North Pole between Russia, Denmark and Canada. And finally, discussing possible solutions with Russia regarding warships and innocent passage and transit through the northern sea route. Now, the first three that I mentioned are in the family of the Western Arctic states, as we believe that that might be a little easier to negotiate in the near term and over the long term. And the last two involve negotiations with Russia. And we believe the 1988 Canada U.S. Northwest Passage Agreement, where we agree to disagree, as well as the Norway-Russia-Barrance Agreement are two really influential models and very effective models that we believe could help resolve Arctic regional disputes, both in the near term and over the long term, as well as the Arctic states continued commitment to ensuring the foundation of the Alouissat Declaration. And so with that, I want to go ahead and transition now to Amal Larsonis, who will discuss in more depth those findings or those recommendations and implementation over the near term moving forward. Over to you, Ars. Thank you, Walter. So we have been looking at existing structures, as you've seen, and also are proposing some new initiatives. And with the current security situation and the sanctions, we need to have an implementation plan. And in order to improve Arctic security and stability and prevent an increasing security dilemma, it is necessary for all Arctic states to resume dialogue. That's the prime recommendation. The recommendation of this report focus on attainable mechanism that will improve dialogue and reduce the likelihood of misperceptions or misunderstandings in the region that could raise regional tension or spark conflict. Though the region is assessed to have a low probability of conflict erupting, there is no question that the maritime activity is rising and threatens to increase regional instability. The inclusion of Russia in Arctic security dialogue recognize the emerging Arctic security challenges, and at the same time considers the sanctions regime imposed on military cooperation with Russia. Realistically, we need a small step forward that are political driven. And to renew this dialogue, we need to allow our nation to find ways to cooperate will still deterring aggression. Dialogue is critical element in developing trust and relationship that can prevent inadvertent conflict. Our first step will be to invite Russian to our scholar and military professional to take part in academic research focusing on Arctic security issues, like the Newport Arctic Scholar Initiative. This format can be used to further develop consensus for regional findings and recommendations. Doing so can increase transparency by sharing information and relevant Arctic research, while building a mutual understanding of Arctic security challenges. If successful on these lower levels, approved dialogue should be resumed at specific higher level, such as inviting Russia to participate in the international sea powers symposium hosted by annual by the Naval War College and the CNO. Once the dialogue has resumed the next step will be to implement the recommendation frameworks, such as the Arctic cues, or codes for unplanned encounters at sea. And, for instance, Arctic security environment, Arctic Ocean maritime symposium. A successful implementation of these frameworks, alongside more stable political situation will enable the creation of additional security frameworks to include restarting the Arctic job meetings and further mechanism for dialogue, like high level avenues for discussion on Arctic security matters. This implementation plan calls for immediate mechanism to improve dialogue among the Arctic nation. There is a reasonable assumption that further measures and time that should be tailored to the world with your political and geo strategic environment. And so, with these words, I'm handing you over to Walter for some Q&A. Thank you, Lars, and fantastic, fantastic remarks from each of our panelists and so thank you again. We do have one questions at this point. And that that's for any of the panelists and maybe we, we start with Lars and maybe get your thoughts and then we transition to Johannes and then maybe Stefan. And that question, that question is given the definition that we used in the international consensus and definition of the region. How do you see the connection, both in military strategic terms between the Euro Atlantic part of the Arctic region and the North Atlantic part of the Arctic region. So I think with that, you know, given that so the connection between in terms of military strategic terms between the Euro Atlantic part and the North Atlantic part, particularly on the US coastline. Lars, maybe we'll start off with you and then we'll go to Johannes and Stefan. Well, the North Atlantic is part of the European security architecture, especially since NATO is covering that area. Similarly, if you go historically back to the Cold War, but you have the challenges from the Soviet Union with the Greenland Iceland UK gap. You can see the emerging security challenges now with a parallel bastion depends of the Russian strategic forces coming out of the barn sea. So, there's a connection and and in NATO. You see the reestablishment of the second fleet is a concrete measure of how to meet those challenges to ensure that the transatlantic link between Europe and the American coast are strengthened to meet those challenges. There is a core function and what connects the North Atlantic and the European security if you want any reinforcement of Europe from the United States, it has to cross the Atlantic. But I will add that the new situation today is that the Russian bastion defense is not only covering the North Atlantic area but circle the Arctic with the establishment of five new bases with air defense and offensive defensive weapons that covers all the Pacific into the sea of Turkey. And so there is a the openings of the corridor through the Arctic is connecting the Pacific Theater of Security and the European Theater of Security in a way that you have never seen before. Thank you. Johannes, over to you. Yeah, thank you. I agree with us with what last point at and and I don't think I have much chat. But I think it's more you know what what should be a strategic approach be from from now on onwards, because if the if you want to have a dialogue with Russia. In the Arctic, I think the question is actually, you know, how do we actually establish that and maintain it in an environment that where there are a lot of what are not a lot of dialogue at all. So I think pretty much from a if you look into where a NATO perspective, I think nature should be extremely cautious, you know, to start to have an actual strategy or deploy to the Arctic as a NATO force, you know. And something that it will have any dialogue with me with Russia, we have a completely contrary, you know, effect. And I'm well aware that that NATO have been in the action before but we call it the North Atlantic, but what words here are of course extremely important. And I think something that is presently is pretty much, you know, spoiling, you know, any hope of a future dialogue is for example the American, British, Danish. The Norwegian deployment to the Barents Sea, which, you know, if you want a dialogue with Russia, you know, that's one of the worst things you can do. So you have to decide, you know, you know what, you know, what kind of approach do you want to have in Russia and you and that internet interconnect very much closely to how you know NATO behave and how, you know, we approach security in this part of the world. To be honest, Stephen. Yeah, I don't have a perspective and to my colleagues here and if we go to Asia and we look at the conflict that is while simmering between India and China. And we consider what will happen if the Himalayas would kind of road and open up connections and I think what is happening in the Arctic if we look in a timeframe of 2035 2050, which I think we should be looking towards. Well, we can realize that what used to be frozen and blocked like the Himalayas between India and China, it will also be open in the Arctic. That is not the only thing that connections and communications are opening up. We also have heard about geopolitics and the geoeconomics of the Arctic. And then sea temperature is rising. Well, fish start to migrate. Right now we have a fishing moratorium in the Arctic Ocean. But it's a huge area. And it's a very rich area. And I think global competition will increasingly be geared towards the Arctic. So since fish will migrate and also resource exploitation will open up, I think we would need to see more actors than the Arctic eight that are having a key interest in the region, but also having it accessible. And I think we need to find ways of cooperating and setting a rules based order in the Arctic, which is actually a long term and that could be sustained and that could really be enforced by the Arctic eight. So I think we got a challenge there. And of course we got a military strategic challenge, given that then we have this accessibility and the communications. And we also have certain mechanisms like the, the, the, the Northern Sea route and Western passage to see for the legal aspects. And I think I really stress the need for for a rules based order in the Arctic. And we have to do it now before it opens up. So I think time, time is critical. The clock is ticking. Thank you. Thank you, Stefan. And we have another question here and maybe we'll go in that same order. And so are we question is, are you recommending unlinking Russian inclusion in order conversations with their behavior elsewhere recognizing that, you know, Russian actions and places like Belarus and Ukraine and elsewhere have implications to date have really had an effect that effect as you've mentioned Stefan on on mill to mill engagement coordination and cooperation within the region. And so our, I think our thinking initially and then I'll hand it over to Lars is that, you know, by making by engaging, particularly on maybe track to track one and a half programs where we're linking academics and academic and government together in ways that we don't do today and try to really reinvigorate some of those low hanging fruit areas where where we can either strengthen cooperation and existing areas particularly leveraging some of those those cooperative for frameworks and programs that the Coast Guard is undergoing but also looking at some of those areas or potential areas that that we turned off, you know, prior to Ukraine and looking at re re re re invigorating particularly, for example, in the areas of exercises and being able to conduct more transparent and coordinate in better ways to prevent those calculations accidents and potential conflict from happening and so I think being transparent and and and how we conduct our exercises is very important, and it's one area that I think we believe could offer some from fruitful engagement in the near term, moving forward. Lars over to you my friend. I think the question is not to give Russia sort of a free area to re establish in former norms in the Arctic. I think the Russians will see that as sort of a political win. That's not what we are suggesting. We need to deter and keep the sanctions, but at the same time like you see in the South China Sea. The rising tension needs to be managed. I was part of sort of creating the Arctic Coast Guard forum some years ago and and and I truly believe that the Arctic Coastal States needs to work closely together because it is a very vulnerable area. The oil pollution along the Russian coastline in the Arctic it will end up in a both or see because of the current environment. So all the coastal states are dependent on each other and must work very closely to take care of this area on the security issues. There are several different agreements with incident that see agreement between by literally with Russia and Norway US camera and Denmark I think that what we are suggesting is that we need to start a dialogue where we can agree on how to pay some norms and regulation when you meet because we need to do the least activity that we foresee will will happen in the Arctic. That's not the same as sort of letting the Russian up the hook. It's like we all politics you need to use the military tool as to support your politics to establish norms and regulations and promote a good stewardship in the Arctic. It is as as natural and it needs to happen. And it doesn't mean that we are lifting the sanctions, but we need to restart the military dialogue to take care of this new situation we see on the top of the world. Thanks Lars Johannes you have any comments on that one. Really, I think very much again I agree with Lars on on the subject so and you know what I have added that I don't think I have have much strategy. Yeah. And on that on that note, you know I encourage any of the other participants who any of the stellar scholars nazi scholars to provide their thoughts as well. Stephen seven or you. Yeah, I strongly agree with Lars and for Sweden, I mean, the behavior of Russia in in in Ukraine, the seizure of Crimea, it is simply a non acceptable and and we retain that position in Sweden. And we also realize that although we have this situation with Russia in in, well, in the East and all the sanctions. There is also a security dilemma, mounting in the Arctic. And it has consequences. A few weeks ago, Sweden, Norway and Finland signed a statement of intent on on cooperation in the Arctic Circle in the in the north. Also, here we're talking about when sharing geostrategic competition coordination. We're talking about also the possibility of joint military operations in this region. So, we are very, very aware of what is happening and when and with that tensions increasing, we have these risks of mistakes. And if you don't have a dialogue, then you perceive your your opponent as doing things. It's a high risk that you're missing to print what we what your your opponent might be might be doing and I think we can't accept that. So I think we need to have this dialogue. We need to establish this stewardship. We need to establish order in the Arctic. Other issues that haven't been raised is the navigational hazards. This isn't a well surveyed area in all respects. And we have huge distances for maritime search and rescue. And we also need to cooperate on satellite navigation. I think there are a lot of areas of cooperation where we could start a dialogue with Russia and then create a kind of a dialogue and some kind of cooperation on the low level, which might have implications then on a political level as well. Thank you. And we have a comment question here, another one, particularly looking at the role of indigenous communities and and just and the in the need to include them in these discussions and I think, you know, throughout our deliberations and consultations among the over the program, you know, very, very, very early on we recognize the importance of engaging indigenous communities and I think, you know, both in terms of many patients but also maintaining transparency in what we do and how we do things. And so moving forward whether that's conducting missions or or developing capabilities and infrastructure. We recognize the importance of consultations and coordination in communication so that so that their, their, their livelihoods aren't are impacted in an adverse way. Lars, did you have any any comments particularly on that subject. I think it's important to see that there is a need for a nearly. I think a trillion dollar investment in the Arctic to support the future development of this region. And the military is part of that, especially in Alaska and Canada, where infrastructure needs to be closely coordinated with the indigenous population. There are differences of climate change every day, eroding the coast and eroding their livelihood. And of course, if you want to start building military bases in the already, you need to work very close with the people living there, and they're living there so. But I think there is a process in most countries, I think all other countries are embedding their indigenous population into the decision making. I think that is a good thing. And we need to continue to do that. Johannes or Stefan did you have any any comments on that. Well, I can completely agree with the last year of course, especially on the investment part. And, and of course, it is, of course, important for a lot of reaching these indigenous people, you know, economic development or that kind of stuff. And it helps them into my mind is of course that, you know, that, that we look pretty much on how do we invest in ourselves. And, and just to come back to the point about Russian relations and inclusion here in the Arctic. And, you know, link unlinking or not. I think, you know, cause you can't unlink anything here. So what we should think about again, and I think was mentioned before, you know, let's think ahead, you know, 20 plus years. What happening right now, Russia don't have the means, don't have the resources to do the one thing. The only thing, the way they could get some money into the bank and that is actually getting some things out of the underground. So who helps them that's China, you know. All right, so what's happening right now you just saw the new for you know year to year to the ML to peninsula the second project and the ML on natural gas, you know, certainly China has 25% ownership of that project. Okay, so what does that mean. So because we're not allowed or will not invest in Russia, you know, be invite someone else in. And I think pretty much, you know, that should give us, you know, food for thoughts. But that I know extreme focus on Russia, because that is our strategic culture to think of Russia because that's the, you know, the adversary we know from the Cold War. You know, instead of actually maybe maybe look at the episode of the competitor that we really should be concerned about China. So as long as you know we're I think you're looking at the wrong, the wrong thing here. And as long as you do that, we actually inviting China into there we don't want to. So I think you know this is the more important to have to start a dialogue over over Russia, because some, to some extent, suddenly you know the the the relationship between Russia and and China will not be equal you know Russia will eventually depend too much on China on the investment. And then you know, I think maybe it actually too late to to to rewind that. So that will be actually my thought you know that that that investing is is in Russian though is a strategic importance for many reasons. You want me, I would like to come on that one first so because in our research we noticed that since the great power competition with China. is giving a huge role, at least from the US perspective. And, and if you really look at the Chinese investment in green and it's not that much and and it's always controlled by the date kingdom of Denmark. There's also China in Svalbard with the biggest research station there. And, and of course, China is investing in in Russia, because there is no one else to go to. But there's a pushback lately on China. And, and it's still small. And it's still not an Arctic state. And they are totally dependent on the goodwill of being invited by the Arctic states to have any influence in the order. So they're still learning about the already. But I think the Arctic states needs to engage China constructively. But what we see now is that we are, again, pushing Russia toward China. Not ensuring that they have the best investments with the best norms and quality, which will have consequences for us as coastal states, because if something happens in that development, it will affect everyone environmentally. So, I think it is important to recognize that the current investment structure in the Arctic needs to be revised. It needs to be looked upon to ensure that we have a secure and an environmental driven development in the Arctic. Thank you. Thanks, Lars, Stefan. Did you have a comment on that? Yeah, well, I'll start commenting on that China Russia thing, then, before I go back to the indigenous populations and their rights in the region how to manage that. I agree with you, Lars. I mean, we just heard the other week, a tentative proposal by Putin to consider an alliance with China. I think that is a kind of interesting what would happen in the Arctic if China would take that as a positive development and start moving in. Because, I mean, with the sanctions, we have actually forced Russia to be heavily dependent on Chinese, China for economy. And we also see a far reaching military cooperation between the two. And I think we need to bear that in mind as a cautionary note. What will happen if Russia and China would eventually form an alliance? What would that change in the Arctic? But turning back towards the indigenous people's right and the role of them, I think military development in the Arctic is viewed as highly negative by these population groups. They want to do their kind of living and I think they have a right as well to do it. They are the ones who have been engaged in fishing and herding and all these kind of work for a living. And we have to respect that and we have to, of course, involve them if we increase the military presence and the military footprint in the area. But I open my slide here, which is not very clear, but I think turning towards what we are suggesting in our report is that there are overlay of various organizations. And I don't think that once we are suggesting to deal with hard security are the ones that are best suited to deal with the indigenous problem. But we need to link this to the Arctic Council. We also need to link them to the Barnes-Gioro Arctic Council, for example, or OSCE perhaps as well, to have a role. But mainly the Arctic Council in its bodies to have this combination of tools and overarching mechanisms so that we can address that particular issue. Thank you. Thanks, Stefan. And another question here, really for all panelists, any thoughts on or recommendations on how we can advance opportunities for developing a stronger search and rescue? And I think to a certain extent we looked at that a little bit initially during our, in January when we kicked our program off this year. But I think we quickly recognize that the search and rescue mission falls a little outside the normal, maybe hard security mission. With that, we recognize that search and rescue missions, particularly search and rescue operations are best suited to be implemented from a multilateral perspective through the Arctic Coast Guard Forum. And so, and that's an area that they work on already and the Arctic Council also to a certain extent works on implementing search and rescue initiatives. So the question over to you, Lars, and then to the Red, Johannes and Stefan, is opportunities to advance cooperation in the area of search and rescue? Thank you, Walter. You know, the reason why we established the Arctic Coast Guard Forum was that it builds on some of the initiatives that comes from the Arctic Council. And these are the more soft issues that the government of the Arctic States can actually work on, like search and rescue, oil pollution, scientific research and those things. So, and the reason why we in our report say that we should, we recommend to leave the hard security issues out of the Arctic Council and out of the Arctic Coast Guard Forum is because we don't want that to be a confrontational forum. We need to have open dialogue of governance. So, annually now, the Arctic Coast Guard Forum is doing exercises with the Arctic nations. And it will be very interesting to see now how Russia will do that when they take over the chairmanship of the Arctic Council and the Arctic Coast Guard Forum next year. And we'll probably use that to promote good stewardship and cooperation in the Arctic. So those are bodies that are deliberately, and we think should be deliberately cast on that level to enhance better governance in the Arctic and leave the security things out. You can see now in all the Arctic countries, like Norway is building new Arctic patrol ships, huge patrol ships to take care of the tourism that are growing. I think they're building 9,000 tons coast guard cutters that can rescue 1000 people in the Arctic. You see in Russia, they're building ice breakers and rescue stations along the Arctic coast. In the US, there's a discussion of building new ice breakers and additional resources in Alaska. And you see the same in Canada. So these are the governance consequences of the climate change and an increased activity. So those lines of efforts are commonly shared among Arctic nations. Thank you. Thanks, Lars. And just a quick follow up on that before we transition to Johannes on the same subject. The second question that came in was, as you mentioned with Russia taking the chairmanship of the Arctic Council and the Arctic Coast Guard Forum here next year. Are there particular areas of emphasis that you think they will latch on to or focus on during their chairmanship, during their two year chairmanship in both initiatives? How do you think that they'll approach that? Well, I think we should expect Moscow to keep the tension low and high because they are investing so much. And it's so important to them. So when they take the helm of the Arctic Council and the Arctic Coast Guard Forum, I think their primary lines of effort will be to promote good governance and concern for the environment and development of the Arctic nations. Thanks, Lars. Johannes? Well, just to start with the last question first, I agree completely with Lars on the Russian approach, so I don't have anything to add to that. I mean, where should we start? You know, I stumbled into my mind actually in an example that we did this spring, you know, we had a guy drumming to a wall somewhere in Greenland. We had an MPA in Keflay in Iceland, went up now, had to find him, didn't find him, went to Kalinshvok on West Coast to refuel and went back again on station, but eventually returned the thing to Keflay. To put that in perspective, in European perspective, that was a trip going from Copenhagen to Rome, then to Munich, then to Rome, and then to Copenhagen to find one man. I mean, this is your search and rescue operation in the Arctic, and I don't think this is specific for, but then I think you'll find, you know, fireplace in the Arctic, that distance, you know, is just a completely different thing. And this is something, you know, just show that infrastructure is, of course, extremely important, you know, you have to fly a long time because you don't have the infrastructure there. And I think cooperation here is, of course, you know, the only thing to come around. But that said, I think, I don't think I have, you know, the golden solution actually, what should we improve? You know, make your pick satellite, units, infrastructure, you know, anything would go to improve any kind of search and rescue. There is a extremely hostile environment. Everybody knows that. You don't have to know much about, you know, temperature and water and how human bodies react on that to know that you'll be dying before anyone shows up anyway. So, so I think, you know, this is where we are standing and, and then maybe actually the search and rescue area to come back to your second question on Russia. I mean, this is not just about saving people, you know, any distress, you know, these cooperation between the access states is also politics and grand strategy in the sense that this is something that everybody can agree upon that you have to discuss and help each other. You know, no one would disagree, you know, we don't want to abstract and rescue the need on a strategic level. This is a challenge. These are some of the channels that we can keep open, you know, within the active countries regardless, you know, which country you're you're looking at. I think we can look towards the Russian Arctic strategy that was recently updated to see what Russia wants in the Arctic and I would say it's not that much of news in the updated strategy. It's more it's like it's it's continuation. And I would say there are two narratives that has been very, very strong over the years from Russia. And one is sovereignty, which is respectful for for for Russian coast and Russian territory and sovereignty sovereign rights, which includes now the Northern Sea route. But the other one is cooperation. And I would say that Russia really wants cooperation, but he wants cooperation from a position of strength. And I think Russia will be highly cooperative as as a chair of the Arctic Council to to friendly so I have some hopes that that we will see possibilities in this. That being said, also, I mean, those who haven't just adopted new strategies of the Arctic aid is about to do it. So, so there are a very strong development. I also want to go back to what we are actually presenting in our report. And that is that we have a role then of the Arctic Coast Guard Forum we should not be dealing with that we should have the Arctic Council. And we should enable the Arctic Council to do what we have been doing very successfully for many years now, since it was established in 1996, really. And that, as Lars said previously, we should keep the security issues out of the Arctic Council to enable it to do it, but we should link whatever we do in the military domain towards or military sphere would say towards what is happening there. And if we go back just to 2012 and 2013 it's, it's, it's seven and eight years ago. So eight years ago we established with chief of defense conference the Arctic chief of defense conference. And actually it was about defense it was about Paul string cooperative security, but it was also about strengthening joint and search and rescue capabilities and address Arctic environmental challenges. And here comes the icebreaker that you mentioned last in Russia. I mean, that our icebreak is equipped with caliber missiles in, I mean, we organize Coast Guard some Arctic State organizing a civilian. Sweden is one of them. Military and military so always comes together and there's a dual use. And when you can save a dual use is bad. I think we should tweak it around and try to see what possibilities is in the military thing to strengthen the rest and and achieve such a cooperation that we can enable a dual use that is in in favor of math in search and rescue and and and Thanks, Stefan. And one last question here, and that's it's more of a US focused question but given the shift in focus to to great power competition and recent initiatives, such as the battle force 2045 outlining potential of the shipbuilding plans the question really is should the US focus on specific platforms that ensure continued access in the Arctic icebreakers etc. And then alternatively are there opportunities where other Arctic allies and partners and maybe even non Arctic State allies and partners can help fill those gaps. And I'll just take a quick stab at that and obviously feel free to chime in at any point. But I think overall I think, you know as as as the demand increases so too will our need for presence and and and both the need to modernize existing and future naval forces and more specifically Navy forces but also to provide in both the man and arenas to provide a you know constant operational presence and patrol options both in cold weather, but also in some ice diminished Arctic waters. And, and I think you know a key piece to that is improving continuing to prove our hydrographic surveys and sensors throughout the fleet but but this also means that we have to ensure that our surface operations and our plans are included or that our surface operations are included in our ship designs and in our modernization plans, and that we have a strong defense industrial base that can build sustain and Arctic fleet put in the decades ahead. And so I believe, you know, looking looking into the future. I believe that there will certainly be an increased need for surface assets and surface presence. Not to mention that it I believe you know it reassures our allies and partners, particularly in the region and on the outside of the region of our continued commitment to maintain peace stability and access. In terms of alternatively, you know, looking at other allies and partners to help fill these gaps, absolutely. I believe, you know, there's both within within the region and outside the region. And you know, you look at countries like Japan, South Korea, Singapore, India, all have interest all have capabilities many have strategies and most of the ones that we've all the ones that just mentioned our observer states to the Arctic Council. And you look on the other side in Europe, you know, Italy, the UK, Germany, France, while they're not Arctic state specifically, they, again, they do have interest capabilities and, and strategies and conduct operations in the Arctic today, and, and, or have some type of activity in other fronts, you know, in the region so yes I believe there is an opportunity and again with initiatives like this we can kind of put put our heads together and try to tease out you know what areas specific countries can fill niche capabilities and working more collaboratively kind of an economy of force perspective and I believe this type of region is, you know, is that large did you have anything on that. It's key to is key what you're saying that we can actually learn from each other and see share our experience. And so, for instance, the Scandinavian countries are perhaps facing a situation that Alaska will face in 2030 years time. And so if you think about that, you can look at the initiatives that the Scandinavian countries are doing at the moment. With regard to what kind of capabilities to be like to have from my experience as a Coast Guard commander, you know we looked at what it takes to pick up about 900 passengers from a sinking Russian cruise liner. And suddenly we had a small Coast Guard vessel of 3000 ton experience 900 guests to toilets on board. That's the challenge that was in the 90s. Now we are building huge Coast Guard vessels capable of rescuing these people. And within endurance so they can be on patrol for months in the Arctic without having the need for a base. Even though we can go to the Swalvard, the actually supporting Swalvard, Janmine and other places with these vessels. If you look into the future in the Alaskan Arctic, you don't have any infrastructure on the northern slope. And you're discussing spending about 600 plus million dollars of establishing a deep water port in Nome. Or perhaps spending a billion dollars in Kodiak to re-establish the naval base over there. But I think the key to this is to look at what happens in the Atlantic part of the Arctic. We look for mobility. Because we think the structure in the Arctic is so vulnerable that building big things in the Arctic is not a big thing to do. It's not worth investment and it hurts the environment. So perhaps you should team up with the Coast Guard Navy and build patrol ship that can be and have the endurance. You should do the job with the environment, search and rescue and also perhaps have some weapons to defend your own land. I mean, there's a lot of good ideas and we need to share them. Thanks Lars. Johannes, Stefan, did you have any comments on that last question? Well, I think I only have a comment on it. And I think my comment would be I'm still a bit puzzled actually what does the US want in the Arctic? Is it exploration? Is it competition? Is it deterrence? Is it what? And I think that will tell you a lot about what kind of resources you'll be looking for. But I think what the US, and that's easy for me to say, maybe you should look at, it's actually to look again, you know, say, you know, what kind of competition, what kind of environment, you know, international environment that the US be in 20 years from now. And will that environment be in the Arctic? Or will that be somewhere else? And if the answer is it'll be somewhere else, you know, maybe you should, you know, focus less on hardcore military things in the Arctic, because that will definitely add to, it might be to have a good deterrence effect. But again, it will, you know, erode any kind of cooperation or coordination in that area. So I think that should actually be, I cannot point, you know, say, you know, the US should do this and that, because I'm not sure yet, you know, what kind of strategy the US has in the Arctic and what they'll like to be and what the US will be in the Arctic, you know, 10, 15 years from now. Thank you, Hannah, Stefan. A very short comment, I think, agreeing with what Lars said and much of what Hans was saying as well. I think to mitigate that, I think partnership is a very good idea. In the short term, I mean, Healy has a breakdown and the polar sea is very busy or Polastar, I mean, is very busy and un-talked as well. So in the short term, I think partners like Sweden and Finland could assist in certain capabilities on the ice breaking side. But overall, for the US as well, I think the US needs its partners and its allies for the long term, and I strongly agree with Johannes on the long term perspective, where will they be in 20 years? I think they will be in 15 years and they will be in 30 years. In 2050, when China should have established its strength and really taken its rightful position in the world. Western partnership, I think that is a good moderation and when we can use all the instrument in the orchestra, not only the heavy metal guitars, but we have also other instruments that we can work on. Thank you. Thanks, Stefan. And a point that was reminded me that as we bring Russia into the dialogue, there's a common interest to continue to monitor and engage on China's continued rise in the Arctic and looking at their interests. And, you know, it's a security point, really, where all Arctic nations can find ways to agree and discuss on particular issues. And again, that's one of the areas that we highlighted in our report, particularly looking at investment, but also expanding that in the economic piece into their naval presence, both on below and above the Arctic region. And so with that, I want to thank our presenters, our panelists. I want to thank all of you for joining us today. And want to remind everyone that our report is now available on the US Naval War College website, right on the front page. If you scroll down to this particular event and click on it, you'll find the report there. And then on this particular presentation will be posted on our Naval War College YouTube page, and it'll be available for you to share with your colleagues and friends. And so with that, again, thank you very much for joining us today. And we look forward to engaging with you here soon. Take care. Thank you.