Rising Geopolitical Tensions in the Arctic: Responses of the U.S. Administration

Liselotte Odgaard:

Welcome everyone to this Hudson event on rising tensions in the Arctic and the consequences for the United States. The Arctic region has become an arena for military strategic positioning and saber-rattling. This development has caused concern that the Arctic cannot be maintained as a low-tension region where cooperation dominates. Growing Russian military provocations and threats towards the US homeland, as well as China’s emerging strategic presence, keep the US and its allies and partners increasingly on the alert. The US is ramping up its early warning and power projection capabilities and its diplomatic activities in the Arctic. The US Navy is back in the Arctic after not being there much for the past 30 years, patrolling regularly in the region now. And in July 2020, the US Air Force released its Arctic strategy outlining how the air and space forces will provide assets capable of conducting operations throughout the Arctic in the future.

And as of late, the US Army has announced that it is working on an Arctic strategy. Today, we will discuss how the US administration will deal with the rising tensions and the military buildup. We have three distinguished speakers. We have retired major general from the US Air Force, Randy Kee. He’s a global fellow at the Wilson Center here in DC. He’s also an executive director at the Optic Domain Awareness Center at the University of Alaska Anchorage, and a commissioner in the US Optic Research Commission.

We also have Richard Weitz, who’s a senior fellow and a director of the Center for Political Military Analysis at Hudson Institute. And we have Bryan Clark, who’s a senior fellow and director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at Hudson Institute. I am Liselotte Odgaard. I’m a senior fellow at Hudson, and I will moderate today’s discussion.

I will start with you, Richard. Most Arctic nations are NATO members or partners. However, Russia is not part of NATO, and it is increasing its military presence in the Arctic at a rapid clip. Which threats, in your opinion, arise from this buildup, and what are the consequences for the United States, both at the political and at the military strategic level?

Richard Weitz:

Yes. Russia is clearly an important Arctic player. It’s got more territory, people, and military forces in the Arctic than any of the other countries that can claim Arctic status. And the Russian objectives are very comprehensive. They include maximizing access to the region’s national resources, controlling emerging shipping lanes, securing Russia’s northern borders from military threats, constraining NATO military activities in the region, and leveraging Moscow’s Arctic status and activities to enhance its overall influence and domestic prestige. And the last consideration is very important for the current government; the Arctic is almost treated as a myth-like status, with the Russian deputy prime minister referring to it as the Russian Mecca. The problem Russia has faced that its hope for Arctic gains has never been realized. Its perennial gap between Russian ambitions and Russian achievements. But this has not abated Russia’s activities in the region. It’s true that at the end of the Cold War, Russian activities fell off drastically, but under President Putin, Russia’s interests and activities have seen a massive resurgence.

Russia’s formal policy documents, such as his recent Arctic strategies, emphasize a dual track approach. They, on the one hand, talk about the importance of affirming Russia’s sovereignty claims and developing the Arctic to bolster Russia’s economic and military power. But they also claim to pursue international cooperation, wanting to keep the Arctic a zone of peace. The claims are very extensive. Russia already has the largest internationally recognized exclusive economic zone in the Arctic region, and it’s eager to build on it. It’s claiming a number of underwater ridges. We’ve seen Russian expeditions plant flags under the sea in the North Pole. But at the same time, there has been a cooperative dimension. There was delimitation treaty with Norway over the pursuit boundaries. Russia’s been working within the UN commission on the limits of the Continental Shelf and other international legal instruments to press a claim rather than, for example, the Chinese practice of seizing, creating de facto conditions in which to justify its claim.

The Russian interest economically is focused on exploiting the region’s economic resources, these natural resources, particularly oil and gas, but that Russia is also very interested in taking advantage of the increasing ice floes to develop its Northern Sea Route. This is the sea lanes that link the Barents and Kara seas to the north of Russia. And Russia wants to make this a viable transpolar passage, which cut a couple weeks on the traditional maritime passage around Africa and other routes. So, it’s been building up ports and rescue stations and so on. The Russian military though has also been very active in the region. Now Russia is motivated by both defensive and potentially offensive considerations. I mean, Russian strategic thought sees the Arctic as the fourth wall if you think of Russia constrained in the south, west and east by various oceans or other countries. So, the Arctic is the fourth wall that both shields Russia and provides opportunities for further development in the region exclusively without having to compete with other players.

But the changing Arctic conditions, though are eroding away some of the defensive protection that Russia wants to attain in the north. It’s making it easier for potentially foreign countries to access the region, including foreign military powers. So, Russia has been responding by building up many of its bases in the region. It’s both reactivating former Soviet bases and establishing new ones. It’s created a new joint strategic command north, and it’s about to next year will make the Arctic its fifth military district. You’ve seen Russian naval patrols, aviation patrols, ground force deployments significantly increase and great enhancements to military capabilities.

Of course, from the US perspective, even if Russia is building up its air and defensive missile structures and naval forces and engaged in more exercise in the region for defensive purposes, it still, it helps build out Russia’s large anti-air area denial network, which is extending from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea to Syria. So that impedes US freedom of navigation and naval operations in the region. There’s also potential for an offensive punch. Some of the planned enhancements to the region include putting MiG-31, these are fighters, in the Arctic stationing there. These are very long-range advanced fighters equipped with hypersonic missiles, which could be used, for example, to attack targets in Greenland. And they’re also basically converting their coastal defense ships to long-range strike platforms by also, by equipping them with long-range cruise missiles, currently conventional but presumably hypersonic and dual-capable as well.

Liselotte Odgaard:

Thank you, Richard. I will turn to Randy now. I suppose it’s fair to say that although the US is an Arctic nation by virtue of Alaska, it hasn’t paid too much attention to Alaska in the defense and foreign policy community until recently, when we had the Air Force strategy, we had the appointment of a US coordinator for the Arctic region, and so on. Can you tell us why the US has given the Arctic higher priority lately? Is it due to the Russian activity, or would you point to other reasons as well?

Randy Kee:

Thank you very much for the question and, personally, Mr. Weitz and his reflections. I’ll be honest with you, he ticked off a number of items that I consider are important in understanding the Russian activities that are developing in and across the Arctic Basin, but also argue the point that many of the things that Russia is doing, refurbishing and reestablishing where they were once upon a time, towards the end of the Cold War. Aspects such MiG-31s, having them essentially return to the former Soviet bases and be able to project power to and through the Arctic region, is really a return to the positioning that the Soviet Union had largely accomplished towards the end of the Cold War. I’d also make the remark that the United States, of course, is an Arctic nation because of its sovereign territory that’s in the Arctic region, the state of Alaska.

But I’d also argue the point that Alaska is the entry point for the United States’ overall interest in the circumpolar Arctic region. And so strategically for us, the United States, while being an Arctic nation by the virtue of Alaskan territory, it also is an Arctic nation simply because it’s aligned to those interests from Alaska through the Arctic Basin. In this aspect, Alaska and the Arctic have always been, since, I’ll say since 1867, aligned to US national interests. In this aspect, the Alaskan foothold, if you will, into the Arctic region is a foothold for geo-strategic reasons, because of positioning of essentially approaches to sovereign territory, great circle navigation, and of course mineral and marine life that of course resides in the Arctic Basin. The Arctic is exceptional. While we worry about great power competition and certainly it is rising, great power competition need not result in great power confrontation.

And so, I would like to draw back upon the idea that really has resided the end of the Cold War, and that is the aspect of Arctic exceptionalism. The Arctic is exceptional, the size, its breadth, this depth of ongoing collaboration in Arctic science, economic endeavors, indigenous peoples’ concerns, and quite literally, military cooperation, it governs activities that in that region are the envy of other places around the globe. Continuous Arctic exceptionalism is by no means ensured, and US needs continuing investment in an Arctic initiative of science, economics, and measures to ensure our security and our sovereignty. These should rightly be top US priorities. In this aspect, the Arctic is once again more in the papers, if you will, because of initiatives that Russia is taking in militarizing their portion of the Arctic region. And again, they have more than half of the coastline that resides into the Arctic Basin.

And in this aspect, I look at what Russia is doing as an Arctic nation is in the first aspect aligned to ensuring that they’re protecting their sovereign interests. The reality is that they’re certainly doing that and much more. Their ability to defend their approaches to their sovereign territory, I think most nations would not be overly concerned, is the best to be able to project power to and through the Arctic from those locations are again the areas where concern rises.

But I also think about this in a geo-strategic context, that while Russia has obviously made significant advances in creating military capabilities in the Arctic region, I’m also very concerned about non-Arctic nations’ footprints into the region, that as non-Arctic nations trying to exercise sovereign influence in a region frankly that has mineral wealth as a result of a diminishing ice environment and more. So while Russia certainly bears watching, I also realize that their economic ability to sustain their efforts is not assured. And in fact, if you think that the Russians’ military capabilities are funded on the economy more aligned the GDP of Italy, there are limits to how long they can sustain those kinds of activities.

On the other hand, China is a nation that is making significant investments in their influence efforts and across the Arctic basin mining interest in Greenland, and port access aspects in Iceland are just two examples. They maintain sovereignty in presence through the use of icebreakers even near our extended economic zones in the Chukchi Sea. So strategically, I look at China has as a number two overall economic power on this planet, making themselves a significant presence in the Arctic region.

And ultimately, I don’t know where that goes. I do know that their track record for environmental stewardship elsewhere is not necessarily very laudable. The Arctic is a pristine region, and if China invests in resource extraction, whether it’s minerals or marine life, could it do so in a way that is environmentally sustainable? My guess at this point is no. And in an area that is important to the US, not only from a geo-strategic standpoint but also from an environmental vantage point, we need to watch this very carefully and really ensure that the rule of law and environmental stewardship is conducted appropriately, especially near our extended economic zones. But I offer those as some reflections.

Liselotte Odgaard:

I will now turn to Bryan Clark. The US Navy is back in the Arctic, patrolling in the Barents Sea and putting money into the Polar Security Cutter Program, et cetera. But there are also shortcomings, for example, the US doesn’t have ships to conduct freedom of navigation operations in the Northern Sea Route along Russia’s coast. It doesn’t, at least not yet, have a northern port it can use as a permanent base, et cetera. So in your view, how does the US Navy best look after US interests in coming years in view of various political, strategic, financial constraints that has to be taken into account? Bryan?

Bryan Clark:

Yeah, great question, Lise. Thanks for inviting me to be on here today. So the Navy’s really trying to address, I think, four main tasks, I guess, when it comes to the Arctic. One is countering Russian power projection. I think Richard talked about that at length, which was really helpful, and I’ll talk a little bit more about how they’re going about that and how they might do it. The second one is going to be enforcing freedom of navigation or international waters being open for use without fees, necessarily on the part of international shippers. And I can talk a little bit more about that. The third area is protecting the US exclusive economic zone from interlopers who would seek to get mineral or other resources, fishery resources from those waters. And then the fourth one is search and rescue, which is done in concert with the Coast Guard and supporting search and rescue efforts, which is not insignificant when you think about the Arctic and its increasing use by commercial entities as well as tourism.

So those are four major tasks that the Navy’s trying to wrestle with. And on the first one, in terms of constraining or countering Russian power projection, what the Navy has been doing most recently, as you described, is doing some more deployments up above the Arctic Circle. One of the main threats that the US is concerned about is Russian submarines that might be coming down from their base, the East Coast base, or the Atlantic base, which is up on the Kola Peninsula. So, they would come down through the Norwegian Sea into the North Atlantic and make their way over to the US coast. And there’s a concern on the part of the US Navy and the US government that some of the most modern Russian submarines, which are very quiet and very capable, could place themselves off the US coast as a way to get escalation dominance in a potential confrontation between the US and NATO and Russian forces in Eastern Europe.

A submarine equipped with cruise missiles could be a potent threat, considering a lot of US East Coast cities don’t have missile defenses and therefore could be something the Russians could use as a bargaining chip in a confrontation. So that’s a particular threat in specific. Russian submarines could also threaten US ballistic missile submarines that operate off the US East Coast. So, they present this challenge that the US has to counter in general by moving up into the Arctic to do anti-submarine operations like we did during the Cold War. Other ways that they’re looking to push back against Russian power projection is, as Richard was saying, in the Arctic itself, the advent or the return of, as Randy was saying, Russian fighters and ships equipped with long-range cruise missiles and potentially hypersonic weapons creates the potential for confrontations up in the Arctic. So, the Navy has been increasing its submarine deployments also in the Arctic as a way to potentially monitor and counter those efforts, present a potential threat to Russian forces if they were to execute some kind of power projection operations in the Arctic.

But it’s very difficult. As you mentioned, the Navy doesn’t have any ice-hardened ships, so what they do is they’ll deploy up into places like the Norwegian Sea and the Chukchi Sea, where you’ve got during times of year when you’ve got marginal ice in the water, so that you can navigate safely. Submarines are ice-hardened, I guess it would be the one case where a ship is ice-hardened. So those ships will operate in the Arctic, but it’s a pretty limited number of ships. And so, freedom in navigation operations, which is the next category, is really not an option that the US Navy can pursue in the Arctic region except in the most favorable times of year. And then that would be really a gesture. It’s not even really an effective, say, freedom navigation operation if you’re only able to do it in the most favorable environmental conditions. And that’s a concern because the Northern Sea Route is becoming more open, more available during certain times of year.

The Russians are putting an enormous effort into clearing it so that shipping can be done there predictably. The biggest challenge that shippers note with the Northern Sea Route is its predictability. So yes, it may be relatively free of ice during the summer, but if they’re not sure whether it’s going to take two weeks or three weeks to make it from one side of the route to the other, that’s a big deal because they could arrive at the other end of their shipping route, have to wait for several days to get into the port they had intended to get in a week earlier, and they lose money when they do that. So, shippers say, “Well, I’d rather go with a more predictable route that takes longer than to go with a route that might take less time, but I can’t judge when the arrival is going to be of that ship.”

So, the Russians are putting a lot of effort in reinforcing the predictability of the Northern Sea Route, but then they’re charging for that because the service they’re providing via ice breaking and security is coming at some cost to themselves. So, the US doing freedom of navigation operations to reinforce the idea that these fees are not necessarily legal would be an important tool in terms of negotiating how to handle that, because it’s not a well-defined set of rules in UNCLOS for charging fees to allow people to access sea routes that are in international waters. And then the third area I talked about is this idea of protecting our own EZ. The Coast Guard has that responsibility. The Navy also notionally has that responsibility, and right now, there’s been a lot of effort to try to improve the ability of the US to do surveillance of those areas.

So, working with the Air Force, the Navy’s trying to create more surveillance options, the Air Force is responsible for a lot of the surveillance up there, and then NORAD obviously does some of the surveillance up there, but those don’t do a good job of looking for activities on the surface of the water. They’re mostly designed to look at airborne threats. So the Navy’s been investigating the potential of using unmanned aerial vehicles and deploying those up there to do regular patrols of the Arctic in an effort to get a sense of who might be acting in the exclusive economic zone to do fishing or exploit resources that are up there. And then the last category is the search and rescue responsibility, which the Coast Guard is not very well positioned for. There’s not really any developed infrastructure on the Arctic. It’s a very long transit to go back and forth to the nearest base that can host a reasonably sized Coast Guard cutter.

So, you’re talking a several day transit just to make it up to do a search and rescue patrol and then a long ways back to be able to return anybody that doesn’t get flown out via helicopter. So, it’s a challenging effort. And then one thing that the Navy and the Coast Guard are looking as the option of potentially putting expeditionary sea bases up there. The Navy’s been fielding a series of these ships over the last several years. Those ships could deploy up there, provide an at sea capability to do basing operations to deploy cutters from there, have people that are rescued or need help return to the sea base and then subsequently return back home. So, some kind of sea base capability might be necessary to support that until some kind of basing infrastructure can be built in the far north, which will be challenging because of the environmental and also the ground conditions up in the northern slope of Alaska. So I’ll leave it there, but those are the four main areas the Navy’s trying to address and then its efforts that it’s undertaken thus far to do so.

Liselotte Odgaard:

Thank you, Bryan. I want to go back to Richard. Randy already mentioned China and China is usually the main opponent in the US view. Is that also the case in the Arctic because China doesn’t really have much of a military presence there, at least not yet. So how would you describe the dynamics there? How does China influence the strategic dynamics in the Arctic?

Richard Weitz:

Thank you for that question. As we know, China was not commonly seen as an Arctic country since the PRC possesses no territory above the 60 parallel. China is more than a thousand kilometers away from what is commonly considered the Arctic region, but China has strived to be seen as a legitimate Arctic stakeholder, influencer, and resource claimant. The Chinese, of course, worry that it’s other countries’ sovereignty claims that can strain Chinese access to the Arctic. So the PRC is trying to attain greater influence through expanded participation in Arctic governance mechanisms, increasing its economic and scientific presence in the region, but striving also to provoke a negative response from other Arctic states. The PRC officials initially argued that all countries, regardless of their geographic or historical connections with the Arctic territory, should have equal access to the resources, calling the region global commons that should be available to all.

However, the Chinese have backed off from this public position to avoid antagonizing the other Arctic states and avoided taking any position on the various sovereignty claims in the region. As elsewhere, PRC discourse now emphasizes the importance of win-win cooperation and the focus has been on developing infrastructure and engaging other commercial and research activities. And China’s strategy proved somewhat successful in 2013 when it obtained full observer status in the Arctic Council. An important document, or at least an important statement, was what the PRC special representative to the Arctic Council called in 2012: China’s claim to be a near Arctic state. Chinese scholars and experts have been debating for a while how to define their Arctic status. They couldn’t claim to be an Arctic state, but they wanted to claim more than just, they wanted to establish that they had more interest, more claims to representation than not, and then what is commonly attributed to a non-Arctic state.

So, they came up with this near Arctic estate status. And this has been reaffirmed, repeated in all official PRC official and scholarly discourse. And there was also an important 2018 Arctic white paper in which the PRC said it will pursue respect, cooperation, and win-win cooperation with all countries. But it insisted that China had a role as an active participant, builder, and contributor in Arctic affairs. They cited various considerations, climate change, environment, scientific research, need to use shipping routes, security, and global governance considerations, all of which they argue China has an important role to play and should be therefore be addressed. This paper also extended the Belt and Road Initiative to include the Arctic, defined as the Polar Silk Road to complement the other, the maritime Silk Road in the Pacific, and the central Eurasian Silk Road in Central Asia and other countries that lie in between China and Europe.

And this Polar Silk Road envisions construction of airports, seaports, railroads, and undersea cables through Chinese trade and investment throughout the region. China has beefed up its scientific activities, established research ties with local partners, offering various contributions of people and funding. Now, as a large consumer of natural resources and heavily dependent on maritime trade, China, of course, is very interested in the Arctic’s economic potential. The ideal scenario for China would be able to participate in the exploitation of the hydrocarbon resources, for example, and have them shipped to China, which would enhance China’s energy security, which right now is vulnerable through cutoffs and for example, the Persian Gulf were disrupted through the commercial sea lines connecting China with Africa, and so this import diversity is part of China’s security framework. The strategy China has pursued has been to offer lucrative trade and investment deals, particularly with the smaller countries of the Arctic to try and build leverage for influence.

Now, as you mentioned, China does not have a military role in the Arctic. It doesn’t have permanent bases. It hasn’t discussed the role of the PLA in Arctic defense or security, but there are concerns shared by Russia and the US, and other countries that once, as China develops its commercial and civilian activities in the Arctic, it’s going to find a need or at least a rationale to develop a greater military presence. It’s going to want to protect its people and its commercial assets in the region, and we’ve seen the PLA enhance its power projection status in other regions. So, it’s possible we’ll see it extend here. There’s also a concern mentioned in some of the US official documents that China will follow the Russian and US practice of keeping strategic submarine patrols in the region. The idea being that China could hide its currently very vulnerable ballistic missile launching submarine fleet under the Arctic waters, which makes them harder to detect. It also would provide a shorter range to be able to strike targets in North America if they were launched in that region.

Liselotte Odgaard:

Thank you, Richard. I will now turn to Randy again to talk about the US and its allies because despite the US commitment to prioritize the Arctic region lately, defense capabilities that are suitable for Arctic conditions are still found wanting, and we’ve already heard some of it. There are communications issues that have yet to be resolved. There are issues of how a US force sustains itself at scale in the Arctic. There’s the reliability of equipment in Arctic conditions, there’s the lack of icebreakers, insufficient runways, et cetera. Can US cooperation with allies and partners in the region, in your view, ameliorate some of those shortcomings?

Randy Kee:

Thank you again for that question. I’d compliment both Mr. Weitz and Mr. Clark for the reflections of your earlier. They really helped set the stage of creating an understanding of the geo-strategic challenges that face the United States and our partners and allies in the Arctic region. The Arctic is an exceptional place, and I mentioned earlier that part of the exceptionalism is the relationship of military collaboration, and that is between the United States, our NATO allies, and NATO partners. We also, of course, in North America share a remarkable binational military partnership with Canada to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, the Tri-Command framework between the United States, US Northern Command, Canadian Joint Operations Command, and NORAD. The aspect of a transatlantic partnership between Canada, United States, and our NATO allies and partners really does reduce risk because of the common defense enshrined in the NATO treaty in aspects of both Article IV and Article five really provide a network of allied strength to help through mutual agreement and mutual interest to support and defend our respective Arctic national interests between these allies and partners.

When I look at the Arctic region, you’re absolutely right when it comes to the difficulties operating there. I myself have operated in the Arctic as an air crew member and also been involved in both strategy and policy development activities, exercises, and more. And in our center, I have the privilege of shepherding. We’re worried about trying to advance Arctic domain awareness for the tactical operator. That is, whether at the windscreen level, if I use that terminology strategically, this means to be able to operate in the Arctic, you need to have, of course, resilient people and resilient equipment in this aspect of course, to protect and defend our citizens, who also have to have a remarkable resilience to survive and thrive in this region. We want those people who are supporting defending our citizens and our national interests to equally be resilient to be able to survive and thrive.

The aspects if you looked at the strategies that each of the services have promulgated, of course the Department of Defense’s Arctic strategy and more, you really need to dwell on the aspect of being able to organize, train, and equip forces to protect and defend our national interest, to include our US citizens need to be hardened, Arctic tough if you will, and they need to be able to really leverage technology in ways that is really a region where technology is always challenged. Cold soaking of equipment and being able to operate at minus-twenty, minus-forty degrees Fahrenheit is not assured. You need to leverage high-end technology in a way that can cope with the extremes in temperatures, especially when the power gets flipped off. Arctic hardening also includes, of course, vessels and Arctic hardening, such as in ice breaking, is really to be able to project a persistent presence, but just breaking ice in itself is not much of a military mission.

You have to be able to have military vessels be able to operate in order to conduct a persistent presence, being able to cope with the conditions that again, are quite demanding but also quite changing, and it is a diminishing ice environment, and it is also where you’re seeing weather patterns that historically were relatively stable and stable cold. You’re now seeing weather patterns change that are becoming much warmer but also much more violent. So it’s not just coping with the cold. You also have to deal with the fact that the winds and weather conditions are changing and bringing, if you will, lower latitude challenges further north, and coupling it with the fact that you have still a very persistent cold. So strategically be able to survive and thrive is not assured and you need to continue an investment in this aspects. The way we can ameliorate those challenges, of course, is through partnering agreements, partnering agreements that in the native example in the NORAD example, provides the fact that all the nations who are contributing have to not only achieve their own ability to operate, but also interoperability aspects.

And those things, continued investment and research, I think is a critical piece to this, and partnership between researchers to create operationally relevant research to be useful to the operator, I think, is critically important. Exercising also is a critical element to make sure what’s been researched and developed is actually able to operate and in the conditions when we really stress the forces to be able to have them to cope and learn on the go. Strategically, the Russians have done an awful lot of exercises in the Arctic region at large scale. The United States and our NATO allies and partners are increasing their ability to do this as well. Trident Juncture in the North Atlantic region, also all the way up into the Barents, last year is one example; this Arctic edge in the Alaskan and Canadian regions is also critically important. We once upon a time had things such as brim frost, which is biannual exercises that were quite substantial during the latter parts of the Cold War.

We need to return more to scale in this as we look towards the future, but we do have a reasonably sized and scoped exercise program now that has the ability to move to a larger scale, again, commensurate with our national interests and our ability to fund those kinds of exercises. So strategically, we can reduce risk on our vulnerabilities by continuing along the trajectory that those Arctic strategies that have been released between the department, the Air Force, the US Navy, the one that was out two years ago from the United States Coast Guard, the developing army Arctic strategies we spoke about at length just last week through a Wilson ADAC forum. These kind of strategies provides the ways, ends, and means, and now we need to focus on implementing those aspects because the strategies themselves, I think, really well categorize the challenges and opportunities. So thanks for that opportunity to address this question.

Liselotte Odgaard:

Thanks, Randy. That was great. I’ll go to speak to Bryan Clark again. You focused a lot on electromagnetic spectrum operations lately, and you’re also part of the team who’s working on developing a new US strategy in this area. Can you tell us why the Arctic is important from the perspective of communications or sensing, and how electromagnetics warfare developments influence military strategic dynamics in the Arctic, please?

Bryan Clark:

Sure, Lise. So as Randy was just saying, there’s communications challenges in the Arctic. A lot of the challenges that come in the electromagnetic spectrum in the Arctic are because just it is so sparsely populated, there’s not a lot of infrastructure up there. So, when you want to communicate with military forces today, we generally do that using some kind of shore-based terrestrial antenna that will communicate with forces in the field or something in space, and we use satellite communications. So satellite orbits are very few and far between in the polar regions because of just the dynamics of how especially low-Earth orbiting satellites work. They will make passes up there, so you can create a satellite that will orbit in the polar region, but it won’t spend very much time up there every orbit. And so you’ll get a few minutes of view, and then it’ll pass out of view, and you won’t see it again for another hour and a half.

And then geostationary satellites are large and expensive, and it’s not necessarily worth putting those on some kind of polar orbit to be able to look down at the polar region. So, there’s not a lot of satellite coverage in terms of communications. That also applies to sensing, so there’s not a lot of sensing up there. There’s some sensing, but not nearly as much as what you find along the equatorial latitudes. There’s not a lot of commercial sensing either, which is something we tend to increasingly rely on for intelligence gathering and for monitoring our EEZs. And then from the terrestrial side, there’s not a lot of land-based systems, and there’s not a lot of sea-based systems or air-based systems, just because the environmental conditions are so challenging and it’s so distant from all the places we normally operate from. So we will say we will find that trying to create the ability to monitor and to communicate in the polar region is going to require the increased deployment of probably actual military systems or commercial systems that are providing that military service.

So, unmanned aerial vehicles are something that all the services are looking at using more to try to provide sensing and communication relay for operations in the Arctic region. There’s also the advent of some new polar orbiting satellites. There’s a hope that the commercial industry will come along here, but again, there’s not a strong demand for that. Yet as more commercial endeavors occur up in the Arctic, there may be a follow-on demand for polar observation and communications from satellites that might be able to be leveraged by the US or by other militaries.

So, an interesting dynamic that falls out of that is because there are so few sensors and so few communication methods available in the Arctic region, electronic warfare to defeat those systems becomes very capable because now you lack the redundancy. So, the Russians in particular have put a lot of investment into electronic warfare systems they would deploy in the polar regions, recognizing that it’s a vulnerability for the US and NATO allies, that they don’t have a lot of redundant sensing and communication systems. So, you jam them, or you deceive them using electronic warfare systems that are based on ships or aircraft of the Russian armed forces. You could very easily blind them and then have yourself an opportunity, a window in which you can take some offensive measures.

And given the short distances involved in reaching North America and parts of Europe via the Arctic, it could be an opportunity for the Russians to exploit and make up for their inadequacies in the conventional forces, both the size and the capability of some of their conventional forces, they can make up for that by having these windows of opportunity and take advantage of a surprise attack.

So, electronic warfare becomes something that’s more of a concern in the Arctic than in other regions because of this lack of redundancy. But I think those are the main concerns that we’re trying to address right now, and there’s a combination of commercial and military efforts going on to try to fill those gaps.

Liselotte Odgaard:

Okay, thank you, Bryan. I’ll go back to Richard. Russia and China, because a lot of people are discussing how much cooperation there will be between the two. On the one hand, President Putin in Russia has just said that he doesn’t rule out the possibility of an alliance, but on the other hand, to me, it seems the two powers have quite different agendas in the Arctic. So, what would be your take on the chances that they will cooperate closely in the Arctic?

Richard Weitz:

Right. Thank you for that question. It’s true. Russia and China currently pursue very different policy approaches in the Arctic. Nevertheless, the region is an emerging area, a sign of Russian cooperation, primarily due to a fortuitous convergence of Russian assets and Chinese needs. Until a few years ago, Russian officials were very expressive, frequent vocalized concern about China’s growing ambitions in the Arctic. Moscow strove to limit the influence of all non-Arctic states, including China in the region, particularly in the Arctic Council, limiting their ability to participate, and it made sense from the Russian point of view. If you can keep China out of the Arctic, it serves a dual purpose of limiting China’s potential power if you see China as a long-term rival, and it helps secure Russia’s own dominant position in many of the Arctic regions.

However, despite Russia’s advantages in terms of location and other assets, Russia has suffered from its undeveloped Arctic infrastructure in the region. It lacks many of the advanced technologies needed to exploit the offshore oil and gas deposits or make full use of the Northern Sea Route as a potential shipping lane. And so, Russia has strived as part of its, what I mentioned earlier, its dual track policy of competition and cooperation to, at least in the economic realm, seek out economic partners. Before 2014, these were primarily US and European companies, energy companies. They brought in the most advanced global technologies, but since 2014, we’ve seen severe US sanctions and European sanctions limiting the US and EU role for an energy development in the Arctic. And so Russian companies and government have turned towards China as the main source of capital and potentially technologies. At the same time, China was looking to develop its own East-West transportation links with European markets. So, there was a natural convergence of interest here.

And so, you’ve seen since 2014 a change in Russian discourse, and all officials and most scholars declined to mention anything negative about their cooperation with China. And they talked about the long-term advantages, collaboration, and as I mentioned, China has facilitated this kind of moderation by limiting its own rhetoric regarding its resource claims and military aspirations. And so, you’ve seen joint projects to develop the deposits in Russia’s offshore Arctic territories. You’ve seen joint scientific efforts; last year, they set up a joint Arctic research center, and then, most importantly, you’ve seen cooperation on the Northern Sea Route. Most of the traffic through the Northern Sea Route is Russian vessels simply traveling between Russian ports along the Arctic. But we’ve seen now Chinese companies begin to make trial runs through the Northern Sea Route to try to develop it potentially as another transpolar route to reach European markets.

And as this proves viable, you’ll probably see increasing use of this. As mentioned, Russia is in favor of this. It benefits a lot from the transit fees and other advantages of having Chinese ships travel through what the Russians claim to be their Arctic waters. Future collaboration could also include more joint projects, perhaps growing on Chinese technologies as they develop and are applicable to the Arctic. You may see China and Russia have extended their defense exercises throughout most of the world, at least in Eurasia, and so you could see them potentially building on the early Mediterranean and Baltic Sea exercises, conducting exercises in the Arctic, or you could see paramilitary activities, perhaps joint scene rescue, anti-smuggling, joint maritime domain awareness activities, and perhaps most important from the perspective of the US, you could also see China potentially provide de facto support for Moscow’s claims in the Arctic by, for example, cooperating and recognizing Russian demands for respect for its sovereignty in the Northern Sea Route.

In the near term, this seems to be a very harmonious relationship. China benefits from accessing Russia’s hydrocarbon reserves and sea lanes, or claims sea lanes, while Moscow gets the money it needs to help develop the projects, which are seen as vital for the future of the Russian national security and economy. And also, both countries think this kind of cooperation provides them with leverage over the other’s policies. And it’s so far unlike, for example, in Central Asia, where China’s also deferred to Russia’s security dominance in the region, but has been developing the potential necessary to intervene militarily on its own, at least in the Arctic, the Chinese seem very comfortable relying on Russia to provide the security for whatever activities they may engage in. But there is a long-term risk for Russia in this strategy. China’s clearly becoming a much more potentially formidable economic and security challenger.

Russia has tried to dilute Chinese influence, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, by developing ties with other countries and India, South Korea, but it really hasn’t had much success. It’s also been enhancing its potential if necessary, to gauge the military contingencies against China and the Arctic under the guise of strengthening its Arctic defenses against the United States, for example, in the Northern Fleet that potentially could sail towards the Pacific as well as the Atlantic. But there’s an increasing possibility that, as we’ve seen in other areas of the world, China will eventually build on its economic potential to engage in more paramilitary activities. We’ve seen China, for example, investing in and developing its own Arctic-relevant icebreakers. China is also aware that Russia’s not the only Arctic player. If it could run into difficulties with Russia, presumably could re-engage in cooperation with other players more. And there’s potential differences over the pursuit of resources, over environmental issues, but also sovereignty.

I mean, so far, China’s downplayed its sovereignty claims and demands to treat this as a global commons, but that could reappear in Chinese discourse. I think the key question, really though, is how the overall Russia-China relationship develops and how this applies in the Arctic. If the overall relationship continues to get better, this can facilitate Arctic cooperation. Conversely, if it deteriorates for whatever reason, it will make it harder, but it’s also possible the Arctic could contribute to building a better relationship if they develop these joint projects, if they cooperate successfully in some, then that could expand, and that, of course, has many implications for the United States and the other democracies globally.

Liselotte Odgaard:

Thank you very much, Richard. I’ll now turn to Randy to ask you about the US presence in other countries in the Arctic. The Thule Air Base in Greenland has been a US base since 1943, and today it’s a critical site for missile defense and for space situational awareness. It also hosts the northernmost deep-water seaport and airfield. Can you tell us about the importance of this space and how it helps NATO countries provide security in and beyond the Arctic region? And can you perhaps also, if possible, comment on the recent US interest in the Faroe Islands? Thank you.

Randy Kee:

Thank you for your question. And so strategically, my vantage point I would offer, the United States, of course, has an enduring interest in maintaining Thule Air Base. It makes sense because of, as you just mentioned it’s for, provides long-term situational awareness, space situational awareness, command, and control. It strategically provides not only this for the United States but, of course, enables this part of US contributions for under the NATO construct and be able to help provide, I think, is critical over the pole, their defense concerns for the NORAD relationship, and to help preserve and protect our citizens. And of course, from our vantage point, it provides not only for space situational awareness, but also helps enable communications and connectivity in the high latitude. So, the position of Thule as an important base for the US, I think, is long-standing. It will continue to need to be invested in and continue to be maintained. It just makes sense.

The aspects of the United States in other locations in or near the Arctic region, for me, it really is about partners and allies and aspects of how do we work collectively towards our common defense, whether that’s territories in and near the Arctic, in the North American continent, in the Atlantic region, in the European theater is really about partners and allies and being able to work together to mutual benefit through mutual understanding to understand the developing geo-strategic and military challenges that are facing us through United States and our allies and partners in this region. It’s also about how to leverage each other in a way that bolsters the common defense, exercising, for example, with our allies and partners in the marine spaces, in the land spaces, the positioning of assets in places like the United States Marine Corps in Norway for long-term equipment storage in places where they can help provide common defense in regions where getting to the region in a crisis is important, that days and hours and minutes count and having pre-positioned equipment for example, provides that opportunity.

I’m definitely not saying that’s the case in the Faroe . . . I don’t know specifically the details in this aspect for the Faroe Islands. I do know that the United States has a deep and abiding interest to work with our allies and partners to advance capabilities and interoperability, equipment, training, and exercising to realize the elements of all articles of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s contract, essentially between our country and our allies and partners, particularly our allies.

I’d also share though of course, that I think it’s really important to think through whether it’s a temporary or an enduring presence, I do think that the US investments in the Arctic region, as Bryan mentioned earlier, the aspects about basing, whether they’re floating bases that can go into the region for a season or essentially smaller scale bases that can grow over time. I think that the United States has well been our interest to invest in places along our Arctic shorelines to help us build, project, stabilize the influence, ability to provide ready search and rescue forces to be able to respond more quickly to humanitarian assistance and disaster response by being on scene quickly. In the aspects of the Arctic region, again, based on the difficulties of the climate, hours and minutes matter.

Having physicians where forces can come in and provide that hand of help under a crisis scenario, I think is going to matter. As more and more activity continues to develop in the Arctic region as a result of the diminishing ice environment, it’s going to continue to be an incentive for Arctic and non-Arctic people and industry, and just individuals to try to access the region. The United States, of course, frankly it is, our Arctic interests do lie in the aspect of three major constructs, if you will, through the Arctic Basin. Transportation, because of that shorter route, transpolar would be the perfect route if the diminished ice environment permitted it. Being able to leverage the mineral aspects there and potentially marine life, but mostly the mineral aspects, because there are a lot of minerals, petrochemicals, and more that in a diminishing environment are easier to get to.

And then of course also tourism. It is an area where it is just spectacular, and being able to see this, it is a remarkable opportunity for humankind. So, to do this safely and smartly also means, of course, creating capability-based locations and places to operate from in the specific reason we choose to select to invest. So, I just offer those as some reflections, and I thank you for the question.

Liselotte Odgaard:

Thank you, Randy. I’ll turn to Bryan. There’s a lot of submarine activity in Arctic waters, and the secret Cold War nuclear submarine base in Norway is to be reopened. And I guess that testifies to its importance. The US Navy is constructing undersea drones to better be able to survey the increased activity in the Arctic. In your view, how much of an issue is situational awareness under the ice for the US’s ability to protect its interests at present?

Bryan Clark:

Well, it’s very important. As we just discussed, Russian ballistic missile submarines conduct their deterrent patrols in the Arctic, sometimes under the ice, often under the ice. China might in the future deploy its ballistic missile submarines to the Arctic and take advantage of that environment to help hide. US ballistic missile submarines generally don’t go to the Arctic just because there are so many other places they can operate that are easier to manage. But maintaining that surveillance in the Arctic region is really important for US anti-submarine warfare, because one, you do have these ballistic missile submarines that are up there. The Russians also will deploy their submarines routinely to the Arctic as a way to get operational proficiency, as a way to come reach North America targets because operating under sea, you can avoid obviously a lot of the challenges of operating on the surface in the Arctic and submarines are generally hardened to be able to handle the ice, even marginal ice zones or even full ice conditions that are likely to persist in the Arctic most times of year.

So, monitoring for that is going to be really important. The US doesn’t have enough submarines to maintain continuous or even relatively continuous Arctic patrols, so doing anti-submarine warfare or managing the surveillance of submarines is going to depend on unmanned systems to an increasing degree. Unmanned undersea vehicles, particularly the larger ones that might be able to tow towed arrays are one option. A lot of the cheaper UUVs or unmanned undersea vehicles that are out there, like gliders and some of the unmanned surface vessels that might be used as well, are probably not going to be as useful in the Arctic, obviously, because the conditions aren’t going to allow small, unmanned vehicles to survive. And so, it’s going to really depend on these larger, more robust unmanned undersea vehicles towing sonar arrays to do some of the surveillance.

And then they’ll have to be accompanied by relocatable or fixed undersea sensors like the SOSUS arrays that were developed and installed at the end of the Cold War. Those still operate, and the Navy has expanded them over time and increased their sophistication and capability. So those are . . . The unmanned systems are increasingly going to be the way that you monitor your upper, the far north, the reaches around your territory to monitor for incoming submarines because they do provide this escalation advantage to the Russians in particular that we’re concerned about.

Liselotte Odgaard:

Great. Thanks a lot, Bryan. I’ll ask a final question, and please just answer in one or two minutes. And the question is about cooperation. Do you see any opportunities for strengthening cooperation between the Arctic nations, including also a non-NATO country such as Russia, and what should be the focus of such cooperation? Starting with Richard.

Richard Weitz:

Yeah, I think one obvious area is climate change. The new US administration, it looks to make this a priority, and the Chinese have expressed interest; they’re concerned, of course, about the health of their coastal cities and other interests. In the past, the Russians have been ambiguous, obviously. I mean, having warmer temperatures in a cold country like Russia was seen by some people as having advantages. But I think we’ve seen a major change in the last few years of Russian concern about how the melting of the permafrost and other challenges will, even though if they open up the Arctic to further development, are going to just substantially set back Russia’s economy and standard of living through much of the country. So, you’ve seen President Putin and others talk about the importance of addressing this issue. So, I would think that would be an obvious area if you were going to engage in more cooperation with all three countries for future consideration.

Liselotte Odgaard:

Thank you, Richard. Randy, what would you say to this question?

Randy Kee:

Thank you. Great question and a great conversation so far. I would offer that there are several existing mechanisms for collaboration and cooperation, I think need to continue to be invested in. I’ll start with first of all, the Arctic Council. It’s an exceptional organization; it has all our eight Arctic nations that participate. There’s also six multi-nationally recognized indigenous groups, I think, and that all have an equal voice at the table, are represented the same as at the state level of sovereign influence, if you will. So, the Arctic Council, which has a number of science, policy coordination, and governance-type activities that provide a great aspect of Arctic exceptionalism. The next thing I’d go to is the military cooperation. There is, of course, the Arctic Coast Guard Forum that has all Arctic nations’ coast guards to participate. I think that’s an exceptional collaboration forum for search and rescue, humanitarian assistance, and disaster response.

And then you have the Arctic Security Forces Roundtable, which is a multinational defense support to civil authorities that has all but Russia as a participant of Arctic nations, but also several European nations that also participate, have deep and abiding Arctic interests.

So, organizations such as Arctic Council, the Arctic Coast Guard Forum, Arctic Security Forces Roundtable are just about a few in the multinational policy security. Well, the Arctic Council, of course, doesn’t have a security mechanism, but Arctic science activities. And then also the ven of research. The Arctic and science aspects of the Arctic research community is really exceptional. There are multiple number of organizations that have some connection, many of which have some connection to the Arctic Council. But again, Arctic Science cooperation and collaboration needs continue to be a vanguard of the future dialogue between nations. We have many mutual interests in this across the Arctic community. And again, I could not emphasize our role in aspects such as the US Arctic Research Commission and the Arctic Consortium of Research collaborators in the United States, and more, multiple organizations that are focused on science, and let’s use that as a vehicle to advance the collaboration and the conversation amongst the Arctic community.

Liselotte Odgaard:

Great. Thanks, Randy. And Bryan, you’ll get the last word.

Bryan Clark:

Well, I think commercial endeavors, I think, which have been discussed by both Randy and Richard, are probably an opportunity for cooperation, given the fact that most of the geological reserves and petrochemical reserves in the Arctic are within somebody’s EEZ. So, Russia is going to need help from another country generally to try to extract those. The same might be true of other countries. I think that search and rescue presents a really good opportunity for cooperation. Obviously there’s organizations that have been pursuing that, but countries that have those capabilities are going to need to be able to cooperate with those that don’t have them to provide a search and rescue capability for the increasing amount of commercial activity that’s in the Arctic, particularly as tourism becomes popular because the US doesn’t necessarily have the kind of coverage to be able to protect tourism activity in the Arctic along its coastline.

It may need help, rely on those from Canada or Norway to support those activities. And then the last thing is probably when it comes to environmental protection, along with search and rescue, environmental protection and response is going to be a key area for cooperation because most countries lack the kind of response capabilities that they would have in places like we have in the Gulf of Mexico to respond to a oil spill or something that happens in the Arctic region. So, I’m trying to do more cooperation along those areas, is something the Arctic Council and other councils have been promoting. And I think that those are opportunities that the US is going to need to leverage.

Liselotte Odgaard:

Great. Thanks, Bryan. And on this encouraging note, we have completed our debate here. I want to thank you all, and thanks to our audience for listening, and happy holidays from Hudson.