 Well, good afternoon everyone and Sorry about that Thank you for joining us today Let me start off briefly by thanking Ambassador Mary Ann Peters our provost for her foresight and recently creating the Seventh Regional Studies Group here at the Naval War College Focused a group focused on an emerging region That's a strategic importance to the United States into the US Navy and that's the Arctic and the Arctic Studies Group like Many other the regional Studies Group here at the College consist of students and faculty Who have an interest experience expertise in? in regional maritime affairs or in US policy and strategy in the region So not only does the Arctic Studies Group act as a catalyst or coordinator of Research to serve the needs of the Navy Department of Defense and other elements of the US government, but it also hosts guest speakers and Organizes periodic seminars such as the one that we have here today This panel is co-hosted by the Arctic Studies Group and the Europe Russia Studies Group and is one of many events We hope to not only host here at the Naval War College for the benefit of our students and faculty But for those who are willing to are able to join us online Through a divids webcast That's also important to note the Remarks made by our panelists today or that of their own and don't represent an official Position of the Navy the Department of Defense or the US government and we really do have an exceptional group of panelists here with us today To talk about What is clearly a topic of a salient topic for the United States and in particular? US maritime forces and by that I mean both the Navy and Coast Guard and that of course is whether the US Russia reset can benefit from an emerging maritime partnership in the Arctic region There are three basic tenants that will form our discussion here today The first of these is derived directly from the respective Arctic policies and strategies of the United States and Russia When you compare contrast these strategies and policies As well as recent commentary from both political and military figures from both countries, you know few themes emerge first both nations demonstrate a common commitment to Maintain an Arctic region. That's peaceful stable and free of conflict and second both The Arctic policies of Russia in the United States highlight the need to develop new or enhanced international arrangements and to into leverage international law To address shared challenges in the Arctic region And when you look exclusively at the US defense strategic guidance That was released this past January and the US national strategy for the Arctic region Which was released this past May both sets of documents clearly highlight the need to build a closer relationship with Russia In areas of mutual interest And the second tenant that lies or that lays the foundation for our discussion here today is Really a shared understanding of the devastating consequences To the Arctic as a result of some type of large large scale oil spill response Or a large-scale search-and-rescue effort and this concern is reinforced Through a series of international agreements Mainly facilitated through the Arctic Council and that's the agreement on cooperation of marine oil spill pollution preparedness and the Arctic search-and-rescue agreement So I think as the United States continues to develop plans strategies and policies in the Arctic region I think it's important for leaders to to grasp and understand what the Arctic really means to the to Russia from a Russian perspective and Rowan Kushvich of the Murmansky Institute of Economics was recently quoted as saying that the Arctic has been important For us for many centuries, and it's not only just economics, but our country is a northern country And the Arctic is one of the foundation blocks of our statehood in the 1990s a lot of Arctic financing was stopped due to the economic and political collapse, but since 2000 it's re-emerged as a Top priority again, and this sentiment is shared Through various military and political figures throughout the Russian government But for now at least from my perspective it the million-dollar question on everyone's mind is How economically viable the Arctic will be over the near term both in terms of a petroleum and mineral exploration? but also the the use and development of the northern sea route as an alternative shipping lane that links Asia and Europe and That economic viability as well as The commitment to resources is the final piece that will form our discussion here today and from a Russian perspective They're fairly confident that The Arctic will be economically viable over the foreseeable future Through implementing various policies and practices They are I think they're positioning themselves in a manner to address these demands over their foreseeable future conversely it appears that the United States is more uncertain about how economic and economically viable the Arctic will be and Given today's current fiscally constrained environment. I think it's It appears that there hasn't it to commit any additional resources To a region surrounded by so much uncertainty And I think that's one of the keys that distinguishes both Russia and the United States But I'm optimistic at least in the near term that this region will serve as a form for cooperation rather than conflict But and while it appears that the likelihood of conflict is is fairly low I think US maritime forces should you know continue to remain capable and ready to respond any contingency in the Arctic We learned from the 2011 fleet Arctic operations game that we hosted here at the war college that Among other things the Navy and in particular the Coast Guard needs to build stronger maritime partnerships in the Arctic and while the Navy has historically Saw to build the capacities of other nations navies I think at least in the near term and within the Arctic you may you may see the Navy Looking to other nations to help field their capabilities and build their capacities in the Arctic and This emerging pair partnership paradigm begins with Russia in the United States and To discuss this topic in more depth. I'm joined by four really fantastic Panelists and colleagues of mine here at the war college first of my immediate right is right is professor Pete Pedrozo Who's a professor of international law in our international law department where he specializes in a range of international and operational law issues? He's retired from the Navy in 2009 after serving 33 years of active-duty service Where he served in a number of key leadership positions. He's an accomplished writer who recently co-authored a Book entitled international maritime security law and recently published an article in the ILD series entitled the law of the sea and the Arctic To his immediate right is dr. Peter Dombrovsky who's a professor of strategy and the strategic research department Dr. Dombrovsky recently served as the chair of the strategic research department director the naval war college press editor of the NWC review and co-editor of the international studies quarterly and Was an associate professor of political science at Iowa State University He's off. He's authored over 40 articles monographs book chapters and various government reports and to his right is dr. Tom Fedeson who serves as a professor in national security affairs department here at the war college and is The director of the Europe Russia studies group here at the war college and his 31 year naval career Included military Simon says the US Nat naval attache to Russia and two tours at NATO headquarters in Brussels Former surface war warfare officer he commanded the US Normandy and the USS William Pratt And finally on the on the end there is a captain Andy Norris to the US Coast Guard and Captain Norris is a Coast Guard judge advocate who currently serves as the Coast Guard service advisor here at the college And is a member of the faculty in the joint military operations department. He's widely published in various various international publications and a recently published a monogram entitled Legal issues relating to unmanned maritime systems so with that I thank each of you for being here today and what we'll do is we'll begin the panel by enabling each each of you to Present your prepared remarks and then what we'll do is we'll transition and field questions both from folks here in the audience on campus but from those who are Joining us virtually on divvids as well. So with that I'll turn to you Pete. Thank you, Walter All right I'm briefly just going to discuss two areas that Where there is a impact between us Russia relations in the Arctic one being our maritime boundary with Russia and how that might or might not impact our resource interests between our two countries and then secondly, I'll talk briefly about Russia's maritime claims in the Arctic and how those Claims could have an impact not only on our freedom of navigation interests in the Arctic, but globally as well You can see here We've had a maritime boundary agreement with Russia since 1990 It's the second largest maritime boundary agreement that we have with with any nation in the world It did receive a send a device and consent back in 1991 however the Russian Duma has not ratified it and as a result of that it's being provisionally applied Through an exchange of notes on a yearly basis and it's done so every year since 1990 now the peculiar thing about this agreement is These special areas and you can see There's two special areas that are on the eastern side of the of the boundary line and one on the western side of The boundary line in effect those those areas in the case of Here and here are actually part of the Russian exclusive economic zone and on the western side That's actually part of the US exclusive economic zone, but pursuant to this agreement we have Given the Russians Jurisdiction in our exclusive economic zone in the western special area and they have given us a resource jurisdiction in the eastern Special area, so that's something that's odd in in maritime boundary agreements, but Something of interest here again. There's because of this agreement Is in the Bering Sea it as far as fishery resources go don't really don't see any impact on Potential conflict with Russia over fisheries resources because of this Peter is going to talk in detail about economics But this region yields about a half of the US seafood catch On an annual basis as well as a third of the Russian seafood catch on an annual basis now in order to enforce this boundary We do have Excellent working Relations with the Russian border guard and Andy's going to talk more about that because really a US Coast Guard border guard a relationship But at the most recent biannual meeting of the of the two organizations Coast Guard and Russian Northeast Border guard on the Russian side they sign a Memorandum or a document of understanding that provides for joint action for dealing with increased vessel traffic and illegal unreported fishing in the area and you can see there that Fishery enforcement search and rescue Etc. Some of the aspects covered by that agreement now with regards to hydrocarbon resources you can see here that Russia does have a number of Overlapping claims with some of the other Arctic nations with regards to their extended continental shelf in the Arctic however because of our boundary agreement with Russia we will not have a Overlapping extended continental shelf claim in the Arctic so again from a resource perspective and a potential for conflict over Hydrocarbon resources. I don't see that this would be an issue between the US and in Russia because we have this pre-existing boundary agreement with the Russians Now freedom of navigation is is another issue Greater access to Arctic shipping means there's going to be more traffic in the Arctic Most of that is going to occur in the northern sea route that is operated by the Russian Federation As opposed to the Northwest Passage, which would be on the Canadian side just because the north northern sea route Will have a greater ice melt throughout the year So you're going to see greater traffic not significant for the foreseeable future But some increase in traffic in the northern sea route in the foreseeable future So how does that impact our freedom of navigation interest here? You can see the US national security interest in the Arctic that's put out in the NSPD 66 you can see one of the One of the interests that we have is ensuring freedom of navigation and overflight in the Arctic And you can see that we've specifically identified the northern sea route as one of the potential areas of conflict with regards to freedom of navigation because we view that a number of three of this of the Straits that are included within the northern sea route Are a subject to the regime of transit passage and that's something that the Russians don't Agree with us on so there's there's a potential that for friction between our two countries as Greater access Results in the in the northern sea route how we supposed to implement this from a from a Navy perspective again We're supposed to preserve our global mobility And that's an important aspect of this is we're talking global We're not just talking about Arctic and we want to be able to project our maritime presence in the Arctic to that to Protect our national security interest now from a excessive claims perspective. We see that Russia draws straight baselines along most of its Arctic Territory Three areas in particular Here here and here those straight baselines have the effect of closing off what we consider to be international Straits where we have a unimpeded right of transit now if we were talking about the Arctic alone We would probably say well who cares? But we're not talking about the Arctic alone because there's about a hundred fifteen International Straits throughout the world and we can't pick and choose which ones we're going to say we're going to challenge Or which ones we want to use and which ones we don't want to use So if we're going to challenge Iran in the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz Because they have excessive maritime claims that Proport to restrict transit through the Straits of Hormuz. We got to be prepared to challenge Russian excessive claims with regards to the three international Straits that Are located within the northern sea route and the same thing with Canada on the on the Canadian side The Northwest Passage the Canadians don't view that as a an international Straits subject to transit passage, but we do We have and so again an area of potential conflict as greater access becomes available in the in the in the Arctic The Russians have also adopted a series of regulations domestic regulations to regulate Maritime traffic in the northern sea route. You can see here. They have Regulations with regards to navigation regulations with regards to icebreaker assistance and Pilotage requirements as well as restrictions that are regulations that apply to the construction design equipment and Manning of vessels that are going to be used in the northern sea route now We have taken a look at all of these regulations From an international perspective from the US perspective and all of them exceed what's permissible under international Law as well as IMO standard international maritime organization standards that would apply to these types of domestic regulations With regards the regulations on navigation I haven't listed all the requirements But you can see here some of the ones that are problematic to the United States One the prior notice requirement Our view is that all ships enjoy a right of passage in the territorial sea and a right of transit passage in international strait without providing prior notification to the coastal state Because prior notification for the nose to coastal state normally means that they also are going to grant you permission or deny you permission And in the case of Russia, that's that that's exactly what happens. They they on They have the ability to deny permission to transit the northern sea route if you do not do not comply with it with their regulations Other requirements that you can see there mandatory inspection of vessels Icebreaker assistance that must be paid for in advance by the shipping company The requirement to use mandatory mandatory routes mandatory routes are permissible under international law they're permissible under under the Solace convention safety of life the sea convention that is adopted by the international maritime organization. However, if you're gonna have mandatory routes that apply seaward of the territorial sea those have to have international approval at the IMO and Russia has not gone to the IMO to seek approval of these regulations with regards to compulsory piloted mandatory icebreaker support mandatory routing etc as I mentioned our view is that there is an unimpeded right of Transit passage through international straits so those three straits that I showed you earlier Our position would be that if we wanted to send a ship through there that regardless of what the Russian regulations say that we would have a right to do that the other problem with the Russian Russian regulations is that they don't make an exception for sovereign immune vessels, so if if we want to send a warship through there or Some other government vessel as far as the Russians are concerned they would be able to to restrict that passage so again something that we have serious issues with with the Russians with regards to freedom of navigation and most importantly the ones that we're looking at here the compulsory piloted requirements compulsory icebreaker support and the prior notice requirements that I mentioned earlier all of these types of domestic regulations are permissible But only if they're adopted by the international maritime organization also problematic are the the Russians regulations with regards to construction Construction design equipment and manning of ships that are going to be operating in the Arctic Under the international law that's reflected in the law the sea convention article 21 The coastal state can adopt laws and regulations that apply to construction design equipment and manning of foreign vessels however, they must give effect to generally accepted international rules and standards and that That means international rules and standards means approved by the by the international maritime organization so you can see that many of the Requirements that Russia is imposing on shipping in order to be able to transit through the northern sea route Exceed both the requirements of the law the sea convention as well as imo guidelines that have been promulgated in the polar code and most recently in 2009 which are under revision at the imo as we speak now the Russians base their Their authority to do what they're doing on article 234 the convention Which does allow the a coastal state to adopt certain laws with regards to the prevention reduction in control of marine pollution from vessels in ice-covered areas within their easy however those Laws have to give due regard to navigation and have to be based on best available scientific evidence The Russians have not put forth any evidence to show us that what they have adopted is based on the best available scientific evidence And and as I mentioned earlier, they do not give due regard to navigation as provided in the in the law of the sea convention As I mentioned the imo guidelines for ships operating in polar waters is currently under review at the imo With a view of making it a mandatory code and the expected completion date of those Efforts it will be in 2014. I don't think that's really going to happen But we'll see if they if they meet their deadline. I'm looking more at 215 or 216 So some next steps, you know, what can we do one? We have to continue our leadership at the international maritime organization to develop a mandatory code That is consistent with our national security interest and with our freedom of navigation interests The northern sea route regulations were recently amended in 2000 in this year we Need to diplomatically protest that to show that our shore non-acquiescence in in those regulations In order to make sure that they don't develop over time into customer international law Since a lot of countries are abiding by those regulations because they want to be able to use the northern sea route a Draft of that Protest is in progress. I saw a copy of it last week and made me some comments on it So I expect that to happen in the near term and then finally Greater access to the northern sea route because of the melting sea I is going to provide us with an opportunity to conduct an operational challenge of these straits In the past we used to conduct challenges of the Northwest Passage on the Canadian side until we entered into a bilateral agreement with them That we kind of agreed to give them prior notice when we were going to send scientific research ships to do the through the To the Northwest Passage Which is normally the ships that were going through there were our ice breakers the Coast Guard ice breakers that we had but Now that there's greater access on the on the Russian side Are we going to step up to the plate and operationally challenge our Provided and send a ship through these three international straits that we consider the right of transit passage to apply And the real question will be does Washington have the political will to do that and my guess is that they probably don't Because it's Russia, so we'll see how how this all plays out But we have to be careful that that we over time because more countries are going to be Using an northern sea route and are going to be accepting the Russian regulations that there that this state practice doesn't somehow develop into a customary norm of international law and Somehow bind the United States in a way that we don't want to be bound. So with that I'll turn it over to Peter Can somebody change the slides to the next or do I just do that? I guess I just do that. Okay. Thank you Walter for inviting us and for organizing on behalf of Ambassador Peters the active regional studies group. I'm very pleased to be included in this Present this body of experts and thank you all for coming out and taking time out of your lunch What I'm going to do today is not talk so much about the u.s. Russia relationship as the overall 10,000-foot view of the economic dimensions the the so-called Arctic opening basically the loss of sea ice and its implications And I'm going to take this as I said it as an overview at a 10,000-foot level and I'm going to focus on four areas Shipping naturally, but particularly energy fishing and tourism I should note there are other economic issues in the region that actually have Quite a bit of importance for the United States and Russia and the other Arctic nations You know particularly things like economic development one of the things that I think Walter and I Were exposed to and doing some of the work we did in Washington on Arctic strategy Was the importance at least in the u.s. Domestic context of the state of Alaska and indigenous Indigenous peoples in the region, and I think many of the other states also have similar concerns I'm not going to talk about that today, but it is a driver of policy. That's a driver of economic issues Much more than some of us might expect given a normal focus on military and operational and strategic questions I'm not going to talk about the environmental issues, which if you think carefully about the environment There's a lot of economic dimensions to disasters to changing weather patterns changing climate patterns I'm not going to discuss about that today because I think there's enough on the plate But it's certainly something that should be thought about and considered by Other scholars and students as we as we look at the emergence of the Arctic as a region of interest The bottom line of what I'm going to say today is is cautionary to step back to place the Arctic in Context particularly the economic dimensions of the Arctic in a context Not just of the region itself, but in a wider global context because this is where the rubber really meets the road To use a horrible cliche for the United States Navy in the United States military But also for some of the other countries in the region, particularly the Russian So it's not just an Arctic issue. It's an Arctic issue set of issues It's an Arctic set of issues within a wider strategic context so The next the next slide is just we've all seen that the the northern the northern sea route in the Northwest passages There's people here in this room that are much more expert and I but what I want to talk about is and I cannot improve upon Steve Carmel of Maersk's analysis of this Steve is a friend of the War College and been here many times and he's recent recently given a series of talks and publishes series of Articles looking at the impact of shipping and the commercial impact So I'm just going to give you a quote and then talk a little bit about what he's saying Quote maritime pundits believe a shrinking ice cap Translates into a frenzy of traffic as shippers rush to exploit shorter sea routes and According to Steve Carmel quote they are wrong And I think that's actually something very important for us all to recognize as we think about The Arctic in the changing ice ice patterns and flows and the shrinking ice cap to think carefully about Exactly what it does means and Carmel's analysis is based on a number of factors I'm not going to be able to rehearse them here, but it's The nature of the length of time that passage is actually viable because a shrinking ice cap Doesn't necessarily mean ice free and ice free actually matters for the operation of shipping in the region Just because there was a route open several weeks of a year or longer Over time doesn't mean that the the speed of passage is the same. It is in in warmer waters It also can't change geography the location of the buyers and sellers that want to use this Transships and route trends Transshipment route matters and if you look at the time of global supply chains and Carmel makes this point very well It's unclear just how much economic benefit accrues from this opening that would lead to this rush to Tranship across the region The other thing to consider is the cost of this route across the globe, okay, so it's not necessarily your normal ships That can make this passage particularly in the the non peak period of the receding of ice There is a whole set of other costs associated with potential problems These aren't just on the private industry, but also on governments in terms of and I'll talk about this sort of at the end of my presentation search and rescue hardening of hulls Icebreakers the necessity of communications that aren't necessarily easy if anybody has paid attention to the Arctic environment It is an extreme environment and things we take for granted in the temperate climbs aren't necessarily taken for granted in the Arctic so the bottom line is the rush to lots of ships large container ships and so forth going through the Arctic I the side of The Northern sea route or the Northwest pack passage is probably limited and I'd really Recommend to you readings Steve Carmel's pieces and proceedings and elsewhere on this particular issue The second issue I want to talk about is oil and gas reserves And you know the estimate that this chart which I put up here of the darker colors represent those where either we have discovered reserves or geologists are 100% certain that there is substantial reserves in that in that region as you go lighter down the shades in the chart It actually means there's less and less probability that reserves be discovered not no chance whatsoever Geology being what it is, but that the analysts have looked at the geographic data done the surveys and said this There's only so much here now a few bottom-line things again to say about this I'm Almost all of the existing reserves and The potential reserves with the geologists think there's a higher percentage a Possibility that new reserve we discovered are really controlled by simply two countries and that is the United States with something on the order of 20% of the oil and gas reserves In the Arctic region under its territorial control we can talk about what that means But I'll just leave it at that the Russians have roughly 50% of Those potential reserves now on one hand if we were thinking about it at the very first level of strategic and geostrategic thinking While this is a big deal But if you look at the details, there's actually less than meets the eye Okay, so just take Russia for example Russia is already one of the three or four leading exporters of energy given not not from the Arctic region from Siberia and the rest of the rest of Russia Right now it has a capacity Difficulties in exploiting this it needs greater investment greater investment of equipment exploration infrastructure to Tranship the oil and the gas that they that they have to the marketplace It's unclear how much more Investment they can sustain for this particular region particularly different It's distance from markets the expensive attracting Octa-coil in current market conditions now If you think about it obviously where's the biggest demand for energy or these days? Well, it's China So obviously there's some potential and we've seen this already with a number of agreements for the Chinese to sort of Provide some of the resources provide some of the financing and even the technologies to do accomplish this exploitation The other issue is that for the United States, you know, if you've been paying attention to the news lately The US energy position is shifting radically and there's a lot to say about this and this is the forum but basically America is Projected to become a net energy exporter in the coming days days Decade in part because of our increased exploitation of fracking other technologies to extract Energy both oil and gas and shale gas and so forth from our own territory so The point being that the 20% of the proven and potential reserves that the United States has within its Control in the Arctic while important and obviously an economic boon to Alaska and to other regions Isn't the game changer it might have been at the height of the Cold War during the 1970s when you had the oil crises and so we need to factor in that the Shifting nature of energy markets and how the Arctic will affect it particularly because the Arctic is it a very high Cost area to extract Tranship to build infrastructure and so on so forth. I can take more questions on that if anybody has anything But that's just the general overview The next issue I want to talk about is Excuse me fisheries and This is something I knew absolutely nothing about I haven't really studied As I did a little bit of research on this You know if the assumption is that the changing Arctic the opening of the Arctic and changing ice patents and so forth will increase The possibility of fisheries opening up and contributing to the world far food market I think this is probably at least as I read the science that I'm not a scientist This is less Noteworthy than some people might think This chart is just a very simple one. It sort of looks historically at Catches of various kinds of fish Historically a couple bottom-line things to note in the chart is that Russia Russian Exploitation of Arctic fisheries has declined the American Exploitation of fisheries has increased we actually harvest more these are only the best data I could find was 2000 that's a long time ago when it comes to fisheries so things are changing But what I took away from this is that we're not going to see an enormous boon in increasing the world's access to protein or Decreasing costs of food and global markets based on this opening And part of this is a question of location again much like the petroleum and Angie question There are some parts of the Arctic that have relatively abundant stocks of commercially harvestable fish and there's some that don't Some of them and over fish historically other ones remain relatively unexploited so again as she shifts in time But over the long long run There's a lot of unknowns. Okay, because There's things like acidification of the ocean the changing temperatures and how fast fish stocks Adjust and so forth that that really leave it a number. I think the bottom line is we can't expect that This is going to become a huge resource For the globe or for any of the individual countries in that are Arctic That are on the Arctic Circle Now this may seem strange to talk about tourism in this big geo strategic context But when I go to the next couple slides and I'll get off the stage There is a reason I'm doing this because it actually ties into a maritime question so if you look going back into the 1980s what you see is almost a six hundred percent increase in Arctic tourism however you want to find that Over that period more and more people are going to visit The region they're doing it to see to whale watch to see glaciers to explore wildlife You can't see in more temperate climbs The the possible the the commercial sector has actually responded to this demand They're increasing numbers of hotels and camps and cruises that catered to a clientele that want to explore the octet and again some some things we can say about this are that For the most part it's in the places you might imagine Alaska Scandinavian countries why because they have the facilities in the the comforts that a normal tourism want there's actually a scholarly Literature hard to believe on tourism and basically the analysis says that as the climate warms up More and more people going to want to go to the region where are those where are those new tourists going to go? Well, it'll probably be to a large part to the Russian Sector of the Arctic in part because that is the most unexplored and there is some spectacular Cicicy, so why do I bring this up in this context? Well almost 99% of all the tourism in the Arctic involves cruise ships and There is a lot of firms of marketing during the high season during the part where the ice is receded Trips to go see the glaciers and polar bears and what have you Some of these cruise ships are actually quite large what I put up in the scoops. I'm sorry. I went back Apologize What I put up on the screen is just one of the vessels and one of the firms and a proposed route that that they plan to take in the future and the thing that the thing to say about this is that increased tourism in a fairly extreme environment even in the in the warmer months of the year Increases the possibly Possibility of disasters and this is an issue for the Coast Guards of the Arctic countries the US Coast Guard But I think you case we made that there was actually an issue that the Navy needs to be aware of and Part of the reason is is because as most of us know the number of ice hardened hulls icebreakers available The infrastructure for search and rescue in the region particularly in the American side are quite limited Okay, and as I said earlier some of the most Vibrant parts of the tourism industry actually are up in through the Bering Straits and up into into Alaska So we need to think about this in terms as a demand signal. Excuse me a demand signal for At the very least thinking through operational and Tacticals the wrong term in this context, but the operational challenges of operating this firemen should the worst happen There'd be some tourism related disaster. I mean everybody's seen the Titanic and what happens when a cruiser goes on excuse me when cruise ship hits or an ocean liner hits an iceberg and you know That's a nightmare scenario and it's not outside the realm of possibility I understand the difference between the Titanic and other kinds of vessels But in the extreme environment given the possibility even the best months of extreme weather Given the possibility as the ice pack melts or more glaciers in the re excuse me more icebergs in the region There's a real possibility that there'll be some kind of a tragic event And at least the coast guards in the international community needs to think that think about it So to get off the stage and sort of end this very broad discussion of the economic dimensions the active opening I think it's important to note again that the region does not have the economic Possibilities some of the advocates and proponents and chicken littles of the world Might expect there are limits The American geographic Location. Yes, there is oil and natural gas. Yes, there is tourism, but it's largely a Russian question We need to think about this in the context of markets because it's not a zero-sum gain of the 19th or 18th Centuries, this is a case where the exploitation of resources in the region is done by private industry by private contractors and firms and And mostly they contribute to global markets. So petroleum and gas entering on the global market Has an impact on prices across the world It's not a zero somewhere one country or the controls it for their sole consumption or as an economic weapon But that's a longer story on the other hand for the reasons that Pete has talked about and I'm sure Tom and and others will discuss, you know, there are strategic in and legal Issues and sovereign issues that need to be discussed, but the economy is less of a driver than we might think Thank you very much And thank you Walter and Peter squared What I hope to do in a short time is to give you a Russian look not an American look a Russian look at at the military forces in the area predominantly naval But 90% of what I'm about to show you comes from Russian sources except for a couple of the pictures And I won't try to editorialize too much What I'll do is try to just stick with the facts ma'am, and we can take it from there What you're looking at right there is in 2007 planting of the Russian flag at the North Pole With a icebreaker and a submersible that went down there created quite a lot of havoc around the world when The world was looking at the Russians planting their flag there essentially Looking like they're claiming the North Pole not quite so fast, but still it had a it had a symbolic impact You can't read too much about this even the Russian press where you don't see the growth of commercial shipping And I deferred it to Peter on this subject I've heard the the same argument But the point can't be ignored that the number of transits and this year the number of permits that 495 is the number of permits to transit the Northeast Passage is Increasing perhaps we won't get there quickly But the argument does suggest that we will get there to the point that some Non-trivial percentage of the world's shipping will go through the Arctic Ocean It'll never become the next Suez Canal, but it won't be unimportant either In terms of minerals the US Geological Survey says 25% of all the undiscovered oil and gas in the world is up in the Arctic so taking them out their word Let's take a quick military look. I just put a couple badges up there But yeah, that's the northern fleet up in the upper right-hand corner That's the Russian naval infantry on the other side, but it's more than just the military that's up there There's also other organizations that have a stake in Russia's claim to its portion of the Arctic things like the Coast Guard interior ministries, etc All right quickly Reading their documents and believing what they say What we have is a national security strategy that is predominantly focused on the power and prestige through economic strength There's precious little talk about military expansion in this part of the world talk There is a lot of talk about how important the Arctic will eventually be to Russia I think it's expected. That's the sort of thing you'd want to see in an nss But one of the goals is a permanent military presence in the Arctic essentially to say yes It's ours and yes, we're willing to defend it and the fact that mr. Putin really loves his naval uniforms is a big deal I will say this though I read enough of the Russian blogosphere and enough of the Russian defense Experts talking sort of unofficially and you don't get quite the same benign talk when you hear a bunch of Navy captains Talking about the Arctic you really do hear much more or you read much more unofficially About how the Americans and NATO are coming to surround us Especially if our ballistic missile defense shooters go up there. We are really threatened by it again I don't expect to ever hear words like that come out of Putin's mouth But pretty much all of the the Russian admirals and Russian captains that I speak to are more than happy to tell us how they're threatened By the Western navies coming up into that part of the world Yes, they too have a maritime strategy much as we do and I think maybe you'd be surprised But it is even less militaristic than CS 21 It spends about 90% of its time talking about sovereignty economics Territorial seas freedom of the seas navigation protecting human life protecting the environment almost as a footnote They talk about strong naval power in this part of the world So once again the words are the words the actions to some extent support this But let me show you some of the other actions that are going on up there in case you need any of the Cassandra in today's debate I'll give it to you For openers because the Northeast Passage has been open for the last few years the Russian Navy has been running a Flotilla through there last year a 10 ship flotilla led by Peter the Great went through accompanied by four nuclear-powered icebreakers The claim by the Navy and by the Defense Department is that the threat is the potential for smugglers and illegal migrants But there's also a very clear note that the Ministry of Defense plans to continue this They've done it now two consecutive years and there's every indication that they will continue to run naval flotillas up there This is a lot of reading and I don't want you to read it all But maybe the takeaway here is that it's not just the Navy that's moving up there Not too surprisingly airborne assault forces had a big exercise up there not too long ago special ops a big exercise even the army is planning on Sending people up there into the Arctic with with to what they call arctic infantry brigades basing more migs up there especially on the via Zemlya a Naval base which never was much of a naval base and basically went defunct on The Soviet Union and then Russia will now be at least in their plan completely rebuilt the Novosibirskie Naval Base Coast Guard of course is still active up there along with the border guard They've just created ten what they call arctic aid centers in support of any SAR missions Perhaps with related to the tourist thing that Peter just told us about But the bottom line is that their walk is present Their talk isn't so strong their walk is happening. They are putting defense forces up there Are we concerned most Americans that I speak to say no, it's only natural. It's kind of like Americans putting defense Installations along the California and Alaskan coasts. I mean it is their territory So why should we be surprised if their Marine Corps Army and Air Force joins their Navy along their coast? Yeah, let me let me just offer this though, you know, can they do more? I mean, I'm kind of waving the flag a little bit here Not too many people are waving it with me, but the Russians said they were building ships over the last 20 years Actually, they really haven't started building them until about three years ago These ships are starting to come off the shipways right now and you can look at the commissioning dates of this is their surface ships Are they building nuclear submarines? Yeah, they're building them too, but just their surface ship building plan went from virtually zero between 1991 and 2008 to Alive, I mean and it was dead then it went from from dead to dormant and it went from dormant to what I will call alive over the last 18 months and These are they the number of ships that they do plan to build and when they plan to commission them And they are commissioning now somewhere between two and six ships a year Can they go up there? Of course they can and their position is to have a permanent military presence So I would argue that and in addition to this they're also commissioning additional ice breakers They have a fleet of nuclear ice breaking ships. They're very impressive as you can see by what I call the world's meanest looking icebreaker and they've also got a number of rescue and research ships for underwater Operations and they're increasing their budgets here, too. They're building new floating nuclear power station They're building a transportation logistics network to support their offshore Drilling as well as a number of oil platform replenishment ships. So it's real And I'll just end by showing you a picture of their CNO Who touts the fact that now over six billion dollars a year going to their shipbuilding program? That's about half of what we spent You know, we hitched about 20 times as much as they used to spend five years ago So it's real and the fact that he is not at all embarrassed by the fact that his navy will continue to show a constant Presence up there and he's looking forward to it and he thinks in the very near future He will have a navy that can actually do it. So that's the that's the Russian Navy look at things I'll turn it over to the Coast Guard. Let's try this. Thank you very much. I'm Andy Norris and we'll talk about interactions between the Russian Coast Guard and the US Should start out by saying that the Russian Coast Guard is not the only entity that we Interact with as their Coast Guard like functions are spread across eight ministries and we'll look at those Shortly, but we'll here's what we'll talk about three general topics As you can see the current status of relevant operations interactions the structure of the Russian ministries that have Coast Guard like functions and then a new initiative the US Russia Arctic maritime initiative in terms of current Relevant operations and interactions as I Characterized them first of all it should be mentioned that there is no active commercial fishery in the Arctic region Obviously, that's something that is anticipated to occur in the coming years, but the US and the other Arctic nations the so-called a8 With the exception of Russia are in favor of a moratorium on commercial fisheries at least until science has had an opportunity to study the area and Understand sustainable fisheries and what it would take so But the point being that there is currently no active commercial fisheries in the area We do have ongoing interactions with Russian Agencies on a policy type level four of them are indicated here. I'll discuss a few more later on but first of all is the IMO Pete's already talked about this and the Coast Guard is the lead US agency representative to the IMO with the big thing of interest in the Arctic region being the development of the polar code which would mandate Construction design equipment other standards for vessels that would operate in the Arctic Second is the Arctic Council. I indicate there a 8 versus a 5 the 5 5 nations within the Arctic Council a 5 the US Canada Russia Denmark and Norway that's the Russian preferred grouping for negotiations for multilateral negotiations The US insists upon the inclusion of the other three nations, which don't actually have Arctic coasts those being Sweden Finland and who's the last one? Iceland and so that is is one area of called Contention if you will but the US does insist that any interactions involve the Arctic 8 Russia often tries to just involve the a 5 but be that as a may the Arctic Council has had and again it's been mentioned before two significant achievements in terms of Treaties one being a SAR treaty and the other in the area of Pollution the US will chair the Arctic Council from 2015 to 2017 third in the areas of policy interaction is the Arctic Security Forces roundtable this is co-hosted by the US and Norway and involves flag and general officers from Interested nations that go beyond the Arctic 8 to discuss matters of Arctic interest that are outside the Area areas covered by the Arctic Council And finally the security and cooperation the Arctic Conference. That's hosted annually by the Russian Security Council It brings together diplomatic level representatives from the 8 Arctic states further on this slide here is a Illusion to operational interactions between the Russians and the US Coast Guard and there are some in particularly as think has already mentioned the area of fisheries there's healthy cooperation in that area the Coast Guard district in the area is District 17 and there's interactions between District 17 and their counterparts on the Russian side that interaction consists of sharing of Intel it also consists of Coordination of patrols between the two nations to try to ensure that gaps are minimized in terms of enforcement vessels being on scene And finally you can see desired areas of progress there the biggie would be that memorandum of agreement yeah, mo you in That's anticipated in 2014 that would allow for ship riders that being Russian enforcement officers riding aboard Coast Guard cutters so they can enforce a Russian laws that we would not otherwise be able to enforce and reciprocally US Coast Guard officers riding aboard Russian cutters to enforce us laws that the Russian Enforcement vessels may not be able to enforce so that's a that's anticipated to occur And it's a fairly significant development not in the Arctic it or itself, but These are models for future interaction between the two nations That could later incur in the Arctic region Somebody already stole this slide for me the next area of discussion will be This which you can't see and I was afraid of that. I do have a a Blow-up chart which I can make available at the end if anyone looks to look at it more closely But this is the structure of the Russian Ministries what you need to understand is that the pink colored? Structures blocks in there are aspects of the Russian government that Participate in SAR search and rescue blue are Russian Ministries and agencies that have an interest in the Arctic and green are Russian ministries and agencies that have Fisheries so the point being that really across the top those are separate ministries and You can see that the Coast Guard like functions are spread out across a number of agencies The Russian and you can't see it, but up. Oh, that's not a pointer. Yeah that up there is the FSB which is the successor to the KGB and that this agency is a law enforcement agency and It's considered a military organization by the Russians The US Coast Guard excuse me US Coast Guard the Russian Coast Guard is Within this ministry and the Russian Coast Guard has responsibilities in the area of border protection and fisheries So we do have lots of interactions with the Russian Coast Guard, but they're not in realms that are of Particular interest to the Arctic because that's not their area of responsibility Areas of responsibility of particular interest in the Arctic are a search and rescue and pollution and that is under the Ministry of Transportation Which is right here and particularly within that ministry is the so-called SMP CSRA which Is the agency responsible for pollution and SAR response So we have a number of interactions with that agency and they will be increasing obviously in the Arctic realm What's of interest with this agency is that it does have some organic assets So they're the coordinators of Russian SAR and pollution response, but they're not necessarily the asset providers They do have I think the current number is 98 But essentially close to a hundred vessels. They have no organic aircraft They rely upon other agencies to provide assets in the event of a of an incident So again, they serve a coordination role It's unclear the extent to which they can direct other agencies to provide assets as opposed to requests But nonetheless this agency here in Murcom Is a does have assets that are provided for these types of functions and also the Air Force the There's the Air Force controls all the air assets. So this SP and SMP CSRA It does not have organic aircraft, but it does as I said have some organic vessels One final agency that would mention is in this one also under the Ministry of Transport that is the newly formed northern sea route administration and That was formed this year and it's going to centralize control of icebreakers ice pilots communications charting maritime to wear domain awareness and SAR in the Arctic so of obvious interests and importance in terms of future cooperation and in coordination between the US and us and Russia So that's again the northern sea route administration This is the command I should mention also that the SMP CSRA the lead Russian agency for SAR and Pollution response does run a number of command centers throughout the country and this is the main one in Moscow They have five command centers now in the Arctic Three in the Pacific and then a few others in the Caspian area and otherwise and this is Hello, this is a new vessel that's in the SMP CSRA Inventory as I mentioned they have close to a hundred organic assets This is one of them 22 of their ships are new in the past two years So we talked about their recapitalization the Navy. They're also doing it obviously in their civilian agencies The aircraft in this picture however is not owned by that agency as I mentioned all the aircraft are controlled by the Air Force So they'd have to request Airborne assistance if they needed it The final point I'll mention is this is a US Russia Arctic maritime initiative this slide has Changed since I made it on Tuesday or I should say the underlying Facts of change. This is a brand new area and so obviously the developments are are moving head Rapidly this is a result of a US National Security staff Russia National Security Council agreement and It's one of the nasa US National Security staffs 33 priorities for engagement between us and Russia And involves three components First of all is the Arctic Coast Guard forum No involved countries have yet decided what it will look like the Russians have agreed as of September this year that all eight Arctic nations will be involved and in Terms of Russian involvement the Russian Coast Guard is going to be the lead agency what exactly this forum is going to do these yet TVD What has changed since this slide was put together is that what is called part 3 on the slide is now part 2 In that we're moving forward with that Whereas what is listed part 2 is now part 3 and that that's going to be something to develop in the years to come so what is now part 2 is the establishment of this arctic maritime excuse me the US Arctic Center For expertise and the reason why I stumble over that is because that's also been changed Between Tuesday and today that will be called the US Arctic Center for strategy and policy It's going to be located at the Coast Guard Academy. It's going to be a brick-and-mortar structure. There will be several embedded Russians at this Center and but it's not just coast US Coast Guard It's going to be the US government Center and Thus Noah for sure and other US agencies will be involved. So they've pointed a director. This is something that is Starting and it's on its way And finally then the third component is this establish some of a arctic maritime coordination Center What that will look like is yet TBD and I think that's all I have to say Thanks captain Norris and thank you all for sharing your thoughts with us today at this point I'd like to open the floor up to the folks here on campus if you have any questions Unfortunately, our markets aren't working. So I'll go ahead and repeat the question Any questions and then go ahead and identify if you have a particular panelist that you'd like to To respond to your question. Yes, sir with regards the EEZ The boundary agreement sets up three special areas Two of them are on the eastern side the eastern special areas are actually part of the Russian EEZ But the way the line it was easy to draw a straight line than trying to draw crooked lines So on those eastern side eastern areas Russia has granted the US Resource jurisdiction in those areas and then on the western side, which is actually the US EEZ The US has granted the Russians Jurisdiction resource jurisdiction access to fisheries Primarily enforcement jurist enforcement jurisdiction and over fisheries. There's no there's no oil and gas being drilled out there Yes, we enforce our laws in a Russian easy and vice versa It's just like it was our EEZ, but it's really theirs the way the lines drawn Now I'll just mention the Greenpeace thing. You know my cut on it. I mean, I think The incident occurred on a on an offshore platform Russia does have Exclusive jurisdiction over that offshore platform it has exclusive jurisdiction to engage in security measures with regards to that to that platform so Did they have the authority to arrest the Greenpeace vessel, that's why I would say yes The question then becomes You know, are when are they going to release them? Will they prosecute them where they release the vessel? There's a case before the International Tribunal of Law see right now where they're trying to get the release of the vessel and the crew Russia has said they're not going to participate in that In that endeavor and I think I forget what the flag stated is that the Netherlands? I think I Believe it's a Netherlands flag vessel So the Netherlands had brought an action at the at Los to for quick release of the vessel and for application provisional measures to have the crew released, but I don't think the Russians are going to play in that In that in that game because they're they're exercising their law enforcement jurisdiction I think they have a legitimate right to do that Yeah, once they do that, they'll never see them again, and I think I think the thought there was that since it was Greenpeace I think there was a sense that there was a little bit of invulnerability Russia invoked its counter piracy laws in order to do what they did probably very legally The the the talk right now is that having over reacted Here's an opportunity now to show the world what a good place Russia is by slowly letting these people out on bail and Setting a better atmosphere for the Sarchi Olympics Let me just comment on the piracy thing. There was a US Ninth Ninth Circuit Court that held the exact same way that Environmental activism was a private act that amounted piracy. So the Russians have just copied us We just that court decision just was held last year Where we were a US court said that environmental activism amounted to piracy Yes, Dean we'll Yeah, the question was whether or not the Russians corner or Take Arctic policies, you know see that separately from other issues such as what's going on in Syria and things like that whether that has any impact I'd go ahead and Open the floor up to anyone who would like to respond to that that's because I might guess And this is just purely a guess is that is that they have a local bureaucratic Structure much as we do and they're probably reasonably stovepipe I'd like to give them credit for having a completely coordinated and integrated foreign policy here Probably that's not true at some point I guess when the when the pot boils over someone realizes that you know The Arctic policy could be screwing up the Olympics at a certain point at which I think they do get integrated Perhaps it almost has to get to the Putin level for it to be integrated, but I don't see this wonderful integration this wonderful Planning this coherency I'm not aware of this level of coherency Yes, I'll jump in on this, but I think maybe Walter has some Thoughts that are worth sharing and some of the work we did in Washington We did bring together representatives of the interagency and the various military commands that have a potential at least a Stake in the game and I think I mean You calm in terms of it wants to cooperate with The countries that it's in its geographic a while But they're not eager to jump into the Arctic per se because they don't see where that They don't see that as the region where their greatest challenges are so I think it's you know Yes, some of our partners are deeply invested and involved. Yes There are initiatives to create new institutional mechanisms within Europe and within NATO But no, they're not driving the show because they don't see that as their their primary strategic interest But you Walter may have something that's better than that. You know, I think I share some of the same sentiments But I think when you look at some issues between North com and you come I think There's many gaps seems overlaps in command and control issues between both co-coms and the fleets and in an interesting concept that has been toyed around a little bit is the use of fleet forces as the northern fleet for the US Navy With keep with capabilities and assets to Matt Bear. So I think both from a you come in North com perspective Both co-coms have yet to articulate what their strategic objectives are and what their mission sets are so it's difficult I think for the Navy and in the Coast Guard per se to plan for certain mission areas in in Field relevant capabilities when the demand signal isn't there So I think you know from a Navy perspective, you know, a little additional clear guidance You know from the co-coms would definitely help Peter I just I just want to add a little tidbit to that which is I mean if you if you look at From a US perspective actually paycom becomes very interesting because the bearing is really the gateway To the Arctic particularly for the Northwest Passage and if you look at the geography and where You know where ships pass and where the infrastructure is to support those ships It's it's a very long way It actually startled me even knowing the globe when you actually look at the distance and the time distance factors to get Ships to a particular place in a particular point of time But there isn't a whole lot of interest on paycoms part because they say probably rightfully that we have other fish to fry There's this little thing we call the South China Sea There are these other problems that are more pressing and like Walter said You know fleet forces command and how it relates to North com Maybe the determinant and the requirements generation piece You know the way it works as I understand that it should come flow up from the co-coms But if that's not they're not driving it's really hard to articulate it within the requirements definition process Thanks for the question At this point I'd like to take one question from one of our viewers online and this is mainly for captain Norris and You know with the US Navy's current commitments in multiple AORs and budget uncertainties with threats from sequestration and continuing resolutions Where will these these assets come from for a potential art maritime presence in the future? Is in the question their response was is is the better answer to beef up the Coast Guard? And and how could we best attempt to deal with this issue in the current fiscally constrained environment? That's an excellent suggestion. I think we should beef up the Coast Guard absolutely the reality is is that the budget issues that Navy's facing are the budget issues that the Coast Guard is facing Sequestration has effects on the Coast Guard as it does with the Navy There are resource Challenges to expansion into the Arctic we would just for search and rescue purposes It's been has been alluded to during the course of the discussions There's a there's a need for assets. There's a needs for ships for aircraft for sure infrastructure and Where are they going to come from? at what Cost what it's you know, it's either going to come from an increase to the Coast Guard's budget or to the Navy's or to the Otherwise, which is unlikely or it's going to come at the expense of other Priority in the service's eyes at least programs so the Coast Guard has is in the process of recapitalizing its fleet and With the centerpiece centerpiece being the national security cutters so it our increased resources for Arctic purposes is going to come at the expense of the National Security Cutter fleet that's a that's certainly a big question Where ice breakers going to come? Well, where's the money for ice breakers going to come from and we really have one right now That's that's operational is talk about bringing a second one that's back into operation But still I think I don't know the exact numbers I've heard it and I think it's nine or eight But anyway studies have shown a need for eight to nine ice breakers up there and we've got one so yeah Resources it's a it's a big issue Thank you, and I'll preference this last question here with with a quote from the founding father in first president of the Naval War College rear Admiral Stephen B. Loose and You know the War College was founded as a place of original research on all things related to war or the statesmanship of war and the prevention of war and As the Navy looks to enhance cooperation with with their counterparts in Russia And this question could be for anybody or if Peter you want to Tackle it, but where what are some areas that the US Navy can focus on in the near term in terms of a research with their Russian counterparts So the first thing I say is I think actually the last bullet or the second or last bullet on your last slide is A good step is that we're actually you know creating some of the intellectual and academic Infrastructure to think about this more carefully So the Coast Guard Academy's effort is a big step in the right direction The fact that we actually have Russians involved and the War College and the Naval Academy and other US institutions are Cooperating and sharing information and analysis is a big first step The second thing I would say which is a much more macro point is You know regardless of what you think about you know threats in the AOR the economic aspects of at the sovereignty questions You know to be a player in the region and serve its Natural role within the Arctic Council the United States needs to have Capacity on the ground so to speak or on the ocean and the fact is There are limits one one icebreaker another one that might be able to be brought up to speed very few Reinforced hulls almost no sure-based infrastructure in the region very limited comms reliance on some of our allies and friends for certain kinds of capacities in the region Suggested the United States doesn't have The kind of leadership role the capacity to lead in the way it might if it actually had some of the assets available And this isn't to militarize the region This isn't to make it another geostrategic conflict but as the region opens up the investments take a long time to come to fruition and War colleges and the Navy thinking this through today so we can prepare it for the 10 or 20 or 15 years out are really essential to build a groundswell of support Within Congress within the nation as a whole to understand this region. So that's that's a very general point I'd offer a thought that goes something along the lines of our past history with Russia For a long time during the Cold War. We had an incidence at sea agreement Which started very at a very small level and over the years got to be reasonably significant I do point out that None of this was ever designed to allow us to be allies and work together in war It very much was picking low-hanging fruit It very much was simply avoiding accidents and not doing anything silly to one another while saving as many lives as possible So I would argue probably read what we did with ink see way back when try to emulate that in the Arctic Probably we won't get too far But we should be able to find enough low-hanging fruit with relation to freedom navigation Search and rescue the sorts of things that are reasonably non warfare related but can build this sense of security with one another That might eventually parlay itself into something meaningful, but we're not ready They're not ready, and I think we're not ready for meaningful warship cooperation at this point If I could just add something to that as well to piggyback Thompson marks is that their Course there was an adversarial relationship during the Coast War, but the Cold War but as he Indicated there were areas of cooperation and otherwise So for example in the Coast Guard realm the Loran stations that the Coast Guard operated Those were operated in close cooperation with the Russians during the height of the coast of the Cold War Keep saying that Cold War the fisheries cooperation as I mentioned is an area of ongoing Mutual activity that can be built upon and And The also the should mention that the Russian icebreaker saving the trap whales That was memorialized in the big miracle movie But there are there have there has been a lot of cooperation over the years and it's a foundation for future interactions Great, and you know we discussed a great deal here today And I like to thank each of our panelists for for being here today and each of you out in the crowd here On campus as well as those viewing online But I'd also be remiss if I weren't to thank the folks behind the scenes who really made this event possible And that's the folks from the public affairs department the audio visual department or events department and our graphics department And with that thank you very much for attending and have a great day