 Good afternoon everybody how are you? I hope you enjoy General McDew's speech as much as I did those of you that got to go to lunch it was inspiring to say the least and to see a career Air Force officer get up there and talk so eloquently about the sea services just did my heart good so I welcome you all here what I what little I have to say will be nowhere near as eloquent but we've got great panelists here so I want to thank the Navy League for giving us the opportunity to have this panel to sit alongside with our sister service and Navy our international partners to talk about matters of significant national interest America for those of you that have don't know I expect you know or you probably took a wrong turn at the passageway there we have a fourth coast and and we are an arting nation and as such what matters in the what happens in the Arctic matters and it's important to global security as many of you know in the last couple years as a member of the Arctic Council we've been quite busy as the chair of that and we prepared to hand that over to our comrades from Finland next month and just last month in Boston our commandant passed over the Arctic Coast Guard Forum to the Finns up in Boston I'm delighted to have this panel here because they are truly experts I got to have lunch with with them and we talked about several things and I think you're gonna be delighted by them this is about it's advertised as about Arctic security but it's not just military security those of you that are familiar with that part of the world this is has to do with economic security it has to do with border security it has to do with environmental security and these gentlemen are certainly well equipped to speak to all of that for the US the Coast Guard is the primary presence in the Arctic and we do that primarily through seasonal presence these days but I will tell you if after you listen to these folks you will I think agree that seasonal present is insufficient moving forward and that's why our ice breaker recapitalization program is so important I know we've got members from the industry here and and that's probably why you're here because you're interested in our requirements and our interest in the Arctic and so I thank you for being here the Coast Guard needs three heavy ice breakers and three medium ice breakers to assure year-round access to this important part of the world and and I think we are on the way towards getting there as sea ice recedes in human activity increasing the Arctic there's greater demand for Coast Guard and Coast Guard activities there because of the tyranny of the distance the atmospheric anomalies it's a difficult place to serve and work and and attain that maritime domain awareness that we all are our key known and the being aware of what's happening there and threats and also the attendance to maritime disasters for all these reasons and more this panel is important our work there is important so I am thrilled to have these gentlemen here without any further ado I'll just quickly introduce our panelists each one of them start with Emma Wang will give a 10-minute or so presentation then we'll open up to your questions so get ready for the questions first to my left is Reverend Nils Wang of the Kingdom of Denmark he is one of Denmark's leading experts and I would say an expert in the world on geopolitical and international governance in the Arctic before he was a common other Danish Defense College he was head of the Royal Danish Navy he sailed in the Arctic waters for many years five specifically around Greenland he and I talked about that and he is a tremendous expert and so he's got a great presentation I think you would be well served to ask him questions next to him as Mike Emerson my colleague from the Coast Guard Mike is the director of marine transportation systems for the Coast Guard and he's our senior Arctic policy advisor Mr. Emerson manages a broad portfolio of navigation waterway and bridge programs and he's also responsible for all of our polar Antarctic programs he's a 30-year veteran of active duty service in the US Coast Guard and I'm thankful to have him here to his left is the oceanographer the Navy Admiral Tim Gallaudet Admiral Gallaudet is the oceanographer and the navigator of the Navy and commander the Navy meteorology and oceanography command prior to assuming his current position he served as Chief of Staff of the Chief of Naval Operations as the Deputy Oceanographer of the Navy we welcome you Tim and then certainly last but not least is the new brand new barely a month old Commissioner of our great partners just to the north the Canadian Coast Guard Jeffrey Hutchison prior to being appointed to lead the Canadian Coast Guard in March of this year he served in the position as a Deputy Commissioner for Strategy and Shipbuilding from 2015 to 2017 and prior to this Commissioner Hutchison held the position as Director General National Strategies and Director General Integrated Business Management Services so I think you'll agree we've got a great panel here true experts in this important region to our nation and many nations of the world and so that's enough of me I will turn it over to Admiral Wang to give his presentation please welcome thank you very much Admiral thank you for the kind introduction and also thank you to the Navy League from me for inviting me for this great event thank you in my present job as commandant of the Royal Danish Defense College I frequently have coffees coffee chats with different countries ambassadors in Copenhagen when they come by to have a talk about the Arctic and not long ago the Chinese defense attache came to my office and he said Admiral the Arctic is hot and I think that is exactly what everybody what everybody thinks and talks about that is that the Arctic Arctic is hot in several ways of perception you could argue actually the interest and if you look at countries who is applying to be permanent observers in the Arctic Council you you actually sense a little bit like in the old days in the Soviet Union when people was queuing up in front of a shop and and people just queued up without even taking notice of which kind of shop it was because if people queue up it must be interesting in the other end I'm not sure that this is this is this is a one-to-one relation to the Arctic but sometimes it can appears in that way what I will do in the in the next nine ten minutes or so is walk you through a couple of maps on the screen here because I think when you're talking about the Arctic it is it is very important that you have this this this region and and and and the magnificent size of the region on your in front of you because I think that is necessary to to to to understand some of the dynamics that that I will allude to and of course it will only be some of them and I hope that in the discussion period we can maybe go a little further in depth with some of them but then it's up to you to to to find out what we are going to talk about next slide please many people have the perception that the Arctic is a homogeneous region impacted by the same framework conditions and as you can see on this map and I haven't brought it to convince you that the ice is retracting in in the polar seas but merely to to actually illustrates that that you have several regions in the Arctic with different conditions you have the black Arctic as I call it here that is the ice free part of the Arctic and and and that is that is the area where you will have most of the human activities whether that is commercial activities or being military activities that is the reason why the Russians have most of their military built up in that part of the region and by the way the reason why the Norwegians also have a lot of their activities in in the northern part that is because you can that is because it's actually you are able to access the Arctic in this area with normal shipping more or less and and and and there is a huge difference whether you are in the black part of the Arctic or in the blue part of the Arctic that is that is the part of the Arctic that is that is impacted by by winter ice so in the summertime in the summer season this area is also open for for quite normal shipping and and the the period where this area is open is becoming longer and longer as the development goes on and then you have the color part of the Arctic that is multi-year ice that is ice that doesn't melt in the summer so it becomes harder and harder in the winter time and that is the kind of ice where you need very heavy icebreaker in order to actually navigate and and and as you can see it has a tendency to to clock in in in the Canadian American part of the Arctic and and that is probably where it will be most difficult to be but that can also be an advantage because then there is maybe not so much activities there so you so this is both let's say challenges but also opportunities okay next slide please then when we look about the sea transportation and the and the sea route issue the the the northern sea route going through the the Russian the Russian territorial waters in some places but close to the Russian coast the Russian have not made this integrate integrated transportation system in order for us European or Asian consumers to have 40% cheaper washing machines they have made this because they needed themselves because you cannot capitalize your resources in the Arctic if you can't get it on ships and therefore they actually have been in the need of have been been reliant on this sea transportation system for decades and this is also the reason why the Russians have much more ice breaking capacity than the rest of the Arctic nations because they actually need icebreakers in order to get the shipping out of the area with the resources that they want to bring to the world market so they are in a in a in a very special position because they are so heavily dependent on their resources and therefore also to get it out in the region and of course they want to use the residual capacity to sell it to shipping companies that wants to utilize this shortage of distance but but it is not constructed for that purpose and you can get that impression sometimes when you are when you are reading the quick headlines and the short analysis and it is very important to understand this you also see that that there is two other options and the northwest passage and the and the route that is going along the Canadian and the American coast but as you saw on my ice chart before I would I would argue that the blue trans polar sea route would probably be opening up before you can really use the the the northwest passage for systematic transportation but I think that systematic transportation in this part of the world will have to wait at least 10 to 20 years before it becomes really interesting but this is also the horizon that you are working on in boardrooms in shipping industry so when you are investing in new shipping you have to decide already now whether you want to be on a competitive edge when it comes to the future transportation pattern and and maybe you will have maybe you will have success or maybe you will have invested in ships that you can't use so this is basically I think what is what is impacting also civilian and a commercial life in in general if you look at the next slide you can see that there is a there is a governing system in place the Arctic Council have been there since 1996 the flags on top here is the permanent members that is eight member states and the countries on the side was the countries that was obtained in the Arctic Council as permanent observers at the Kiruna summit in 2013 and here you see countries like Singapore Japan Japan South Korea India China and and and Italy and then some of you would argue why is Italy interested in the Arctic is that the Q phenomena in the Soviet Union that we are talking about here but but but if you if you then take into consideration that Italy is probably the one count number one country when it comes to cruise industry there could be a reason for for Italy to actually be part of this club because this is also where you discuss polar codes and and and and good shipping and so forth EU is in brackets because they went on a standby position because they have a band against seal skin products and as long as EU have a band on seal skin products Canada and Greenland will not let them in as permanent observers in this in this group then on the left side you have the Arctic five that is the Arctic nation that actually have coastline to the polar seas and through that have very hardcore border issues when it comes to when it comes to the polar sea polar seas go to the next slide please and you often hear that that that this area is is is a is a wild west area where you have loads of gold waiting to be picked up by the first to get there but this is actually a very very well regulated area and it is regulated through the unclossed the United Nation Convention of the law of the sea from 1982 and what you see here is basically the colored areas along the coastlines is the exclusive economical zones out to 200 nautical miles and the nations they own all the resources within that zone be that marine resources like fish and resources on the seabed and resources under the seabed and and and more than 90% of the energy resources offshore in the Arctic region is actually within already established and general accepted exclusive economical zones so the race for resources in the Arctic the scramble for resources that is often depicted in the quick headlines that would in my opinion be a commercial race it will be a race to get the concessions to be part of the business up there because you have already pulled out all the factors that is consisting the equation of conflict when it comes to resources because they are already distributed to their rightful owner you could argue then you have the the striped area in the middle of the polar seas and that is the area that is up for debate that is the area outside the exclusive economical zones where you can go as far as 100 nautical miles further out if you can prove by scientific data to the continental shelf commission under the UN that your seabed is actually hooked up on your continental shelf and in that case you will get the right to regulate any activities on the seabed but you will not own any fish by that so it's important to understand that the resources out there they are probably there but they will not be you will not be able to exploit them within the next 50 years I would argue so this is not about money this is not about becoming rich tomorrow this is national pride this is politics this is power politics this is a matter of getting what belongs to you when the window is open and if you can expand your territory without going to war for it you should be there as a politician very quickly and I think that is close to be my 10 minutes of introduction and if you take the next slides I just have listed some of my points here and my main my main conclusion is that since the resources is already distributed and since Russia already owns the brother part of it they are the one country in the Arctic region that have the most interest in a stable in in a stable development of the Arctic region because they have more resources in their part of the Arctic the Arctic region than they can afford to exploit so they need foreign investments they need technological cooperation with Western companies in order to exploit it and they can't do that if you have conflict and tension in the area so that is why Russia is playing by the book for the moment and and I think they will continue to do that because the whole Russian business model as a nation is hooked up to be able to unfold the full potential of their Arctic resources so a future conflict Arctic region will be because of the spillover from something else from another region and from another part of the world and that could be a deepening of the Ukraine crisis or a strategic shock in the Chinese South China Sea but it will not be because of something happening in the Arctic thank you very much next up will be Commissioner Hutchison you can do either one whichever you're most comfortable and if you want we could just go back if you just show the slide don't close it all together because commissioner you don't have slides right so go back to the one that shows the chart number three there please that one just for reference closer the good old sure 50 a right the microphone of rock and roll so the ambassador's comments put me in mind of a couple of things I come from Ottawa and we too speak to ambassadors when I when I go to embassies in Ottawa and speak to ambassadors they don't usually say the Arctic is hot they usually say if Santa Claus has a passport it comes from our embassy there are a lot of one-liners though when we talk about the Arctic and you may have heard a few of them this week you hill staffers I'd ask you to write this one down icebreakers are like beer they don't come in ones and and that's not the Canadian fleet I'm talking about another another one liner I heard this week perhaps a bit more serious is that working in the Arctic is a bit like the law of the sea particularly one type when we're talking about sovereignty yes it comes with some freedom but it also comes with a lot of obligation but the one liner I heard that really stuck with me and I have to attribute it to Admiral Sonos is here in the front row as he said it's best to view the Arctic as high attention low tension high attention low tension and that's the period we're in right now and that's going to be the theme of my remarks this afternoon and there's a remarkable similarity to the title of the last presentation which was cooperation or conflict conflict or cooperation pardon me when we talk about low tension high attention I think it's a great description I think it's possibly somewhat aspirational particularly if their ambassadors talking about the Arctic is being hot and but if we think about it for too long it's probably a little bit apocryphal as well by which I mean that the current situation offers us an opportunity and it may not last forever there may be points of national pride there may be political points to score but there may ultimately be resources that countries will see as a primary means of maintaining a way of life and a standard of living and and what may be cooperative today may have a different potential tomorrow and the suggestion I want to make and I know others have made it I simply am adding my voice to what I hope is a growing number is that we have to strengthen the cooperation now to minimize the conflict that may or may not develop people talk about the enclosed process for example is it the best process we could have right now it's better than not having a process I'll tell you that it's suggested sometimes that encloses too slow and I say thank God process that is going to potentially pick winners and losers in when we're talking about a region like the Arctic ought to be slow so we have time to build the relationships in the common understanding from where we sit not on that picture from where we sit the primary threats to security in the Arctic are not necessarily military we think or part yeah military and I think the previous presentation spoke to this as well that that in the near term we may be talking about tourism and the risks that it raises we may be talking about economic development we certainly would add to a list like that the potential impacts on indigenous ways of life there are northern communities in Canada as you know that have a sacred and traditional way of life and it's been said that oh it what a shame that that way of life won't evolve quickly quickly enough to adapt to the changing economic conditions I don't think that that's a perspective we share as a country we see a way of life that fits into a broader conversation and we see it supported by some of the work that's going on we think one of the primary areas for cooperation right now is in the science realm we can talk about economic development in the Arctic but I'd ask the question I'd pose the question do we really have the scientific basis that we need to see large-scale development in some of the areas that are being talked about and my answer to that question would be no that we can't let economic development get ahead of what we actually understand well enough to develop we can take some easy examples the behavior of of oil in Arctic water the behavior of oil when it hits the ice and we're very grateful for the cooperation that already exists around some of these issues the Arctic Coast Guard forum and may be small but it's mighty and the level of cooperation there the conversations that are happening our conversations that frankly we don't think can happen in other places we have people in the room we have ongoing conversation that maybe right now can only occur because it is the Coast Guards collectively that have the primary role in the Arctic our Coast Guard as you know is a civilian operation we work very closely with our partners the Royal Canadian Navy the Royal Canadian Mounted Police but we are the government presence that's been in the Arctic the longest for the Canadian government 55 years of operations in the Arctic you saw the map it shows that the harshest ice conditions continue to be in our a capella go and we sometimes say this is I have a background in law and we used to say in law that you can have 20 years of legal experience or you can have one year of legal experience 20 years over and I can tell you it takes 35 years of operations in the Arctic to actually get a senior captain that's capable of operating that knows that that terrain and you know going back to the point of cooperation and the science space one of the ways that we spend time in the Arctic we have seven icebreakers that operate there seasonally as was pointed out before several of which have a science mission just to perhaps draw my comments to a close I'll pick up again on the point of cooperation the Coast Guard Forum has allowed us to move forward in operationalizing agreements around search and rescue there isn't a partner in the Arctic that hasn't relied on somebody else at some point the most recent example of that is a Canadian vessel relying on a Danish frigate cutter to to help out in a time of great need the Canadians have offered that assistance when required to do do so the Americans the Russians there isn't anybody up there that hasn't lent a hand to help and it's really strengthens the search and rescue platform no single country irrespective of their icebreaker fleet has the reach to cover that region we say if you don't see the need for partnership in the Arctic you're not standing close enough it's really big when you get there and and secondly I already alluded to this the environmental response peace and we again there's no way for one country to cover all of the risk and it's an area where we're very grateful for the level of collaboration that we have we certainly believe in pushing it forward because the answer to the question how ready is ready keeps changing and we want to be in the forefront of that conversation but not alone not by any means we have partners that need to be there with us so back to the opening point low tension high attention and to get there I think we have to remember that it's not a linear solution to a linear question we don't go from sovereignty to economic development to military presence we go from environmental response to search and rescue to indigenous cultures to economic development and keeping in mind that the Arctic could be the next place we collectively exploit or it could be the first place that we develop responsibly thank you alright good afternoon everybody I'm gonna make a non-traditional introduction here and I want to recognize our American Sign Language interpreters here see this is the first event I think I've ever been to where we've had that presence and it's close to my heart because my name Gallaudet I'm an ancestor of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet who founded he founded Gallaudet University just a few miles up in DC Northwest it was the first college for the deaf and it was interesting and this does relate to the article I'll get to the point but Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was an Episcopalian minister and in his age in the late 18th century deaf people were regarded as being mentally retarded because they just didn't have a way to communicate and he was the first person to get that and that's how we develop developed American Sign Language and and here we are and so you have now many deaf people who are highly functioning and contributing to our great society so he was an innovator and he he looked at things differently and that's what we have to that's what we have to do with the Arctic it's it's changing you know it's different now it's a different environment and so we're really gonna have to look at it differently to move forward collectively so kind of a parallel there if you take anything home from what I say today so welcome and it's good to have you here okay next slide please all right so first off let's just talk about the ice and the changing environment here you know rarely do really talk about what we're what we expect in the coming decades it's usually just we kind of dance around the hard climate prediction of what's gonna happen and it's hard because there's a lot of uncertainty and so one of the first things we did when we developed our Arctic roadmap the US Navy's perspective and approach to the changing Arctic is is we kind of synthesized all the science and the climate predictions so we could just have something to plan to and this is it we kind of call our unambiguous assessment of Arctic ice and you know it's much that Admiral Wang had talked to and that the northern sea route already opened and this is a depiction of what we expect from 2020 to 2025 to 2030 on ice coverage during the minimal peak in the season which is in the round September so September ice coverage is here throughout the next couple decades and you know you can see the Russians are gonna gain a lot the the northern sea route is opening up extensively it's still gonna be pretty zesty up and the Canadian Arctic but and then we'll have the polar route opening or you know within a decade or so for longer periods in that summer and so that's a big change and this is something we're planning towards okay next slide please now you hear this oh my god OMG title of the slide is not a DOD acronym it's actually a NASA acronym so don't tell me DOD corners the market on bad acronyms but what it stands for is observing melting glaciers and it's an actual NASA project any rate it's significant though because they're really trying to assess this contribution to sea level rise of melting glaciers and I've also depicted on the left the left hand side of this chart the decreasing ice extent and also the decreasing ice ice volume on the lower part which is the more significant statistic because if the volume is what is decreased the most rapidly there's still a good amount of coverage during the the winter but it's all young ice and it's not that thick and so is the volume that's decreased the most dramatically and that's really been the bellwether for climate change in the Arctic and the planet and it's just been substantive I think since the last records the records first started its satellite records 1980 the volume has decreased 40 percent which is really astonishing so that's where we're having to work with next slide so some of the strategic drivers that we've addressed you know the environmental change I just spoke to the Russian Russian resurgence around the world is something to consider and I have to echo the words of my fellow panelists it's interesting we see challenge they're challenging us in places like the Baltic and the eastern Mediterranean but it's my experiences in the Arctic that's not really occurring yes they rebuilt their military but what I found and it was my own personal visit at St. Petersburg about a year and a half ago is that they don't want to burn their relationships in the Arctic now they're acting much differently elsewhere but in their Arctic they want to communicate so they actually share oceanographic data with us that they collected during a cruise around the world they they they were very cooperative and with everyone and they really didn't do any in the provocative activity that we were expecting so it was interesting change so there's a number of ways to look at Russia in the Arctic but then the commercial and recreational activity is something that I know our Coast Guard brothers are having a look at closely because there will be the search and rescue lead that that is that we should something happen and again this crystal serenity cruise this summer was it's just pointing you know is a sign of things to come and more of that means more risk and likelihood of something bad happening so that's kind of what what is what we're thinking about when we approach the Arctic next slide so what we've done is we've we've drafted a new roadmap for our approach to the Arctic and that we based it off all the existing strategy there's no shortage of it as you can see listed here these documents all talk about the changing Arctic in various degrees I'll add to this though something that's not here and that is Secretary Mattis talked about the Arctic during his confirmation hearing and he said something quite bold his now the Department had just read Defense Department our U.S. Defense Department just released a new strategy in January and afterwards when he was testifying he said that he really believes that we need to take a new integrated strategic approach to the Arctic and he's gonna make it a priority now I haven't heard any word on that yet because he's been going all around the world meeting with his counterparts but you know stand by because that might he may be taking a round turn on that and it probably is gonna somehow be related to what Admiral Wang talked about and that was Trump Effect one and two since you know they're they're pretty close there next slide so here's our implementation plan of this roadmap and we've had three different phases in the near-mid and long-term a lot of words here I'll just sort of condense it tightly right now our focus is two-fold it's on increasing our experience and through exercises and international cooperation as well as assessing our future requirements and really building better capability to understand the changes so that's environmental modeling and prediction that's where our first initial investments are going now but in the midterm you know we're gonna be looking at becoming more deliberate in our approach with expanded surface air and submarine presence we have robust submarine presence now and some air presence but it will be will be growing more in the midterm and get to a an end state in the beyond 20 30 time frame where we have more persistent presence with our surface forces so that's our plan it will require some level investments I think in the more midterm period and the investments make we're making right now are primarily along the maritime and Arctic domain awareness and environmental prediction next slide so recent things again I'm really focused on our submarine force and the observation and modeling of the ice weather and ocean it's hard to see there but I have two graphics they're pictures of the Arctic ice camp in March the one in the in the middle on top shows the camp when it was first established early March an arrow points to the position in the Chuck T see where the camp was established and during the month-long period that our camp was there and the submarines were surfacing through the ice you can see how far it drifted and then the lower picture on the lower left shows the camp when when the ice broke up underneath it and they had to evacuate so this is two consecutive ice exercises we've done where the ice broke apart in the middle of the camp and and we had to evacuate do emergency evacuation it nothing unprecedented in the decades long experience of doing these ice camps and so it's just a pretty dramatic example of how the environment is changing up there and I was on the boat that surfaced through the ice I talked to the submarine skippers and the Arctic ice pilots who've been doing this for decades and they have never seen the environment like it is today it's very dynamic the ice is moving quickly and rapidly and it's pretty much a hazardous navigation environment for our boats and then I have some depiction on the left on the right hand side this marginal ice zone study that the Office of Naval Research is conducting so we're really doubling down on our trying ability to observe and understand what's going on up there next slide in the future we got a number of things going forward we're gonna have another ice x in 2018 and I have an unmanned aerial vehicle there to show that we're gonna really look at the observations using those kind of platforms as well as unmanned underwater vehicles and then we have the Naval Postgraduate School is conducting a number of experiments there along with Office of Naval Research northern edge is gonna kick off in May 1st so that's a that's a big joint Pacific Command Alaska Command sponsored exercise and we'll have several thousand soldiers sailors and airmen participating that just to gain our experience and and then exercise cold response and actually underway right now is a exercise called Arctic care where all the joint force medical communities are providing local medical treatment to the various villages in Alaska so gaining experience here as we move forward next slide so lastly I want to finish something that's a sort of a more of an umbrella framework for the Arctic our ski RCNO John Richardson depicted here he's looked at how the environment in general the ocean is so it really affects all of our operations and the fact that it's our competitors are catching up in their ability to observe and predict it so it's ocean modeling it's atmospheric modeling ice and weather and so he's asked me to stand up task force task force ocean that the Navy's leading to improve our science improve our ability to predict the changing conditions around the world has an undersea focus but we look at the Arctic right now and not only is the sea surface changing with the ice but we've noticed new oceanographic conditions under the ice due to the freshening of the water and and the changing ice on top of it and that's having our submarine force have to develop new tactics to work with the different acoustic conditions so this task force is addressing that along with several other issues but it's a main effort and we're working closely with all the academic institutions of long-standing relationships with the Navy like with hole and scripts and University of Washington and others to just up our game and ocean science so we better understand the operating environment and exploit it to our advantage okay next slide thank you for your attention thank you Tim and last but not least Mr. Mike Emerson US Coast Guard so I'd like to start by thanking the Navy League for having added the Arctic security issue as a topic here today and especially thanks to Captain newly promoted Captain Jacob Russo from Denmark who actually I had the original idea a year ago and really pushed this topic the Arctic is a success story right now and I'd like you to think as you consider the Q&A period coming up think of the Arctic and security according to the following first as has been mentioned the security in the Arctic really goes beyond military security if security is freedom from threats and hazards then you have to look at the Arctic for what it is the Bering Sea is the great commissary of the great commons source of significant amount of protein that could be a very attractive source of food and sustainment for a lot of other countries China has indicated that the Arctic Ocean belongs to the globe not necessarily to the the five coastal states that currently have sovereign claims to the borders of the Arctic and and and including Russia in the United States who share a very strategic choke point if you will a straight in the Bering that that allows entry and exit to the Arctic so think about security within the context of the resources that are there we've talked a little bit about resource development sure maybe it's 10 15 years off or maybe it's not strategic minerals there's certainly the petrochemicals there's certainly LNG and a lot of things that Russia is already taking advantage of and they have a relationship with China right now China's 20% invested in the LNG production on the Siberian coast and that might be a marriage of a convenience that we should pay attention to certainly from a security concern I think the Arctic is a security concern to Russia I think that I call them the big four there's a resource development the fishing I mentioned the the commissary and is as the Arctic warms and ice recedes we expect fish populations to migrate north and so too will the opportunistic fishermen there's certainly going to be more shipping in the northern sea route and perhaps across the pole and then in the northwest passage and finally tourism and we've seen that we'll see it again this year and if it's one ship or if it's five you're certainly going to want to have your coast guard there so is the Arctic a security issue for the coast guard absolutely the the development of ice capable ships is something that we've managed to not expand on in the recent past for the past 40 years we've relied on two heavy icebreakers the polar sea and polar star and those years are numbered now the future of those is short and we are looking at a significant recapitalization of our ice capable surface fleet that would be heavy ice breakers you mentioned three and three sir and that's certainly the the starting argument for all of our high latitude both north and south pole capabilities but you have to have some sort of response capability for any sort of mishap a transpolar flight a northwest passage tourist vessel or any of the other things the shipping and the fishing and the other traffic that might occur in the in the Arctic we think about the Arctic in terms of Alaska because most of us are from this area of the United States but I would tell you the Arctic security issue is different in different regions I can tell you that because we host the Arctic Coast Guard Forum and keeping peace in the Arctic isn't easy keeping inviting and and coordinating participation active participation by all eight Arctic nations Coast Guard like agencies is a tall order it's a significant accomplishment of the chairmanship the U.S. chairmanship of the Arctic Council that we did launch the Arctic Coast Guard Forum and that we did have the Russians sitting next to the Canadians sitting next to the United States and sitting next to our Scandinavian brothers from the other services and being able to talk about operationalizing some of the programs that the Arctic Council sponsors so we do have some plans in place to not only work together jointly to cooperate and share resources for search and rescue on oil spills and in other contingencies but to actively exercise those to to do training exercises using mixed resources and to be able to work at a tactical level on a daily basis despite what's happening in other regions so as you look at the Arctic and you looked at the chart that Admiral Wang put up from Denmark showing the other perspective the black Arctic think carefully about what Finland and Russian relations and interest in the Arctic might be in Norway and Russia or any of the other Scandinavian countries not just about Alaska finally I would say that this success that we've had in the Arctic is largely because it's so far been easy the advantage of talking about this today and and in the recent past is that we can plan for the future and not mess it up we can work together in the Arctic Coast Guard Forum as Admiral Hutchinson mentioned we can cooperate together we can keep the Arctic peaceful and I think we can do that by acknowledging the strengths of the enclosed framework the US should take great pride in the fact that we ushered in that framework and we got it socialized with so many countries that that verified it and and we should follow suit ourselves the Coast Guard is a strong proponent of having a an amicable and a peaceful relationship so that there are no amphibious assaults on Alaska or any attacks on on our Alaska homeland in fact we can continue to live 47 miles from our Russian neighbors and share a common border with our Canadian neighbors and continue to do so to mutual benefit so if you leave here with nothing else leave here with an understanding that there are four big drivers changes in human activity that I've mentioned regarding some fairly serious and significant security interest they're more economic they're resource related but they certainly are relevant to all of us no matter what region thank you okay well turn over questions just to kind of reiterate what you've heard here I just want to I took down a couple of notes to refresh you because I think there's been some profound statements on the one hand we had that the sovereignty claims have all been made there's only nothing other than commercial competition to be had up there on the other hand you heard that some countries feel like the Arctic belongs to everybody you heard that this is a region where there's a tension without tension and the kind of collectively I think they all agreed that the Coast Guard the Arctic Coast Guard form has a potential to serve this part of the world and then you got an unambiguous regardless where you stand on the issues that gets us here what you got from the ocean aquifer the Navy is an unambiguous forecast of the ice conditions in the future that's about as clear as it gets I think and then to kick in you got a little bit of history on sign language and you got some NASA acronyms so you can't beat that so with that we'll turn it over to you this is audio audience participation part how about your questions you will not find a better panel this as yes sir could you please sir if it's such a show can I get you to use the microphone right behind you we'll get we'll get somebody to bring can you help him out here so everybody can hear your question I heard in the past that Canada was not really a friendly on allowing person to go to the so-called Northwest Passage and I'm trying to find out is is that this situation been resolved are they happy with allowing I mean are they accepting the international shipping going through the so-called Northwest Passage if it comes to that or is that going to still be an issue that but is that a settled issue or thank you I don't think I don't think we're able to say it's a settled issue from some other country's perspectives it's certainly settled from the Canadian perspective so they are they going to allow shipping through there are they going to say no the we've never not allowed shipping through the archipelago but the archipelago is subject to a set of rules that we refer to as the northern regs the Nord reg is usually how it's referred to the Canadian law aligns pretty closely with the polar code and the polar code sets an international standard for how shipping will happen in the Arctic and it's not a hundred percent true I think to say that if you follow the polar code you follow the Canadian law but you're in the right zone for sure and but under Nord reg there's a requirement to report in and there's a requirement for Canadians to respond to that hail and so far it operates sometimes a bit similarly to don't ask don't tell or something like that and countries respect the obligation to hail and we respect their wishes to travel through that part of the world we usually deploy icebreakers in such a way that we can be at the ready should that need arise because as the interest in the north increases the likelihood of mariners on the bridges of ships that aren't familiar with that area increases as well so between the Americans and the Canadians we've got pretty good positioning but that's essentially how it operates thank you and ever when you had a comment on that it's just to I think the question is hitting right on the nail hit because you have actually the same standpoints both in Canada and in Russia that that the northwest passage and the northeast passage or the northern sea route is going through territorial water respectively and maybe it's a it's an advantage that United States and Canada can agree on disagree on this issue because let's say in 10 or 15 years when the Chinese starts to challenge the northwest passage then United States can actually let the Canadian protest because because United States they are they will never give in on the right of innocent passage through these international straits so it might come in handy in some years so maybe you just should leave it there my name is lipo view of the voice America I it it seems to me that most of you are not really concerned about Russia at this moment but what about China and Emma Wang you I think you mentioned that several times but I wonder if you what's your understanding of China's intentions are in the Arctic and particularly with President Xi visiting Finland at the moment and I'm also wondering whether you are concerned about China's future activities you know particularly because you mentioned that conflict in South China Sea may spill over to the Arctic and then welcome other panelists comments thanks is there a particular person you'd like to answer that question yes Emma Wang and thank you very much well I think that China's interest in the Arctic is exactly the same as China's interest in any other region with resources and if you notice the pattern globally China goes in where United States is not present or where United States pulls out you see that in South America you see that in Africa and you will also of course see that in in the Arctic when United States pulled back from Iceland in 2006 and the rest of us abandoned Iceland after the financial crisis in 2008 who was there with an unselfish rendering hand it was China and today you have quite significant Chinese soft power diplomacy economic impact in in Iceland and it makes sense seen from a Chinese perspective I think because if you use the the rule of exclusion they will never get a foothold in the Arctic in Russia they would not get it in Norway they will not get it in United States and they will not get it in Canada so what is left then you can start to see that there might be a possibility to actually influence a small community like the Icelandic community and you also start to seeing some of the same indicators in Greenland because of the Greenlandic special relationships within the the Danish realm whether you should be concerned about that or not as long as it is being done on commercial terms and and in competition with other investments you could argue to a certain extent it's it's it's our own medicine it's it's it's competition it's free market but of course it also once in a while become very strategic and very security oriented for example if China is investing in rare earth mineral deposits with uranium connected to it in Greenland is it then just a matter of commodities or is it a matter of security policy if if if China owns one harbour in Iceland is it then a transportational issue if they own all harbours in Iceland they do not but if they did would it then be a security issue so I think there is a moving border here and it is very difficult to give an exact recipe on on when this becomes an issue but I don't think that China will actually let's say obtain resources in the Arctic region with the use of violence why should they they can just buy it so I'll give a Navy perspective which echoes Arma Wang's in that the US Navy is concerned about China's future activity in the Arctic you we look at their growing population and their exponential increase in demand for resources and you know our concern is that if they are they are currently acting unlawfully in the South China Sea will they do the same for resource extraction in the Arctic in the future so that's a big concern of ours second let me go back to your comment about Russia saying we're not concerned about Russia I'm not concerned so much about Russia in the Arctic but the US Navy is concerned about Russia elsewhere thank you thank you chief of Royal Norwegian Navy first of all let me congratulate you with the Arctic Coast Guard Forum and I think that's the key success to the Arctic to have nations on a legal framework with the legal agencies meet and make a good resource management in a legal matter I think all of us wish that to be the future and but I have a comment Nils Wang you were mentioning that there could be a spillover from other things and we're all in a new security situation so let me give you this challenge Russia have always had the strategic challenge of connecting their Pacific Fleet to their Atlantic Fleet in 10 years time there will be open ocean from several Marsk to the Pacific's so why is one of the Arctic nations building a huge military force today with big air defense bases in New Siberian Islands Franz Josef Land new fighter yet fighter aircraft bases Arctic brigades Arctic amphibious brigades in the Arctic and the other four is doing nothing is that a challenge sure go ahead everyone thank you well last that's a that's a good question I think you're absolutely right if you can if you can bring goods with commercial shipping from from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the northern sea route why shouldn't you transport military equipment and and I think actually and that is my personal view that that the acquisition of the French helicopter carrier class where one of them was supposed to be ice reinforced could actually be seen in that specific perspective that you are mentioning here because if you stand if you're standing up an Arctic Brigade and you have a helicopter carrier then you suddenly have at least operational but maybe even strategic reserve that you can actually shift and if that is the case you could argue that you would see even more military equipment on the Russian side in the Arctic because then it becomes a distribution center for Arctic or for military outreach in both the Pacific and the Atlantic arena and that could maybe make it more affordable for them to have a military so I think that could be that could be an issue that that you have to look upon in the future the basis along the the the northern sea route you can use air bases for anything you can use it for offensive means or for for defensive means I'm sure that some part of the reason for re establishing these bases is also to actually get maritime domain awareness because they want to know what is going out outside in the northern sea route so they can get the the the entrance fee and it is also something about the Coast Guard task to actually maintain a constabulary task like search and rescue and so forth but of course you can use it for other things but I also think if you look at it from a Russian perspective if my if my theory is correct that that the northern sea route is a strategic umbilical for the whole Russian national business model for the next 50 years why shouldn't they defend it with power if if necessary I mean no one will will will leave and the strategic seaway like that just undefended undefended so so so I'm not just buying in on the militarization theory but but but of course not not either the opposite so it's it's something in between I don't know if that answers your question that's a comment do you mind if I comment to Admiral Sonos you know that you raise a good point currently I we see their assess their build-up as a means to protect their sovereignty and but you raise a great concern is is their potential in the future for a spillover effect to that of those forces used for a more offensive capability or scenario and so yes that is if you that is a future concern how it is a near-term midterm we don't know that's something we have to look at closely the other aspect of that is well how good will they be as they train and develop up there their northern forces you know we we currently assess their undersea forces being highly capable and in great competition with ours we're not so worried about the surface force right now and so as we move forward we'll have to look at hard at how how good they are and what kind of competition it is well good afternoon my name is John Brinke I'm from Ingalls Shipbuilding that's way down in the subtropics but wanted to ask a question Vice Admiral Ray when you started talking about icebreakers you mentioned the three plus three requirement then Mr. Emerson you alluded that might be just the beginning of the conversation and if I remember correctly I think when you add the Coast Guard requirements and the naval operating requirements you might end up with six plus four but can I get the US Coast Guard in the US Navy to talk about to get the job done in the Arctic how many ships we we think we need yeah I'll take that thanks the current high-latitude analysis that we have suggest that for presence for establishing the presence taking a lesson from the Russians and and looking at your maritime domain awareness capabilities and your ability to respond to your sovereign waters for protection purposes they're building icebreakers we need to build icebreakers we're looking at three heavy and three medium and I am responsible again for domestic ice breaking as well so there'll be a litany of smaller less capable icebreakers or ice capable ships that that the Coast Guard's gonna have to look at in the near term they're aging and we're we're vastly overdue in getting programs together so for right now the the polar capabilities is three and three sir and I can give you the Navy perspective so in the Arctic we deem our current presence with our submarine force primarily see some seasonal presence with the surface force and and some presence with the air forces as being sufficient today and and but in the future we have not yet assessed what the Arctic requirement will be we have assessed what our overall ship count numbers should be and so from our current state of 274 ships the US Navy is embarking on a plan to get to a requirement of 355 and so there's very serious talk in the Pentagon right now on how we're gonna how we're gonna do that acknowledging that our first steps really have to be in getting readiness today so having sufficient spares to maintain what we have in the fleet now and then modernizing our capabilities so they're sufficiently lethal and capable those first two steps once they're met then we'll start growing our ship numbers and that's what we will do how much the Arctic plays in that we're not sure yet I'm Ted K. I'm from Sayers and the question is about communications infrastructure what is the future for our infrastructure in the Arctic to support increased ship activity increased support of search and rescue etc it's a it's a demanding environment a lot different than the lower latitudes and I was just wondering in the plan what was the future for communications and supporting maritime domain awareness I'd recommend we kind of both countries to her all three countries take a stab with that if you don't mind Commissioner Hutchison can you kind of tell them looking ahead for Canada police certainly I'm we operate mainly from a terrestrial based system we're renewing many of those assets over the next few years moving them to greener sources of energy and we expect to move to more satellite based AIS in the medium term that that's essentially where we are from a civilian side I can't really comment on the non US Navy elements of your question because there's a larger US answer here but from a Navy perspective we're we have in place and we have programmed the communication capabilities we require to operate effectively up there and so there's satellite systems primarily but also organic task force ship based communications capabilities so we've got a litany area full spectrum of unclass capabilities for communications navigation and sensing that are a mix of satellite and terrestrial systems as well as some some projects that we're working on in low earth orbit temporary solutions that that fill gaps or black holes we are planning to improve our communication infrastructure with the use of satellites and and I think that the development within the satellite industry with smaller and smaller nanosatellites will actually come in handy and I think you need to actually try and embrace public private partnership here because some of your solutions for the military and coast guard use can also be used in order to actually get infrastructure in remote areas for the population that actually lives up there so you can create connectivity on the internet and communication also there I could add one more to that though so communications are absolutely essential for safe operations up there understood but what we're trying to get out where there's a bigger gap is being able to predict the environment the hazardous weather the ice conditions I showed you the ice camp and that 30 day if we had an ability to predict predict out the 30 days what the camp the ice under the camp was going to do we would have been able to situate it in a better position and so that's that's a capability that we don't have now and we need to drive towards and there's a sensing piece there's a modeling piece and you know from a expert modeler perspective you know the weather and the ocean are fairly easy they're they're fluid dynamics equations of motions and we got that pretty well wired but ice is like a composite material it's like plastic it's incredibly difficult to model yet we're just not there yet so that's where we're really focusing a lot of Office of the Naval Research funding right now I'm Ken prime former Coast Guard now with Lockheed I've heard our commandant Coast Guard commandant speak to the need of I guess bathymetry and just general overall mapping of the Arctic from what's what's down there and you see all these northern sea routes in the Northwest Passage is there a I guess through that Coast Guard forum is there a a plan in place multinational to do any cooperative mapping of the Arctic for the general use or is it going to be a close hold from one country to another thank you we haven't included that on the agenda sir and it's certainly a good one but at present there's such a paucity of assets and in the United States between Noah and some of the ice-capable vessels the Coast Guard has to to do that charting that we are in the single-digit percentages and likely to remain there what we have done is take a look at some of the more busier areas in the Bering Sea and along the coast of Alaska and even the North Slope and and launched into a Port X Port access route studies PARS we finished one for the Bering Strait recently that identifies where the traffic typically goes and now we've identified two-way routes that are going to be the focus for for you know doing the good charting and then being able to guarantee the the shippers and the insurers that if they stay in those recommended travel lanes they'll they'll be in good water it's very shallow unforgiving bottom in the Arctic typically but in in the Alaska and the North Slope area that's where we aren't I'd add to I would add to that in picking up on the theme of cooperation we're working with our American counterparts on something that we call low-impact shipping corridors and I wouldn't typify it as a close hold of any sort it's just that the Canadian and American coastlines you know result in common risks if we talk about the crystal serenity for a second I got a lot of attention in the United States 32-day voyage half of which is spent in Canadian waters and we know that even given the paucity of charting in the North there are safer routes and there are less safe routes the maps generally showed one or two routes through the Northwest Passage in fact there are 11 principal routes and we know where the safer ones are and we know where the the more dangerous ones are if we can get the maritime industry to recognize and Mike made reference to how insurance will work and that kind of thing if we can get ships to to stay in the safe shipping zones then we can create low-impact zones I believe and and this is a perfect example of where bilateral cooperation isn't excluded from a multilateral conversation where there's a shared interest that's specific to a small relatively small piece of geography in the Arctic so in addition to my other titles I'm having to be the hydrographer of the US Navy and I I share the national charting responsibility with National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and NOAA. NOAA is responsible for charting within US EEZs I chart out or I collect the symmetry outside US EEZs and that includes large part of the Arctic and and then NGA processes that data in the charts. Currently worldwide we've estimated that only 20% of the Earth's sea floor has been mapped to modern standards and it's a lot less in the Arctic. NOAA has a very they've published a superb plan to chart the US Arctic and they've already begun doing that and so I really applaud them in that respect to the waters outside the US EEZ a number of the countries are sharing data and so and we've been working very closely with Canada for example on mutual surveys to justify our extended continental shelf claims but and in fact the meeting in St. Petersburg that I referred to was part of the larger international hydrographic organization a subcomponent component called the Arctic Regional Hydrographic Organization and or Commission and so that's what we were doing in St. Petersburg is talking about sharing hydrographic capabilities standards and data and so there we have a solid plan to work together to get there and that's what was so surprising is that Russia wanted to work with us on this. Kevin Wang closing comments. When I sailed in Greenland waters in my younger days we often sailed in totally white charts there was only one sounding line in a fjord or in an elite and the only thing you knew as a skipper was that there has been at least one that have been moving along in that particular line without going aground and the rest of it was up to you. I think also that if you only use conventional hydrographic techniques in order to undertake such vast tasks that it is to get all the white areas colored with soundings it simply takes too long time I think the Greenland waters would be measured in 450 years with the tempo that they can produce so I think that industry and research should actually come up with methods where you can maybe promise that in this area through laser technique or whatever you can say this is guaranteed 20 meters of water that would be extremely helpful because then you actually doesn't have to know the details further down and that could be a start and then you can focus your conventional very accurate thing in the in the in the very trafficked areas thank you I'm away well this concludes our time I just want to wrap with just a couple thoughts first of all you was you heard stated that one of the great strategic thinkers of our country in this day and age our secretary of defense has stated that the Arctic is an area of strategic significance we've seen that there are potential challenges and potential benefits of being there on the one hand we've heard that people are operating merely in their economic benefit and there's you know no reason to be concerned on the other hand we've heard that if they act illegally in this part of the world what's to say that they won't act illegally in other parts of the world and then finally we talked a little bit about the ability to rapidly transport capability divide are devised for commercial purposes to military purposes so plain to chew on there from a security perspective but I think probably one of the most profound statements and and I'll walk with it and hopefully walk away from here with it is that the Arctic is certainly not like another any other place on this planet and so maybe it is just another place we can exploit or maybe it's a place that we get it right so thank you gentlemen for shed light on the support topic and have a good day thank you all