Lori Townsend: As Alaska's Arctic region opens to increased vessel traffic and global interest, what are the American military's plans to ensure security?

Unknown: I think you're going to see a lot more units come up here in the winter.

Lori Townsend: Military training in arctic conditions and the growing need for international cooperation is our discussion right now on Alaska Insight.

As the Arctic warms, it increasingly has the potential to become an arena where world powers compete for dominance.

While Russia and China are beefing up their Arctic presence.

The Pentagon has been slow to make the Arctic a priority.

Alaska Public Media's Liz Ruskin reports that may be changing.

Unknown: In March, three Russian submarines surfaced next to each other at the North Pole.

The unprecedented feat flaunted by the Kremlin was part of an elaborate military exercise.

It's just one indicator that Russia is boosting its military presence in the Arctic.

Meanwhile, the US has just two working icebreakers, the Healy, and the Polar Star.

Today our topic is defending us economic interests in the changing Arctic.

Is there a strategy?

America had no national Arctic strategy until 2013.

And that first one was a mere 11 pages.

Now though, the Air Force, Army and Navy each have their own Arctic strategy, General David Krumm, head of the Alaskan command, says the military is serious about asserting a presence in the Arctic.

We look at what Russia has done in areas like Crimea, where they've taken over against international law.

We want to make sure that behavior is not repeated up here.

And to date, it hasn't.

And we know the best way to make sure that that doesn't happen is to not let it happen in the first place.

And so a presence up here that will prevent those types of activities having happening, I think, is gonna be very important.

The Army's strategy is titled "Regaining Arctic Dominance," a commitment and also an acknowledgement that after the Cold War ended after two decades of desert warfare, the Army's Arctic skills had atrophied.

And in case it threatens to go out of control, you slam on the brakes with your eyes.

How serious are these plans?

One professor at the U.S. National War College says it's a mixed bag.

Speaking only for himself and not the government, Professor David Aurswald says the Navy's Arctic plan, for instance, reflects some ambivalence about making the Arctic a top priority.

You know, their strategy reads, quote, "we will find new ways to integrate and apply naval power with existing forces."

That's their Arctic strategic blueprint.

Right?

That doesn't really commit you to do a whole lot.

Some of the plans Aurswald has said seem to be written just to satisfy us Sen. Dan Sullivan.

Sullivan hardly let's a confirmation hearing in the Senate Armed Services Committee go by without pressing for commitments that generals and admirals pay heed to the region.

Can you commit to me to work with this committee to taking a strong look, a personal look at America's strategic and military interests in the Arctic and how to protect those?

Even if some of the military branches wrote their Arctic strategies for Senator Sullivan, Professor Aurswald says strategic plans can drive on the ground reality.

The Army has announced plans to buy 200 new cold weather all terrain vehicles designed for arctic conditions.

The CATVs will replace the current tracked snow travel vehicles, the newest of which are from 1983.

And Congress has now appropriated $1.8 billion for new icebreakers.

The first one is expected in 2024.

In the meantime, General Krumm says Alaskans should expect to see more troops come to Alaska for exercises.

I think you're going to see a lot more units come up here in the winter, and so more military activity in the winter, so that you just can get that exposure, pun intended, to what the environment is is like.

Krumm says the strategic plans will act as a blueprint.

Whether they result in a more visible and persistent military presence, he says, depends on the national will for it.

For Alaska Public Media, I'm Liz Ruskin.

Lori Townsend: Joining me tonight to discuss Arctic security and the growing international interest in the Arctic region are Troy Bouffard, the director of the Center for Arctic Security and Resilience at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and Michael Sfraga, chair of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, and the founding director of the Polar Institute.

Thank you both for being here this evening.

And before I launch into the list of questions that I have, I just would like for you both to sort of react to the story that we just heard and give us your impressions of the plans that the branches of the military have put out, to, to date.

Mike, why don't you start us off?

Unknown: Thank you, Lori.

Thank you, thank you for having me.

My reaction is a bit more positive than one might imagine.

I think that the Pentagon has actually led in many of the different areas that were discussed in that piece, the fact that we have these branches of military that have created a strategy.

Now I'm waiting for implementation plans.

David was quite right, you can have a plan.

But unless you you move forward with that plan, it's just a plan on a shelf.

But the fact is that at least the Pentagon has realized whether it's Sen. Sullivan or others, they realized that the Arctic is important to this nation and Alaska makes the United States an Arctic nation.

It's in our best interest, to have a presence but also be able to execute in the Arctic, what I'm looking for my my reaction, bottom line is what I'm looking for is an integration and a leveraging of all of these Arctic policies across DOD, so that resources and assets can be leveraged.

Lori Townsend: Alright, thank you for that.

Troy, your thoughts?

Unknown: Thank you, Lori.

And thank you for having me.

And hi to my good friend, Mike.

I have to echo what Mike says, implementation has been a be key.

But more importantly, from a kind of a beginning perspective.

Right now, we have not one single unit in the military in the US military that has a defined Arctic mission.

Right.

And when once the once the nation does have that commitment, that Mike had mentioned, and it's articulated in, for example, the National Security Strategy, this is when we can begin to get serious, this is when the national defense strategy and the other service and joint level strategies can start to actually depend on mandated funding and support to achieve these operational needs in the Arctic.

Lori Townsend: Alright, Mike, let's return to you.

As I noted in the introduction, in addition to being the chair of the Arctic Research Commission, you're the chair of the Wilson Center's Polar Institute.

How do these two roles complement each other?

And what are the distinctions?

Unknown: Yeah, but two very different roles, right, the chair of the Arctic Research Commission is just newly newly appointed as chair.

So that this commission focuses on advising the president and Congress on Arctic research and policy issues, both domestically and internationally.

So the crosswalk to these discussion we're having on national security, you can imagine that the science and technology, synergies of this country have to be coalesced to advance the mission that Gen. Krumm spoke about.

So that's one mission hat that I have.

The second mission hat that I have is to build an institute at the nation's think tank, the Woodrow Wilson Center, that looks at the Arctic in a more holistic approach: the social, economic, environmental, political security landscape of the Arctic, not just for the North American Arctic, Alaska, Canada, Greenland, but for the Arctic writ large.

So we look at all issues related to the Arctic we call the kaleidoscope of issues.

Those two mission sets really do come together quite well, because you can't have good policy unless it's informed by solid research.

And that's where the two come together.

Lori Townsend: That really makes excellent sense.

And how does the commission's research if it does help the military when it comes to really understanding Arctic domain?

Unknown: Really big question.

The commission doesn't, in and of itself, conduct research we enable we set strategy for the United States.

So we inform the president we inform Congress and we formed like agencies like the White House Office of Science Technology Policy, for instance, the National Science Foundation, we set priorities, and then we inform and influence the U.S. policies in those directions.

I can tell you that although the commission has been reconstituted, and has just now begun to meet, the very issues that you would think we were thinking about our in our thinking going forward and we will bring out a strategy the beginning of 2022.

It will include issues like infrastructure, and critical and rare earth minerals, it will look at environmental issues all of those things resonate, domain awarenesses Arctic observing networks and understanding the landscape we're in.

All of those things are good to know if you're an Alaska Native village on the coast of the Bering Strait, but also the our military has to know what, what weather is coming their way.

So weather forecasting and ocean currents and storm surges and all of those things.

All are informed by the scientific community.

It's up to the Arctic Research Commission to inform and influence the U.S. policy, both domestically and internationally.

And DOD's mission set is one of those areas that we will look at.

Lori Townsend: All right, thank you so much for that.

Troy, in September, you co-authored an opinion piece in the Anchorage Daily News, titled "Homeland security should prioritize climate security, Indigenous primacy in its Arctic strategy."

Describe what you think is needed here.

Unknown: Well Lori, I think what's needed is an updated Department of Homeland Security, Arctic strategy is more reflective of the needs of Alaska, especially in remote areas.

The strategy came out kind of at the end of the last administration, it even failed to mention climate change once throughout the entire document.

So this was an opportunity with my colleague, John Pennington, who was former FEMA Region 10 director, to perhaps inform on the development of the new strategy, which we're aware of is happening, and to maybe provoke a little bit more thought and discussion.

And to have that holistic approach to developing an implement, publishing and implementing a strategy that's a little more conducive to the needs of Alaska.

Lori Townsend: Describe the distinctions between what you called soft and hard security in the Arctic.

What's meant by that?

Unknown: Well, for hard security, we really think about those aspects that involve like military intervention.

Maybe even use of economic sanctions, political coercion.

Soft security, is, involves a bit more of the realm, especially what we see with the activities of the U.S. Coast Guard, Coast Guard-like agencies throughout the Arctic, which are very active and work together, even with Russia.

So where we have no military-to-military contact right now with Russia, the U.S. Coast Guard does, and this is very normal business anywhere in the world.

And to see them working together in the Arctic is extremely useful.

Lori Townsend: The as you were talking about the Coast Guard's work together in all Arctic nations, but they have a different security role, of course, than the the defense branches of the military.

Does, does this at all intersect or help the other military branches that the Coast Guards are working sort of in cooperation, or are in cooperation with each other?

Unknown: Absolutely, Lori, a lot of the for the United States, especially the U.S. Coast Guard is the lead operational organization for the Arctic currently.

And this greatly informs what will eventually be other military service component operations up in the north.

For the other nations, they all have different functions.

For their Coast Guard, Coast Guard-like agencies, for example, the Canadian Coast Guard does not have a law enforcement function.

And the Russian Coast Guard equivalent belongs to the FSB.

So they all bring different operational jurisdictional authority, authority type of skills capabilities together to work for different problems around the Arctic, especially in the Bering Sea.

For example, with IUU fishing, illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing is a huge issue.

And combining these skills and having a presence.

conducting operations together is not only useful for soft security purposes, but for the tremendous learning opportunities.

Lori Townsend: All right, thank you.

Mike, Michael, I want to turn back to you.

You talked about the seven Cs in the Arctic, Cs as the letter C. Climate, commodities, commerce, connectivity, cooperation, communities and competition.

You said competition gets the headlines.

Explain by what you meant by that.

And what do you think should be getting the attention if not that?

Unknown: Well, the hard, the hard security always gets the headline, right?

It's really interesting to look at a New York Times The Washington Post actually do a fairly good job of balancing the issues related to the Arctic.

But it's hard to get away from the great power competition narrative at the moment, right, the United States, China, Russia globally.

And so when you are thinking about big headlines for the Arctic, rarely do you hear about endangered Alaska Native communities.

You do hear about them, but not as much as would captures the imagination, like the great power competition or the competition between Russia, China and the United States.

So it it, it is my way of saying that there are other Cs, aside from the competition that are at play in the Arctic, that you have to balance this approach at the balance your perspective, that there are communities that are in the Arctic that have their needs, as Troy pointed out, rightfully, that the changing environment that these communities live in.

The fact that there's commerce happening in the Arctic, the fact that there's connectivity needs, not just broadband in our own state, we need roads and ports.

And you know, we have our own infrastructure.

So but you don't hear about that kaleidoscope of issues.

Often what you hear about mostly, is this national security, hard security, great competition side of the Arctic.

And you don't hear what Troy rightfully pointed out is the civil security side search and rescue, oil spill response, serving communities, the Coast Guard mission, there's a lot water security, food security.

Those civil security sides, to me, the homeland security are just as important than the national security, although we should be vigilant and diligent when it comes to not like minded nations and their activities and missions and vision for the Arctic.

So that's what I mean a more balanced approach to the, to many of the real issues in the north.

I happen to pick these Cs as the seven, seven drivers of what I consider to be this new Arctic.

Lori Townsend: Mm hmm.

You said that a war in the Arctic isn't as big a concern as a conflict sort of spilling over into that region or miscommunication problem, such as the incident that we saw in the Bering Strait with the fishing vessel and the Russian Navy.

Remind us briefly about what happened there and why that causes international stress.

Unknown: So what happened was, you know, could have been very bad where you had both bodies, the Russian Navy, operating legally, more than 12 miles off our coast, and within the 200 mile exclusive economic zone that our fishing crews were legally operating in.

But communication was not as robust as it should have been.

So you had fishing fleets that had a Naval Fleet, Air Force, you know, a full Armada from the Russian Federation, operating legally in the Bering Strait without communications that could have been far more robust, not just to the fishing fleets, but perhaps on both sides of the Bering.

Now, good thing, nothing, nothing happened.

There was no miscommunication, no Russian vessel nudged a fishing fleet.

But they weren't exactly neighborly in their approach to our fishing fleets.

And this is what we all worry about.

I am not concerned that the Russian Federation is going to look to claim more land in the Arctic, they own half of that coastline.

So but we could have a miscommunication in the north, we could have a flyby that goes wrong, we could have a signal that is not yet received.

That's what I'm concerned about.

Not just in the Alaska part of the Arctic, but in the North Atlantic and in the Barents Sea.

Off the coast of Norway, very concerned about the traffic there.

There's a lot of posturing happen with jamming of GPS signals, lots of submarine and on surface activity in the GIUK gap, the Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom gap, which was so active during the Cold War, and that Troy has so eloquently talked about before.

So I'm concerned about this activity and not having the proper communication sets.

That's one concern.

The second is understanding that in the Arctic, the United States has capacity, but we are still, we still have more needs in the north.

And so I'm concerned about being underprepared for any conflict that may have been knowing full well, as we know, in Alaska, we have robust F-35 presence, missile defense, presence and other capabilities.

But so that's what I mean about worrying about something happening elsewhere, perhaps like the Baltics or some something like that, that spills into the Arctic is part of the bigger, great power, global competition narrative and maybe activity.

Lori Townsend: Alright, thank you for that.

Troy, you also, as Mike noted, said that the security concern is more about something spilling into the region.

Talk a little more, pick up where Mike left off there and talk about what your concerns are in that respect and the areas that could escalate or push problems into the Arctic region.

Mike mentioned the Baltics.

Unknown: You know, Mike is absolutely spot on.

And this year, we've had a lot of opportunities to focus on understanding the European Arctic, which is significantly different than the North American Arctic.

And we do we study exactly what Mike said, which is, what is the potential for conflict in the Arctic, and most of us agree, circumpolar wise that there's no potential for conflict in the Arctic over Arctic issues.

It's going to spill over to or through the Arctic.

The Baltics is a primary and because this is such a priority area for Russia on the globe.

The Baltic area.

The Black Sea also is an area we need to keep our eye on.

But the Baltics is an area of special concern.

It's very complex there with Kaliningrad enclave right next to Poland.

Russia's position in that part of Europe is quite powerful in built up in developed, and for Norway and Sweden and Finland, especially Sweden, Finland, is not members of dado with to be extra careful about our activities with them militarily.

And the ability of Russia I think, to convolute issues, perhaps I might happen in Finland or Sweden, in the Arctic could very easily be pulled into the Baltic sphere for Russia, which would put them at a much better advantage to cause problems.

So we have to be extra careful about that kind of situation.

Otherwise, the growing concerns about freedom of navigation, especially in the northern sea route of Russia is also a very increasingly risky concern for the United States.

Russia does claim quite a lot of maritime surface waters, in effect as internal waters allowing them full control of access, which is way beyond international norms.

That someday the United States and Russian Federation and that the resolve one way or another, hopefully peacefully.

But for now, this issue keeps, is keeping United States Russia and odds, distinct odds.

Lori Townsend: What keeps you up at night when it comes to where we are and where we are not with planning for the future of the Arctic region?

Unknown: Great question.

What keeps me up at night is getting too far behind.

I think with operational capabilities, military operation capabilities in the Arctic.

Right now, a lot of the focus on North American defense, especially legacy carryover Cold War issues, is primarily dealt with through deterrence measures.

But getting too far behind I think and having capabilities, presence in the Arctic.

And the ability to de escalate issues and tensions is a big concern, especially for land forces, like Lt. Gen. Krumm had mentioned, we're going to see more exercises, service members in Alaska training, in order to start to be able to implement the Arctic army Arctic strategy, it's going to take quite a while.

And the land forces, needs, needs to really train and be resourced properly, in order to become a balanced and more meaningful part of how we measure today's military might and success through precision-enabled combined arms warfare, which is very much the model of what advanced nations do, especially Russia, and their land force development in the Arctic.

And their capabilities is significantly further ahead than ours, but we'll be there.

Lori Townsend: Alright, thank you.

And Mike, back to you in just about a minute.

We're just about at a time, what keeps you up at night, when you're thinking about all the work that needs to be done and where we are right now.

And the prioritization of it.

Unknown: Yeah, I'll tell you two things.

One is what keeps me from keeps me up at night and one that keeps me from napping.

Okay, one that keeps me from napping.

Is, it, are we significantly sourced, resourced but as Gen. Krumm has noted, do we have a presence?

Do we have a port in Nome?

Do we have the right air bases?

Are we situationally aware so that we have advanced basing of our resources throughout the state of Alaska to protect the state?

And what about on the North Atlantic side?

So that's one thing that that keeps my attention.

What keeps me up at night is something very different.

It's an oil spill, it's a tourist, it's a ship going down somewhere.

And through the tyranny of distance, we just cannot get there to save anyone.

It's the civil security side that keeps me up at night.

I go to bed fairly, fairly well, knowing that our military is on it.

And we have we have some ways to go.

But But I think we're we're moving in the right direction.

The thing I worry about is the mistake the miscommunication or an oil spill, or something along those lines.

That's what I worry about, mostly, Lori Townsend: Especially I imagine as we see increased vessel traffic going through the region and the opportunity for conflict is gets to be escalated.

Unknown: Yes, very much so.

We have a new globalized Arctic.

It's no longer that mythical place somewhere.

We are part of the global geopolitical and economic sphere of our of the whole world.

So the Arctic is no longer protected from its Arctic bubble.

We are now part of every other part of the world from Africa and Australia, at the Antarctic to the Arctic, we're interconnected and all things good and bad can happen.

Lori Townsend: All right.

Well, thank you so much Mike and Troy for speaking with me this evening.

Although most Americans will never visit the Arctic increasingly the eyes of the world are on this vast region interested in shorter shippin routes access to variou resources, and tourism, ensurin protection of the environment the lives and livelihoods o Indigenous residents, and th need to keep our border secur all point to massive investmen in infrastructure to meet thes growing requirements.

How an when the U.S. will prioritize nd fund those needs remains to be seen.

That's it for this edit on of Alaska Insight.

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Thanks for joining us this evening.

I'm Lor Townsend.

Good night