The Arctic is shifting, along with U.S. economic and strategic interests in the region. To respond to increasing temperatures and melting ice, the U.S. needs infrastructure and technology. But North America is largely behind the ball, compared to Russia and the Nordic countries. To explain the current U.S. position and look at future infrastructure requirements, The Cipher Brief spoke with Admiral Robert Papp, the U.S. State Department’s Special Representative for the Arctic and a former Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard.
The Cipher Brief: What is going on geographically in the Arctic? You mentioned at a recent Council on Foreign Relations event that the ice is melting, but we still need icebreakers. Can you explain this seeming contradiction and also elaborate more broadly on what is happening geographically?
Admiral Robert Papp: First and foremost, the entire planet is warming. However, the temperature in the Arctic is increasing at twice the rate than is averaged around the rest of the planet. This is causing the ice to melt with the rising temperatures.
However, it still gets very cold in the Arctic, and every year there’s ice formation. For instance, there is the ice within our own waters that extends down through the Bering Strait and into the Bering Sea. That’s called the winter ice. And then, as the season changes, the ice starts melting and receding. Traditionally we’ve had a vast field of multi-year ice (that is, ice that never goes away). The multi-year ice – if you go back let’s say 20 or 30 years ago – was thicker. Now we’re getting down to the point where not only is the multi-year ice field much smaller and reaching record low coverage, but it’s also thinning. So as the temperature increases and as the ice recedes, you start having open patches of water for greater lengths of time.
Open water is dark blue. And the ice, of course, is white. The ice reflects heat back into the atmosphere, whereas the darker water absorbs heat. So as the ice continues to recede and there’s more open water, we’re in what’s called a feedback loop, in which global warming continues to feed itself and make the ice melt even faster.
There are some scientists who predict that the multi-year ice, which is the toughest to deal with, might be entirely gone during certain parts of the summer by the middle of this century. So by about 2050, the multi-year ice might be gone. But that doesn’t mean that ice will stop forming. There will be winter ice at least for the next 100 years or so. It’ll be cold enough to form ice every winter as far as we can see, and this is why we need icebreakers.
We have U.S. citizens that live within the Arctic – the north slope of Alaska and other towns surrounding it – that will freeze in during the fall and winter and spring. We as a government have a responsibility to provide rescue and emergency services to our people who live there. Yet there are certain times of the year when you can’t get to them unless you have an icebreaker.
The second thing to mention is as maritime traffic increases in the Arctic, ships can break down, and you need to be able to get to them through the ice. As you have greater activity in the ice and ice flows drifting around, you may need icebreakers to break through that and to provide safety and security services for the maritime traffic. As the ice becomes more active and mobile, you need icebreakers more and more often.
TCB: The U.S. is lacking on its icebreaker capabilities. Can you talk about the current U.S. fleet and plans to acquire new icebreakers?
RP: We have two heavy-duty Arctic icebreakers, and we have one medium icebreaker. Polar Sea and Polar Star – the two heavy icebreakers – were built in the early 1970s, so they’re approaching 45 or 50 years of life. Decisions had to be made during my time as Coast Guard Commandant because both of them were breaking down. We decided to invest the limited money we had in keeping Polar Star running. We wanted to have one good heavy icebreaker as opposed to two that were breaking down.
The problem with building just one new icebreaker is then you have a one ship replacement for Polar Star, but you really need two heavy icebreakers at a minimum. I think the President has signaled that the intent is to build more than one. He specifically changed his language from building an icebreaker to building icebreakers – plural—although I don’t know how many that would be. The Administration understands you get a lower per price copy if you build more than one, and Congress certainly understands that as well, because they’re involved in navy shipbuilding programs, where the more you buy, the lower the price for subsequent ships. I don’t know how many we’ll end up building but hopefully at least two.
The president put a recommendation for $150 million in the FY17 budget that’s being considered up on the hill right now. The Senate Appropriations Committee put $1 billion into the budget in their mark up. I have not seen the House of Representatives mark up, but I am confident that they’ll put some money in there. We really won’t know how much money comes out of it until they conference the two bills, which should occur later this summer or in the early fall.
TCB: In addition to icebreakers, what other infrastructure and technology are needed to secure U.S. economic and national security interests in the Arctic?
RP: I think telecommunications is probably the most important thing, and, in fact, that’s one of the major projects for the current U.S. chairmanship of the Artic Council. We’re conducting a telecommunications survey of the Arctic, working amongst the Arctic countries, identifying what’s there, what’s not there, and what sort of gaps we have in communications and technology coverage within the Arctic. Obviously within the Nordic countries, they’re pretty sophisticated. Russia is developing capabilities. North America is a little behind in terms of telecommunications capability. We’re hoping that after we complete this survey and we identify the gaps, those results will transfer over into domestic projects that the United States can work unilaterally and multilaterally to provide circumpolar telecommunications connectivity that not only serves the people of the Arctic but is also there for governments to carry out their safety and security responsibilities.
TCB: What kind of collaboration is there on these technologies and other infrastructure between the Arctic Council countries, and specifically between the U.S. and Russia?
RP: Two of the most significant accomplishments of the Arctic Council have been the search and rescue agreement that all eight countries signed up to, which has led to an Arctic Coast Guard forum and to exercises for search and rescue in the Arctic. And the second is the marine oil spill preparedness agreement, which will identify gaps and capabilities and help us understand how we can work together better within the Arctic. Currently during our chairmanship, we’re working on an Arctic scientific cooperation agreement, which facilitates all eight countries working together on research.
TCB: What role does the private sector have to play in all of this?
RP: The private sector has expertise, business sense, and resources. Let’s take the oil industry and Shell as an example. The estimate I heard recently was that Shell invested $5 – $7 billion in trying to develop the offshore leases that they have up in the Chuckchi Sea (although Shell has since ceased its operations there). Obviously, when the private sector sees business potential, they’re willing to take their vast resources and invest. The native corporations in Alaska benefitted during that time period too, because they would get a share in the revenue.
What we need to do is get businesses interested. For instance, if we go back to telecommunications, hopefully the companies that look at our work within the Arctic Council after we do this survey – and, by the way, some of those companies will be involved in the survey – will be enticed to invest, whether it’s through public-private partnerships or domestic action or maybe unilateral industry action. And these investments in projects will benefit the people of the north. As commercial activity continues to increase, it will provide greater incentive for businesses to invest, and the people who live there will be the ultimate beneficiaries of businesses becoming more involved in the Arctic.
TCB: Does the U.S. have any other needs in the Arctic region?
RP: Alaska really needs a deep water port. All of these various sea routes that could potentially cross the Arctic will all be going between Asia and North America and Northern Europe. All of those routes – whether it’s the North Sea route, a transpolar route, or the Northwest Passage above North America – variously come in at a wide range of points within the North Atlantic. But as you go toward the Pacific – toward China, Korea, Singapore, and other trading partners – they all have to go through the Bering Strait. That’s a 50-mile wide pass that goes from the Arctic Ocean into the Bering Sea, with Russia on one side and the United States on the other.
We know ships are going to be traveling through the Bering Strait. We need to be prepared for emergency response in that area, and one of the things that we need is a deep water port that ships can get into if they’re in extremis and need shelter. We also need a place that can serve as a forward operating base for the United States Coast Guard or for other emergency response organizations. A deep water port is a huge gap that continues to exist. Hopefully, either Alaska, the United States government, business, or a combination of all three will invest at some point in a deep water port near the Bering Strait.
