Arctic Security: The New Great Game?

MODERATOR: But it has been a fascinating bit of research for me as I have looked into what has been going on in the Arctic and the security implications and environmental implications and just international relation implications of what is happening to the polar ice cap. I think when I was a kid everybody, all the dooms day scenarios I remember were about the ice caps melting and the sea levels rising and coastal areas being flooded but as we are seeing climate change across the country and were seeing the receding of ice in the polar region during the summer months it has raised a whole host of issues that were going to get into today. Let me tell you a tiny bit more about me. I am Jamie McIntyre. I am the former Senior Pentagon Correspondent for CNN; I covered U.S. military issues CNN for 16 years from 1992 to 2008. I'm now pursuing some advanced graduate studies at the University of Maryland and writing a blog on military and media matters called the line of departure.com. So let's get to our panel because they're the ones who actually know about this so I guess I will start here on my immediate left. General Walt Natynczyk is the Chief of Defense for Canada, for those of you who are of the American persuasion that would be equivalent of our Joint Chief of Staff, the top military officer in Canada. Sitting next to him is Espen Barth Eide, the Norwegian Defense Minister, of course Norway an Arctic nation. And to his immediate left is General Gene Renuart who is the Commander of U.S. Northern Command, North Con and also NORAD, the North American Air Defense - as we all know. And joining us to bring some additional expertise from the civilian side is Steve Carmel, a senior vice president of Maersk Line, the shipping company based in Norfolk Virginia. So and as is the format with all of these sessions we want to engage you. You may have a lot of questions. You may be learning about some things for the first time or you may know a lot more about this than I think you do. I want to encourage you to jump up, as soon as I see people Ill sort of make a mental note. I want to also say to the panelists don't also wait to be called on. Feel free to jump in at any time. Just to set the stage a little bit I might want to ask each of you for a little bit, a brief opening statement oft, kind of paint the picture for us of what is going on at the north pole and what questions you think that raises. And General let's start with you. GENERAL WALTER NATYNCYK: Jamie thanks very much, and thanks for the pronunciation of my name, I appreciate that. Ladies and gentlemen from my standpoint in Canada the Arctic is changing faster than any one of us could appreciate. Before I go any further I would like to know a show of hands who here in this room has been north of 60 degrees? That's pretty good. There are some who actually think that Halifax is in the far north and yet actually the tip of Canada, at Ellesmere Island is about the same distance as it is from Halifax to London. It is a great distance away. But the Arctic is changing faster than any one of us appreciate and that is having huge effect for the world and certainly in Canada. Just so you know in Canada the Arctic north of 60 is the size of Europe, roughly the size of Europe populated by about 104,000 people. We have 15,500 polar bears up there. It is a huge area and it is changing. Last summer, summer 2008, I was standing at the tip of Ellesmere Island and looking out it was blue water as far as the eye could see. The wind had pushed the ice pack out about 100 nautical miles and that is having a dramatic effect on Canada. Now at the same time for my perspective there is no conventional military threat to the Arctic. If someone were to invade the Canadian Arctic my first task would be to rescue them. The Arctic is a very harsh environment. It is actually more difficult for me to support operations in the Arctic than it is to support operations in Afghanistan and yet we have tremendously capable rangers we employ to patrol the north because there are a lot more people in the north now. In the summer 2008 we had very good ice conditions. We had a record number of international ships in the Canadian Arctic archipelago. We had 53 international ships in addition to Canadian ships in that archipelago and we monitor them and supported them and so on. As I sat at one of our highest ports, Resolute, this past summer and looked out into the harbor and I saw two vessels. One was a cruise ship with well paying tourists coming ashore and beside it was a 42 foot fiberglass sail boat going through the Northwest Passage and when I mentioned this to the coast guard they said sir thats nothing there is a row boat going the other direction with two guys in it. The Arctic is changing. The resources in the Arctic are much more accessible. There is a lot of focus on the Northwest Passage and I would always refer to my naval colleagues and I would say from an economic insurance standpoint the route over the top would be economically viable much sooner than the northwest pass. THE HON. ESPEN BARTH EIDE: First I fully agree with what the General said and let me also say that the Arctic is not Antarctica and thats not only a geographical fact but Antarctica is land with ice on it. The Arctic is just frozen water and when the water de-freezes it is becoming an ocean. What we are seeing here is the opening up of a vast ocean. And yesterday we talked a lot about transatlantic relations and in a few years we will talk about trans- Arctic relations. And trans-Arctic relations are among the same type of countries but it also connects us to Asia. And some day in the future we don't know when but some day in the future we will see a possibility of commercial sailing traffic from China, Japan, South Korea, to Western Europe, the east coast of North America and that goes in the northern routes and I also think that the most likely route in the long run is actually the polar route. And before the Northwest Passage and even the Northeast Passage has a year long, opening we can have a northern route. Thats the economic and political change in how the world look s and we really have to take that seriously. I also agree that there is no traditional military threat. Weve seen an increased Russian activity in this area over the last years and more flights, more submarines, more sailing but in a sense it is a natural recognition from their side that this area is opening up and half of the Arctic coast is actually on the Russian side. We should follow that seriously, but we should not be alarmed by it. What we have to do, however, is to start planning for a reality in which a lot of activity, energy, exportation of oil and gas, production, transportation, sailing routes, all of it, how all of this connects to the marine resources, fisheries and who is going to look after this area. There is an assumption even in the title of this panel that there is a great game, like this is an open voyage you can go and grab. That's not true. It is an ocean and hence it is regulated by the United Nations Law of the Seas. And fortunately all of the Arctic states agree that that is the starting point for future negotiations about how we deal with this issue. So it is not alarming but it is important and it is something we will have to focus on also in security terms in the years to come. MODERATOR: You touched on some of the issues we are going to bring up during this session. Obviously we all know the Arctic is not a continent. It's ice. But it's very interesting to see what's going on. While there is a debate about global climate change and the extent what man contributes to that there is no debate about what is happening at the North Pole with the polar ice cap. Statistics show over the last two decades theres been almost a 40 percent reduction of ice in the summer months. And some experts predict that by 2030 you'll have open ocean at the top of the planet and so we'll see what happens. GENERAL VICTOR E. RENUART, JR.: I think first of all the one single view from the north pole that NORAD focuses on at least around December 24th every year is to look out for that Rudolph's red nose coming out of the north pole and we follow that for our children. On a serious note I think that this change that we're seeing is not quite clear yet where it really will go. Experts vary on how rapidly we see ice change. 2009 was a very different picture than 2007, 2008. So I think as the Minister says it is clear that there is change occurring. It's clear that we need to create a way to operate in that region that can ensure safety and security. We will continue to see more research. Many nations have begun venturing further into the Arctic region. We have seen China with research. The Russians have been there for really all of history to some degree. But countries like France and South Korea and Japan and many others are seeing added value in exploring either fisheries or natural resources and the like. Important as that occurs that the Arctic nations create a capacity to ensure that whatever activity occurs in that region can be done safely and without compotation that leads to potential threats. I think all of us would agree that collaboration in that area is really the watch word and not competition. And there is a great apparatus through the Arctic counsel through the IMO and others where we can vent concerns, certainly each of the nations in the Arctic council have claims to certain elements of resource in that region. Those are natural things that these organizations are designed to address. And I think from a military perspective it is important that as we see this natural progression occur that we have a capability to come to rescue, to ensure that safety and security are maintained in that region. MODERATOR: Steve Carmel gives us a little bit of what are the implications of this for commercial shipping, what are you focusing on? MR. STEPHEN M. CARMEL: There are actually two kind of broad buckets that this would fall into one. One is destination shipping which is shipping in and out for resource extraction and that sort of thing. And to me I'll set that aside because it's the least interesting and from a system perspective in terms of security issues also probably the least to worry about. So the other side is transit shipping which is shipping going back and forth to get from, for instance, Asia to Europe and that sort of thing. There are a host of economic issues to be overcome before that really can be done, well talk about that later if anybody is interested, but for the purposes of right now we'll just assume that all of those are overcome and really that is the way to do it. It becomes a true trade route that is viable all the time. The implications for that, the effects of that will be felt far beyond the Arctic. Its not the Arctic that is really the issue. It is everywhere else that is the issue. For instance, Asia and Europe trade right now flows through the Suez Canal; any large scale diversion of traffic away from the Suez Canal obviously has implications for each of us. Tolls are the second largest source of foreign currency earnings for them and so you take that away and it becomes a stability issue for the government of Egypt and that becomes a stability issue for the Middle East as a whole. There are development issues. Anything like this that changes relative cost. The Chinese are unambiguous winners should this happen. Their relative costs go down so Africa which is trying to move up the value chain and develop they become further and further behind the 8 ball as you try and compete with the Chinese, an exercise in [INAUDIBLE]. Think about what would happen for development in Africa had the Suez Canal never been done. I suspect that Africa would be very different if the international highways for trade still had to go on its coast. If we took that away by digging the Suez Canal and relegated Africa to a back water. The Arctic will strengthen that. And lastly there are implications for a relative cost between major trading partners. For instance a viable northern route will make Chinese agricultural products relatively cheaper in the United States than west coast agricultural products. So for instance you could see Chinese apples displacing apples from the state of Washington on grocery shelves in the United States. And obviously west coast farmers are not going to deal well with that and there will be a reaction. And that sort of thing will multiply through hundreds of hundreds of products and the result will be trade friction. Anything that dramatically changes relative cost. There are winners and losers; it is not an unambiguous good. Global welfare has improved to the extent that the winners gain more than the losers lose, but the losers remain losers they dont like and they will not accept that position easily and thats the sort of thing that ultimately leads to [INAUDIBLE]. My favorite example to wrap up is the invention of the steam ship coupled with the railroad in the middle 19th century made American agricultural products much cheaper on the tables in Europe than home grown stuff. And because of that, so what you had is a developing country, the United States dumping cheap imports into the more mature economies of Europe, they didnt like it, they didnt react well and it started the chain of events that led us down a path that brought us to World War I. So this sort of stuff has impacts that can take a while to play out but in terms of altering the system these sort of trade effects are what really will change the world, not are we going to get a few more barrels of oil from the north. MODERATOR: I haven't thought about any of that before I arrived here in Halifax. I hope you are all thinking of some questions you want to ask our panel. It raised a whole bunch of issues here. I want to start with one that caught my interest because I wasnt aware of this and that is the efforts that the Russians have made to stake a claim to part of the Arctic sea bed. I understand the Russians even went down in a submersible and put a Russian flag on the floor of the sea bed. Is that true and what do you make of that? THE HON. ESPEN BARTH EIDE: It is true that they did it and I think several of us, MacKay was one of the people, and we commented by saying that we used to put flags on the north and the south poles 100 years ago but since then we learned [INAUDIBLE] and that's an example to follow. On the other hand - MODERATOR: The United States put a flag on the moon. THE HON. ESPEN BARTH EIDE: Exactly but this is not a legal claim. The good news we should focus on is that we had a Foreign Ministers meeting in Greenland a year ago which led to the [INAUDIBLE] declaration which basically says that the UN common law of the seas is the instrument by which we settle these issues and there will be disagreements and disputes but they will be within the legal realm as long as low tension is maintained in the north. MODERATOR: Is the Russian activity totally legitimate? What are the Russians up to? GENERAL WALTER NATYNCYK: I guess I would say from our standpoint is [INAUDIBLE] tends to be an effort to over state the important significance of things in the north. I would say from what I have seen and exactly what the secretary mentioned. It is very deliberate. [INAUDIBLE] Perhaps there is a little bit of headlines being made but otherwise in earnest there is a very deliberate negotiated process for resolving issues in the Arctic. GENERAL VICTOR E. RENUART, JR.: I might add the Russians have a great expertise in this region as well and this offers an opportunity for the nations in the region to collaborate a bit more. For example the Russians have assisted us in rescuing some scientific expeditions that were trapped in ice and in some distress not too long ago. We conduct search and rescue operations or exercises with the Russians. Our U.S. Coast Guard our U.S. Navy, the Russians, the Canadians, all collaborate in this region in a very productive way. So I think we ought not to make so much about competition here as to see that the Arctic provides a real opportunity for interaction with the Russians in a very positive way. MODERATOR: Isn't there some tension about competition? MR. STEPHEN M. CARMEL: Let me mention, talking about the Russian expertise, the Russians from a commercial perspective in terms of working up there, my mind anyway are the best in the world. They operate a fleet of 28 ice breakers compared to the U.S. fleet for instance of 3. The Russians operate the largest ice breaker in the world. It is 100 feet longer than the polar sea and able to crack ice 3 feet deeper than ours. They export, in 2009 will export 20 million-tons of oil and gas out of the Russian western Arctic. The current Baron Sea and within 10 years that will be 100 million-tons so the Russians indeed are the world leaders at this. And I agree it is an excellent place for cooperation rather than competition. Because they are good at things but lack things we have, money, people, that sort of thing. MODERATOR: Isn't there some dispute over how far territorial waters, what parts of the Arctic is opening up are going to be international waters? Isn't there some dispute between the United States and Canada over that or am I wrong. Correct me if I'm wrong. GENERAL WALTER NATYNCYK: We are good friends. MODERATOR: You are technically because of the structure, you are General Renuart's boss but you have given him the freedom to say whatever he wants. GENERAL VICTOR E. RENUART, JR.: Really I think its safe to say that all of the Arctic nations have and do make claims to their territorial shelves and where they go and the resources that are a part of those and as the secretary said there is now a forum that allows for those disputes and I think each of the nations that have filed those claims have done so in that forum. Certainly each nation might disagree with a particular approach but that's very different than creating friction or competition. MODERATOR: You wouldn't include Russia in there? THE HON. ESPEN BARTH EIDE: Yes. I think the point here is yes there are overlapping claims and disputes about how so you interpret the law of the seas. We have for instance have been negotiating a dividing line between the economic zone and the Russian and it is not done yet. It is not that that is not happening its just that we do agree on the legal framework within which we discuss these things and that's the way we have to keep it. Of course when you ask if there is potential for conflict, there is always a potential for conflict. There are more reasons to believe that if you play the cards well on both the Russian side and on our side we will be able to continue the slogan that we use which is high north low tension. Simply because we think it is in the mutual interest of all the Arctic states to do so. MR. STEPHEN M. CARMEL: I would like to point out as well the law of the sea convention which does provide the legal framework for working [INAUDIBLE] the United States has not ratified it. MODERATOR: Not by the Senate. And General Renuart does the United States suffer from an ice breaker gap? GENERAL VICTOR E. RENUART, JR.: I think absolutely. In fact, many of the U.S. combat commanders have come out very supportive of Admiral Allen our Commandant of the Coast Guards initiative to not only refurbish the three ice breakers that we do have but add to that fleet. I think in line with a need to be able to operate safely and securely in that region we have to modernize our forces. Canada has similar desires to improve the quality of the ships operating in that region. Very small percentage of our U.S. Navy vessels are so called ice hardened. And to Steve's point a minute ago that commercial element here, the ability to operate in that region is critical to that, as well. There was a German cargo vessel that transited this past season had to wait for an extended period of time in order to get the two ice breakers to clear that area in the northern passage for them to complete their transit and four days later it was closed again. So this is not an easy environment of the world to operate in and I think commercial organizations like Maersk will make some tough decisions on where their investment strategies go if they want to operate in that kind of environment. MODERATOR: Can we get a micro phone over here? AUDIENCE: I am former [INAUDIBLE] defense minister and we are, [INAUDIBLE] and what we are doing is on behalf of Greenland they always involve us in decisions. What I can say is the Greenlanders are also worried about climate change and what it means for their nature. At the same time they are very enthusiastic about some aspects of climate change. They see a great potential for tourism and exploration, oil, gas, minerals. So the immediate task really is to find the resources that would be demanded to search and rescue in connection with tourism and the other aspects, air surveillance, sea surveillance and surveillance of sovereignty. There is a decision to try to develop these capabilities but we would like to develop them together with the other countries and there was a commission of which I was a member with a former Norwegian Foreign Minister [INAUDIBLE] chairman and he has come forward with quite a lot of proposals for how we will increase the surveillance of this area. I see very interesting proposals to consider. This is not a close but we have started with the Arctic countries. When it comes to the military aspect very good position that we don't have a coast guard. And this means that it is a navy that carries out the action but as a military task it is the civilian task. So we don't have this distinction and this means that they will do fishery inspection and they will do search and rescue but at the same time guard our sovereigns. MODERATOR: Any reaction to that? GENERAL VICTOR E. RENUART, JR.: This past summer we were fortunate to host the Danish Chief of Defense Admiral Tim Jorgensen, we traveled through the northeastern Canadian Arctic then he was very gracious and hosted me in Greenland. At the top of Ellesmere Island and looked across, Greenland is about 40 miles away. And down here in Halifax you don't think about Denmark being our geographic neighbor but at the top of the world indeed Denmark through Greenland is our geographic neighbor and the cooperation that occurs in that region for search and rescue is absolutely key but it goes back to safety, environment, and economic interests over all. MODERATOR: I want to call on somebody now who I met earlier today and she actually educated me about what is going on in the high north. AUDIENCE: Cindy Dixon from the Arctic and I participate within the Arctic council forum. In the paper and the discussions I haven't heard much about the human security in the Arctic. Are people in the Arctic including those that are in Russia have some concern about the oil and gas extraction that's coming? And I think I would like to hear a bit more about what your thoughts are on the human security and health of our people, especially the indigenous people that live in the Arctic and how you plan to include them. Thank you. GENERAL VICTOR E. RENUART, JR.: Just a point. You may know in January this past year the U.S. signed a framework for its Arctic strategy and one of the key elements of that is to ensure the safety and security and development in U.S. terms the indigenous peoples of the Arctic, in our case in Alaska. I think there is similar wording, I'm not certain in Canada's strategy as well. There is a strong belief that preserving the culture as well as creating the opportunity for development in the Arctic for the peoples is important. I think there is still a lot of work to do. I was in Point Barrow this past summer and spent a good bit of time with the regional council there understanding their concerns about just what you described, the oil and gas development and how that will impact them. We have transmitted that back to our government, as well. This is a very important point at least I can say from the U.S. perspective as well as the military relationship with the peoples living in the Arctic region. GENERAL WALTER NATYNCYK: In Canada the government put out an Arctic strategy which indeed has the strands with regard to sovereignty with regard to economic growth, with regard to the social development and so on. Canadian forces are involved from the sovereignty standpoint but we're not responsible for the Arctic. We enable all the other government departments with regard to sovereignty in the north and we do that through a real system, a system of surveillance in the north starting with satellites all the way through patrol aircrafts all the down to rangers who are indeed in many cases tribal leaders and members of all the communities in the north, we have about 4500 rangers who actually do the patrolling on the ground through the Arctic and they do an incredible job. One patrol this past year was 2,500 kilometers patrol over Ellesmere Island, one island. And at the same time the significant social contribution is a ranger program hosts a cadet program, a youth program called the Junior Rangers where we have 3000 youth in the Arctic who are trained in their traditional skills, traditional life skills in the Arctic. And so there is a whole host of contributions we make to get the government departments in terms of sovereignty and also the terms of the social fabric of the Arctic. THE HON. ESPEN BARTH EIDE: There was actually quite a number of reasons to be concerned about the security in the Arctic because one is as you mentioned the oil and gas exportation and their consequences but the warming up can also lead to other species swimming northwards that are not accustomed and the existing species are not accustomed to the incoming species and bacteria can seriously effect fine ecological balance up there. I think it is important to state very clearly that the opening up of the Arctic is not necessarily good news but it is happening so we have to relate to it. We have to relate it to it in a way where we take these issues into account. AUDIENCE: Canadian navy. I have been presently and elegantly preempted in part by the previous question by Cindy but I'd like to make a quick observation and then pose a question for the panel. It strikes me that there is another phenomenon that builds on what Steve was just discussing and that's that as the Arctic begins to open and my colleagues in the Canadian Ice Service are stunned by the speed in which this phenomenon is unfolding that we're going to have the dramatic widening and capability of the Panama Canal so that we are in fact dramatically transforming the international waterways which surround the North American island and this will have some very real implications in terms of maritime security and port developments and so on. I want to come back to this question of what happens ashore because when we look at the current Arctic food chain we can see that Arctic cod for example which reside on the under sides of ice boats will begin to disappear and this effects the entire food chain in which people's resident in the north live. The question of the way in which the tundra begins to soften, what does this mean in terms of plans for major oil and gas pipelines? Well, in fact it leads to an increase in maritime traffic because now it is more economic to, in fact, move energy sources by sea rather than by land. It strikes me that there are a whole host of implications in terms of what is happening on shore which [INAUDIBLE]. Thank you. MR. STEPHEN M. CARMEL: I guess to start you're absolutely right to the extent that oil and gas extraction happens up in the Arctic Ocean. That stuff is not going to get moved out of there by pipeline. The standard way this happens, there is a special type of processing ship that it will come up and be partially processed and off loaded into other ships and taken out. This is a destination shipping I was talking about earlier. That's the way it's going to happen. And how much of it happens depends on how quickly it becomes economically viable to take oil out of there. GENERAL VICTOR E. RENUART, JR.: I would capture on your point a little bit on shore, we built a lot of the infrastructure in that region based on an assumption of what permafrost would do. We are seeing significant changes to that. I literally had to take down a radar sight that we used in Alaska because of the erosion in the sea coming closely. Clearly this having an effect. We are seeing also just structures, their viability and whether it is pipelines or drilling or radar sights all of that is a significant issue. As the secretary said there is no on and off switch here it is happening. We have to plan for a certain amount of inevitability here. Part of it is in understanding what the impact is on the food chains. When I was in Barrow that was a very significant issue because many of the people there, this is their subsistence year round. So I think there will be some element of my terms now international aid that has to go into the development in this region to ensure that health and safety is also acknowledged as we see this emerging strategy in the Arctic. MODERATOR: Let's go over here for a question. AUDIENCE: Each of the panelists spoke about tremendous changes sweeping across the Arctic. Three of the panelists represent members of the NATO alliance. I'm wondering what implications these changes in the Arctic pose for the NATO alliance? What should the alliance be doing now to ensure the areas of tension are amicably resolved and don't become more confrontational. What should NATO be doing now to prepare today for the operations that will be required in the Arctic tomorrow? GENERAL WALTER NATYNCYK: I think used when terms become more confrontational. Their not confrontational now. Right now it is a cooperative sense. The region is so harsh. We have to cooperate in the Arctic. That's the reality. We need the stability in the Arctic. We need to have dialogue. We need amicable discussions because it is so difficult in the Arctic. I think NATO is good in terms of sharing and the Arctic council is the forum that has brought all of the Arctic nations together including Russia. And so you can have a discussion with the Arctic council members in terms of insuring you have an environment in which you can advance safety interests, environmental interests, economic interests, social interests and science interests. THE HON. ESPEN BARTH EIDE: This is a topic on the agenda of the [INAUDIBLE]for NATO and there is an open discussion now how much of this is an issue for NATO and our position from Norway is yes NATO has a role to play as a part of a comprehensive approach where Arctic council and IMO also have roles to play and it is important that NATO defines its niche, but there is something there about intelligence gathering and sharing, better surveillance. The military don't mention of search and rescue, [INAUDIBLE] better planning for contingencies in this area and also some geographical focus in the political and the military parts of the alliance. There is room for NATO there but the debates about whether NATO should have a role in the Arctic tends to be either yes everything or no nothing. But, of course, the reality is that NATO needs to find a niche and I think it's about time we do that because this is the access to all of this in a sense when this appear and that's in a sense a strategic area for us. But we have to do it in such a way that we are not creating those problems that we want to avoid. MODERATOR: I'm sensing a great deal of confidence that these disputes will all be peacefully resolved. But what if there are missed steps and misunderstandings or tensions, is it conceivable that there could be a war over the Arctic and what would be the implications of that? GENERAL WALTER NATYNCYK: That's hard. GENERAL VICTOR E. RENUART, JR.: It is hard. I think the natural resource competition is an area where there are competing interests or claims. But even that the degree of difficulty to actually develop those resources, I was at a conference out in Calgary a couple months ago discussing international energy challenges and a couple of the large oil and natural gas companies were represented and were describing the challenge of actually harvesting that capability in the Arctic. And they are already investing in the projects that will come to fruition 20 years from now and they are not talking about developing drilling capabilities that will have the capability to operate in this region for quite some sometime in the future. So I think it's premature to talk about a hypothetical in this case. I think the real issue is for us to ensure that the existing organizations we've talked about are empowered to allow nations to have this discussion and to air their concerns and come to some resolution. I think in fact some would say NATO being a defense alliance might cause challenge in that relatively peaceful approach to this. So there are many elements that will have to be discussed here but I think the forum that we have are appropriate for that and I think it's probably premature to talk about some hypothetical that might be 50 or 60 or 70 years away. GENERAL WALTER NATYNCYK: The environment is so harsh, there is some danger, it requires stability in order to deal with the real issues of the Arctic. And it is through dialogue that you will address those issues. MODERATOR: So any war would be a war of words by diplomats not a naval battle of the Arctic Ocean. THE HON. ESPEN BARTH EIDE: I think the real challenge is not really one of the war between states but it is the absence of regimes that make sure that we are not sort of moving into something which will come out of control which doesn't have to be military conflict but a large natural disaster for instance which we are not able to contain and control. That is actually a much more likely outcome. Let me also add that for the moment the known resources, oil and gas for instance are in undisputed areas. There is very little of it fortunately in the disputed areas. We might find some but that is a good argument for making sure that we settle all these legal issues quite soon before we are disputing something which can have an enormous economic potential. MODERATOR: Excellent point. Let's go over here. AUDIENCE: As you know we Germans as most Europeans with the exception of Denmark we are Arctic have nots. We are not literal states. If Canada and Denmark would not agree to rename Hans Island Brits Island it will stay so. But the non-literal states have interests up there and that might have a negative or positive impact, impact such freedom of research which would also include the exclusive economic zone, interest in the natural resources up there. We are always the second largest supplier of natural [INAUDIBLE] to Germany and I think we are the largest market to you. As an interest of shipping up there as many other European partners we have an interest of selling our products up there and so there are many, many interests. Now you have to Arctic council. The Arctic council is a very good institution. However it does not include security measures. We briefly had the discussion here on the NATO coming in and finding its niche but that would exclude Russia so do you believe that the Arctic council should enlarge its agenda so as to include security matters, question one? Question two, there are observers in the Arctic council like us, for example, access of the EU as an observer was denied so since in the [INAUDIBLE] declaration the Arctic we are open for cooperation with the Arctic have nots. What is your view in terms of admitting more observers and insuring that countries like Germany or maybe Spain or Romania are in close touch with the Arctic haves so as to have their share and also be responsible partners in terms of keeping the environment in tact up there? Thank you. THE HON. ESPEN BARTH EIDE: We think it is good that the Arctic council should be and remain the platform. It should be open to observers and the interaction with relevant partners not only in Europe but in Asia and South Korea which recently expressed its interest in the Arctic council. So thats definitely true and some of the issues you mentioned like free passage is something that even if we wanted to deny that we couldn't. Because when these are regulated they didnt match our agreements which because there is an ocean that is opening up the normal rules of the game does apply even here. But of course somebody has to regulate it in order to look after the safety dimension of that [INAUDIBLE]. MODERATOR: We need a micro phone over here. GENERAL VICTOR E. RENUART, JR.: While we are moving the microphone I would like to go back to Stephens point a minute ago about the U.N. convention on the law of the sea it is important for the U.S. to ratify all of our military has all said they're eager to have that done so we hope the Senate will move on that this year. Because it does add us to the table. And that discussion is very important. MODERATOR: Yes, sir. AUDIENCE: A follow up on Jamie's question concerning warfare. Wouldn't the word militarization of the Arctic be more pertinent and more immediate in terms of concern than the Great War? I have been told that the Russians are planning an expedition to the Arctic to limiting sea beds and that they have announced that there will be a military escort group accompanying those scientific ships. At the same time I recall a visit about 3 years ago to the United States by the Finnish Minister of Defense, Mr. Hakamies in which he said the issue was going to be a security issue involving militarization. This is a rather extraordinary statement by a Finnish politician if you consider the historical relationship between Russia and Finland. And now we have seen something even more interesting than that in Europe. Some of you may have read that the Russians have sought to purchase a helicopter carrier called the Mistrial from France which is also described as French, by French officials as an attack platform. The Russian admiral or Chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral Vysctskiy has spoken of vessels that would have allowed him to deal with the Georgians in 26 minutes instead of 40 hours. That statement was updated recently by a second Russian admiral to this effect that they're thinking of buying one of these mistrial units and building four more with the French which would make as everybody can handle the mathematics here, would make five of them. But when he was asked about the Georgia reference he said no. These are for the Arctic fleet. This is about 3 Saturdays ago. I assume you are aware of those comments and I would like to focus the question on the potential for militarization in the Arctic in light of those developments. MODERATOR: One of our military men want to answer that? GENERAL WALTER NATYNCYK: Having been on the sister ship of the Mistral in this harbor about three years ago and the Tonnerre was here just a few years ago, I had a great tour of that vessel. That was a tremendous blue water ship. To make that an ice breaker would be real difficult. It is a blue water ship, tremendous ship, about 26,000 tons, carries about 5 6 - or 7 helicopters. But it is not an ice breaker. I'm an Army guy and I look to my navy colleagues and the coast guard because if you are going to go into the Arctic it is a totally different ship. You have a blue water ship or you have an Arctic ship. It is something to do with the hull. I dont want to make light of this but to say that either the Tonnerre the Mistral will go into the Arctic into ice. If you go up to the Arctic and you talk about the Arctic opening up youve got to be able to handle ice about a miter thick otherwise you have situations like the Titanic thing. You have your hull ripped open and bad things happen. I would say to you that from my standpoint in the high Arctic its not militarization. The military enables other departments other agencies to do their business in the north. Why? Because it's so darn difficult. We support our [INAUDIBLE] affairs, the RCNP, the coast guard, fisheries, Canadian border security agency, in order to operate in the north because it is so difficult. And we've got equipment and the expertise but we have the planning and the structure to enable other success in the north. THE HON. ESPEN BARTH EIDE: There is more Russian activity than we have seen for many years. We see very close to our [INAUDIBLE] and more naval activity, more flights with strategic bumpers on the way to North America for training and so on. So you see some of what you saw more than 20 years ago. The Russian Armed Forces are much better today than they were in the 90s but then again, the 90s was a very low point and we are not anything even close to where we were during the Soviet period and I dont think well get there, either. Yes there are some statements talking about that on the Russian side where we may disagree with the style at times of how this is presented and, of course, this is something we need to follow closely which I think we do also in NATO [INAUDIBLE]. It is an argument for NATO refocusing somewhat on its own vicinity. But again, as I said initially, you shouldnt be [INAUDIBLE] because after all half of the Arctic shores are Russian. And it would be strange if not even the Russians would be preparing for reality in which more activity will take place. There is a difference between military enabling civilian agencies and militarization in the sense that there is a rightness of conflict. I think we have to look at this in a serious way but not in alarmist way. MODERATOR: Doesn't the fact that more ocean has opened up and therefore the options to get from one place to another have changed, doesn't that change the strategic equations somewhat just as way that Steve described how there were economic consequences that maybe weren't readily apparent? GENERAL VICTOR E. RENUART, JR.: Again, let's be careful that while certainly we have had in many areas along the Arctic significant opening of the seas, we have not created free navigational capability across any of those routes. Again, over time we may see that change. But I think for now it would be premature to overreact to what in many cases you would expect to see from any nation state. I would expect to see more Canadian naval vessels in that region as they can do that. It is their territorial water. Similar for the U.S. and our coast guard and naval forces will be up there. In our Norad role of maintaining maritime domain awareness and maritime warning we want to be observant of what's operating in that area so that we can pay attention to that. I don't think we ought to swing a pendulum too far in any one ominous direction. AUDIENCE: I'm Commander John [INAUDIBLE] with the U.S. Coast Guard and I really discuss. I talked this morning. I am curious when you look at the complexities of sovereignty, the economic promise, the hegemonic ambitions that have been implied in that region, over time when you look ahead 20 or 30 years what should the governance model look like for access of transit in that region? THE HON. ESPEN BARTH EIDE: I think the governance model is building on what we have. It is the IMO. It is the Arctic Council, the [INAUDIBLE] I truly agree the U.S. should assign. But the U.S. is actually quite good at practicing illegal convention that it is not party to so it is behaving as if. What we do not need is a new Arctic convention or a new charter or something like that as some people have been arguing. We need to build on what's already there, make it strong and my primary call, lets make sure we get these regimes strong enough before we really have a problem, before we really see the sailing happening. We have some years. It is not happening tomorrow. The exportation of gas and oil resource is coming [INAUDIBLE] but is not tomorrow, either. So let's make sure we based on the laws that already exist and that's why we keep insisting on this is not Antarctica. This is not [INAUDIBLE] we know where it is and we have a legal base within which to deal with these issues. MR. STEPHEN M. CARMEL: The regimes that are in place have not been adapted to the Arctic and it is an issue for us. For instance, the IMO, the pollution prevention rules all fall under [INAUDIBLE] a special area. The Antarctic has been designated a special area. A lot of rules exist on what kind of fuel you can use. That has not happened which astounds me in the Arctic. There are no special areas under [INAUDIBLE] and so there are no rules on admissions or fuel or water or any of that sort of stuff. [INAUDIBLE] doesn't address the Arctic yet. So there is a long way to go. There certainly are the institutional mechanisms in place that deal with the Arctic. It just hasn't been done yet. THE HON. ESPEN BARTH EIDE: Can I just add one technical point? Our communications and surveillance capacity is limited by the fact that [INAUDIBLE] cover up the 79, 80 degrees which used to be no problem because nothing happened for the north. But now it is happening. And it is not easy to solve that. You can do that by you can have the flights and then you can have [INAUDIBLE] satellites but that's very expensive and complex and you do not have the permanent coverage. And this is something we're going to have to look up. Few countries, maybe the U.S. but few countries will have the capacity to invest in a sufficiently robust system on their own. So that might be an area for international cooperation in preparing for much more activity taking place. AUDIENCE: Admiral [INAUDIBLE] With the Canadian navy. Perhaps I can add some context to the comment, certainly the translation that I read of Russian admirals comment. And the context I think will help us understand that the rhetoric that's being used in the Arctic really doesn't help the discussion that's ongoing in many cases and that the practical cooperation gives far more reason for optimism than it does for pessimism. But the transference of the capability of the Russian Navy into the Arctic is in the context of rather than positioning you capabilities in the Black Sea, therefore constrained by the [INAUDIBLE] and operating out into the Mediterranean the comment was to position them in the North Sea fleet so that there is greater opportunity for deployment. That's not the same as we intend to base them in the Arctic so as to use them in the Arctic. That just happens to be where the Russians have their bases. So Black Sea fleet is not a constrained place. North Sea fleet is not a constrained place. That rhetoric, I think, and the interpretation of it, is at least part of the problem that we are desperately trying at the moment to find the means by which we can have dialogue. There are lots more reason to be optimistic. I have said to a few folks the Arctic is almost a paradigm of some of the things that we need to come to grips with in the world. There is a regime as to how ocean governance will occur. We have the means now under law to delineate areas of economic jurisdiction: an exclusive economic zone; the ability by eliminating the continental shelf to extend exclusive economic benefit for the ocean floor to the coastal state. So undeniably there is a great deal of data being gathered to allow a state to justifiably claim under law what it is allowed to. But even when we talk [INAUDIBLE]of differences of interpretation of the law between Canada and the United States, the practical means by which we are going about gathering the data so that eventually Canada and the United States will make their own claims with respect to the areas over which [INAUDIBLE] can claim jurisdiction. The way we have done that in the past few years is with a Canadian ice breaker and an American ice breaker. One breaks the ice. The other gathers the scientific data. Next year we reverse them. The Canadian breaks the ice, the American gather data. And all of the information that's gathered is absolutely shared. There's a great deal of optimism in the practical way that we are going about addressing some of the economic changes that we see being on the cusp of needing to establish the regulatory regimes. But there is no doubt that the Arctic Ocean, certainly in the Soviet era, provided a strategic [INAUDIBLE]. we don't have the resurgence of a Cold War but we have a Russian military that is far more operationally capable now than it was 5 or 10 years ago going about doing its business of surveillance and operating in ways that most of the rest of us are doing exactly the same ways. The rhetoric, lots of times it is said in ways that we would prefer it not be expressed but there isn't necessarily ominous demonstration of whats going on. Lots of characterization makes the conversation a difficult one. But the practical cooperation on the ground far outweighs many of the difficulties that we see being expressed in the media which is a 10 second sound byte of how you need to [INAUDIBLE]. Very great deal of cooperation going on. MODERATOR: I'm not sure that that requires a response so we will just go to another question. AUDIENCE: Sherry Goodman, Center for Navy Analysis. I want to build on this point on how we can use practical cooperation to maximize the probability of a more collaborative and cooperative future in the Arctic. As you have noted one of the concerns in future years is the prospect of oil spill, natural disaster, need for search and rescue. Can we use the existing institutions of the Arctic Council and others to begin to do more cooperative planning and training for such cases? Or do we need other mechanisms than we have today for nations that either have or building capabilities to respond to those eventualities? And second, there have been proposals to establish a marine preserve in parts of the Arctic in order to ensure and protect the fragile ecosystem of the Arctic. What is your reaction to that? THE HON. ESPEN BARTH EIDE: On the first part, we conduct something called the [INAUDIBLE] with the Russians which is quite successful. We do that first and foremost because in preparing for operations is important in itself but also more indirectly because it is a very good way to demonstrate mutual interest because it is not [INAUDIBLE]. Sometimes when we talk to our Russian friends they have the tendency to look in to some logic but that doesn't fit because it is good for both parties to have that capacity. And, of course, when I say that NATO has a niche role this is one of the roles, the military is something NATO can develop more and then reach out to our Russian partners which is sort of a non NATO Arctic country. GENERAL WALTER NATYNCYK: I think there is potential for evolution with Arctic Council because that tends to be the forum dealing with the Russians a trilateral on search and rescue with U.S., Canada and Russia and then some bilateral discussions with Denmark. Denmark is talking to Canada right now, search and rescue again, because the proximity of Greenland with Canada. Again it tends to be Arctic Council countries, many of whom are GENERAL VICTOR E. RENUART, JR.: The Arctic Council has an environmental element to it is that is, I think a key part of its charter. So that role is certainly an important one. And there may be some other issues that the Arctic Council may choose to take on and expand. Things like is search and rescue military or is it civilian? Is it humanitarian? It's sort of all of the above. And I think we, again, want to use caution that we don't militarize that discussion, rather continue to talk about the cooperation. MODERATOR: Let's go over here. AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] Steve Carmel made a very good point about the winners all opening up in the Arctic. It is not just repairing states. It is not just Canada, Denmark, Russia, United States. It is also people like China and South Korea. I am interested on the impact of the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit because it seems to me that some people that actually think that slowing climate change down or even stopping it may be bad news. Does anyone think there will be implications for the Chinese attitude, for the Russian attitude [INAUDIBLE]? MR. STEPHEN M. CARMEL: My own perspective is to see zero results out of Copenhagen is not going to need any help from the Chinese. That's probably going to happen anyway so they can let other people carry the water for them on that. But certainly the Chinese in balance will be hurt badly by climate change, as well. So when [INAUDIBLE] might be the single biggest winner of the opening of the Arctic, climate change will hurt them badly in other ways, as well. As they try to take their position as a responsible stakeholder in the international system they will certainly sign on for that. MODERATOR: China is one of the winners is the changes in the Arctic situation, how does that play out strategically at all as United States and allies try to be a counter way for China? GENERAL VICTOR E. RENUART, JR.: I think we have Admiral Willard out in the Pacific command would be a better person to answer this. I think we have done a good job of reaching out, also, to the Chinese for better interaction, more transparency. Thats happening economically and politically, as well, for many nations of the world. So, again, I think the key is encouraging China and really any nation that operates in that region to operate responsively and be a participant in safe operations in any of the shipping regions in the world. Again, I'm not sure that we shouldn't follow a similar line that we do with other Arctic nations as they choose to use that region they should use the guidelines provided by the Arctic Council as they do then that's a positive element. MR. STEPHEN M. CARMEL: When I say that China will be probably the biggest winner. I don't think its really China itself using the Arctic. It's the change in trade advantages that will - at the end of the day that's what changes in the opening of the Arctic is all about goods moving from Asia to Europe or Asia to the United States. And at the end of the day that's China. So China's role as a center of gravity for trade that will be strengthened by that. Thats what I mean. That's where conflict. We have conflicts in Europe and the United States with China now over their position and trade and that is going to get worse. THE HON. ESPEN BARTH EIDE: The route from East Asia to Western Europe is 40 percent shorter if you do the shortest polar route. So it really is significant. We have all a number of dialogues with the Chinese on this particular Arctic issue. And high political level, high military level and my very clear impression is that they are very interested. They take it very seriously. They see it is a long term interesting development and they are very committed to international regimes being practiced because since they have no claims to the Arctic their interest is that they know what the rules are so that they can reap the benefits. I think there is no reason to fear that we will have a problem in China. We may have problems elsewhere but in this context they will be good partners. And so will Japan and South Korea. MODERATOR: Let's go over here for a question. AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] I want to ask a slightly speculative question which stems from the question which was asked in the back [INAUDIBLE]. Which is quite a way off but not [INAUDIBLE] What is the prospect in the panel for population growth in that area? Will climatic conditions be such that they will be anything, the growth of communities? And if that's the case will the governance model that you described which seems to be composed of highly collaborative and government cooperation but among relatively few players. And I havent heard anything about the local people, the governance of people in the area. How would you relate that? Because there will come a time when they are asking [INAUDIBLE] be able to expect to be involved and have a say in the development of the area they live in? GENERAL WALTER NATYNCYK: I think of where we are in the population of, again, northern Canada. There are about 104,000 people scattered over [INAUDIBLE] region the size of Europe. Where we are in terms of climate patterns in say 20 or 30 years one can only imagine but the record has been that communities go up around resource space, either a mine or whatever. But as soon as that mine or that resource dries up then the town dries up, too. I'm not sure whether we'll be selling condos in [INAUDIBLE] over the next 20 or 30 years but I'm not sure. But at the same time people go where the food is. And if, indeed, we see fishing resources or whatever change then there could be a great deal of an impact there. I could not speculate. THE HON. ESPEN BARTH EIDE: In our particular context we actually have people living much further north than anybody else. We have permanent dwelling in 79 and 80 degrees in small cities with permanent population. I think the most interesting question is what is going to happen to the Russian north which is extremely scarcely populated [INAUDIBLE]. If this is the coming in nature trade route, will that some kind of [INAUDIBLE] -then again the Russians have a lot of space and very few people. And the demographic developments in Russia are pointing in the opposite direction so it is not really that they are scrambling for land to live in. I think the nature change like the one we talked about could change the population picture in Russia more than anywhere else and that is probably something we would want to see happening because when we talk about search and rescue capacity our primary concern is that there are hardly any infrastructure up in the Russian north that can take care of this. I mean, there is [INAUDIBLE] and in the middle there is very little and that is probably a problem for us. And it would be better if they had some presence up there. MODERATOR: We talked throughout this session about the Northwest Passage and about the shorter polar route. I'm wondering if somebody could add a little more, maybe Steve you can give a little more granularity about whats the difference between those two routes and which one is really going to become more of a factor in the future? MR. STEPHEN M. CARMEL: The two main routes, the northwest that everybody talks about, the northwest passage of the major trade routes of the world out of Asia to Europe or Asia to the United States. The Northwest Passage offers an advantage only to trade out of Asia to the east coast of North America and that's it. It provides using Yokohama, for instance, as a start point. It offers a distance savings of about 2200 miles. It is important to recognize for a variety of reasons you can't translate that directly into a savings in time which is really what matters to us. The distance and by the way the ability of the northwest passage to offer an advantage to the east coast of North America is pretty much zeroed out around Shanghai. Once you get south of Shanghai it is just [INAUDIBLE] For the northeast passage or the northern sea route that offers a distance from like Yokohama to [INAUDIBLE] of about 4,000 miles, maybe 7 and a half days. Once again remembering that that requires a speed that is probably not going to happen and how fast you can go through makes a difference on how attractive that is. That actually goes all the way down to Singapore. Singapore to Rotterdam is about 1300 miles shorter than the Suez Canal route. It is also important to remember that aside from the distance savings the Suez Canal is not cheap to get through so there are considerable savings there. There are other factors that go into this. There is a huge number of factors in this equation about whether or not those are really economically viable. Time is what matters, not speed. A lot of other costs involved. Until it is actually just an open water you can plow through there without having to worry about running into you hit a small chunk of ice at 22 knots and it will make a big hole. So we have to make sure that there is no ice around at all. A lot of factors, but that's basically your distance. MODERATOR: Let's go over here for a question. AUDIENCE: I'm [INAUDIBLE] from Japan. I'm interested in the fishery rights. I think the conflict between the Japan and the Russia is part of fishery. I think territorial issues coming from fishery and I think are China's conception on fish is growing because China is a more fish eater than their income is growing. The fishery may be the firm point of conflict if growing Arctic area water is a more fishery [INAUDIBLE] I'm curious how you see this kind of point, the international conflict not cooperation? Thank you. GENERAL VICTOR E. RENUART, JR.: While fisheries are really an issue all over the Arctic region, Greenland, of course, in the bearing. So I think this is - I hate to say a moving target. That's a bad way to describe it. But, in fact, you see the fishing habits all over the world changing. So I think it is likely to expect that to be one of the issues. Again, I think there is a forum to deal with that. MODERATOR: Are there large stockpiles of fish in the Arctic? THE HON. ESPEN BARTH EIDE: Yes and we actually have had all that back to the Soviet base. We have had some corporation with Russia on the fish management. There have been a number of private Russians which in recent behavior up there but the Russian state has been cooperative when it comes to dealing with this in the mutual interest, again, because if you fish too much there is no fish for anybody after you have done that. The Arctic fish is among the most purest in the world. There is a lot of it, more and more of it. And but the challenge, again, is that we must have regimes which make sure that is still the case with all the sailings, with what the ships bring with them. They will also take organic material which will change, not only pollute but change the [INAUDIBLE] out there and the oil and gas as well. This is very important on the world scale because there is [INAUDIBLE]. More and more of it. We used to have a world with enough food [INAUDIBLE]. Today we have a world where we have bad distribution and also not enough food. So fisheries and so on is probably one of the ways we can escape that. That requires a very sound management up there. MODERATOR: Will any country be able to fish in the Arctic? THE HON. ESPEN BARTH EIDE: Of course, yes. This will be regulated through international agreements [INAUDIBLE] MODERATOR: It won't be a big scramble. It won't be another war we have to worry about, the fish war. Let me ask all of you as we are approaching the halfway point. We are getting close to the end. So let me ask you to sort of step back and take a look at what would be the ideal end stage for the Arctic region? What would we like to see? How achievable is that? How long will it take to achieve that? GENERAL WALTER NATYNCYK: We're there now in terms of we go through a lot of investing in the Arctic because it is so harsh. And if we do see a lot more economic activity, a lot more shipping activity across the north. We have to put emphasis on infrastructure because it is so difficult. The ports we are building a port facility in a place like [INAUDIBLE]. Weve got to train all agencies of government what it is like to operate in a [INAUDIBLE] building, training facilities. Were also building capacity in terms of exercising sovereignty in the north and what we are doing from a ranger standpoint. We also have to educate people what it's like. Going back to the question about what we're doing from a social standpoint, I think we have to put a lot more emphasis in terms of the economic development so we have to do it in a deliberate and pragmatic way for the Arctic. MODERATOR: Anybody else? MR. STEPHEN M. CARMEL: I would say the best end state for the Arctic is that it stays frozen. THE HON. ESPEN BARTH EIDE: I mean, it is not good news that global warming happens and that the ice melts so let's not confuse this preparedness for it happening with a rejoicing of that fact. [INAUDIBLE] Both for ecological climate reasons but also because we better be prepared before all of this is happening so that we are not taken by surprise. It requires some strategic thinking and certain ability to think two steps ahead and line up the resources we need so that they are there when it is still happening. GENERAL VICTOR E. RENUART, JR.: Maybe echo for a half second General's point about investment. All of the nations in the Arctic have a recapitalization challenge with their ability to operate in that region, communications, navigation, situational awareness and certainly the infrastructure whether military or coast guard that can safely support other agencies in that region. And those are long term investment programs. So I think those things need to happen. The end state is that we are prepared to accept and manage the change as it occurs. And I think that's probably the best outcome we ought to have to preserve the environment, to ensure that the purity of the fish harvest there remains so. All of those elements are critical in this very, very, very fragile part of the world. MODERATOR: Your shipping company, what are you planning for, how is the company positioning itself to be in a good position to take advantage of what is going to be happening in the Arctic? MR. STEPHEN M. CARMEL: For standard transit shipping, the kinds of things that we do, it is far enough out that we have at least one more generation of ships that we will build before it really becomes an issue. We are obviously paying attention to it. We would certainly like to see the regimes that we need to regulate the Arctic stabilized. For instance, there are no harmonized rules in classification societies about what ships that are built to work in the Arctic need to look like. That's being worked on but that hasn't happened yet so it makes investment decisions hard for us. As I said, the pollution regulations are far from certain. We don't know what the fuel requirements will look like. So there is so much that is not settled. What we really need to see is the rules of the game then we can start making good on that. MODERATOR: Before we wrap up I want to make sure, anymore questions? AUDIENCE: Curt [INAUDIBLE] and also someone interested in these Arctic issues. The question I have goes back to things that Espen said. Do we have a sufficient sense of urgency? I hear a lot of the comments from the panel here about we need to do this. We need to do that. We have to get that done. But don't worry things are going to be okay. But to draw connections between some of the things that have been said, you do have an effort to establish economic zones. I know the Russians claim rather extravagant extent of the continental shelf which has implications for economic zones has implications for legitimate areas, has implications for presence of coastal security as opposed to blue water international, for coastal security and therefore who is in charge of the policing of that area. It has implications for shipping in terms of what are the territorial waters versus what are the international waters. And here mention was made of differences of view between United States and Canada over what is the territorial water and what is the international water. And my question is given the way these things fit together, shouldn't we feel a little bit more sense of urgency about getting these sorts of things ironed out now so that as the ice melts over time we have a much stronger framework getting all of this ratified, for example? And as we do that given the particular issue of territorial waters and national water between U.S. and Canada, shouldn't we start there and get our own act sorted out so that we have a stronger position looking out at the international framework for dealing with these competing claims? MR. STEPHEN M. CARMEL: That issue [INAUDIBLE] that is not new. That came up back in the late 60s when the North Slope fields in Alaska were being developed and the question of how to get the oil out was it better to go the North Slope pipeline or was it better to do it by tanker? The experiment was to send in the Manhattan group to test the route. We actually went through twice. The Canadians, of course, viewed that as transiting in internal waters. We said it was an internal strait. So we sent a ship through without asking permission. The Canadians graciously granted us permission in anyway. And we went through twice like that. The ship was so badly beat up and it just kind of went dormant. But this has been sitting around for 30 years. This is not new. THE HON. ESPEN BARTH EIDE: [INAUDIBLE] My answer would be no. We do not have the sufficient sense of [INAUDIBLE] and that concerned me quite a bit. I think by today there is a decent degree of recognition among all interested stakeholders in conferences and institutions. So it is being worked on. Norway is going to continue to push for fast work rather than slow work. But I think we are moving somewhere. And I think there is a reason why 20 the whole panel has been underlining that it is serious but not catastrophic. It is not a big drama that has to be addressed haphazardly. It needs sort of serious thinking, long term thinking. I think we are on the right track. I think [INAUDIBLE] suggests that we are on a good track. Let me just make one point here. To compare this panel to the previous panel. Many of the problems that we see in the Gulf of Aden and around there are because we have failed states or failing states. It is because the [INAUDIBLE] doesnt work. And it doesn't deliver what another normal state would do in terms of coast guard business. This is not happening in the Arctic. We have a number of organized states which have a common understanding of what we have to do. At least that is one problem we don't have in the Arctic. If things are really badly in Russia it will still be this way. GENERAL WALTER NATYNCYK: I would just add to the Secretarys comment that yes we should be able to move ahead on the various discussions and dialogue on all of these issues [INAUDIBLE] and that issue. The Former Chief of Defense staff of Denmark and I flew over [INAUDIBLE], waved down to it, and didnt rename it. But we recognize that it is a rock. It's just a rock. But the fact is that the relations are tremendous. And the various processes that do advance are there and we should be very happy about that. MODERATOR: Thank you to our panel. Thank you very much. I know a lot of people have looked in the past and criticized said that some of these panels raised more questions than they answered. I actually thought we had more answers than questions. Thank you again. And thank you that was terrific.