Center for Technology & National Security Policy

National Defense University

Security Considerations for a 

Warming Arctic

James M. Keagle and Christopher Mann
James M. Keagle and Christopher Mann 

Center for Technology and National Security Policy

National Defense University

Security Considerations 

For a Warming Arctic

2012 Draft Working Paper
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official 

policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the 

U.S. Government. All information and sources for this paper were drawn from 

unclassified materials.

Dr. James M. Keagle is the Director of the Emerging Challenges National Security 

seminar series at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy (CTNSP) at the 

National Defense University. Throughout his distinguished academic career, Dr. Keagle 

has served as both a university provost and professor. As an Air Force officer, he worked 

under two combatant commanders as senior strategist, earning numerous 

accommodations for exemplary service. Dr. Keagle earned his Ph.D. in politics from 

Princeton in 1980. He and his wife Kay are the proud parents of three children.

Christopher Mann is a Research Analyst at CTNSP, National Defense University. He 

earned a M.A. in Security Policy Studies from the Elliott School of International Affairs 

and has served as the lead researcher on several New York Times best-selling book 

projects about national security. 

Working Papers are drafts distributed by the National Defense University Center for Technology and 

National Security Policy, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC. CTNSP publications are available at 

http://www.ndu.edu/ctnsp/publications.html.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

SUMMARY................................................................................................................................................... 1

PART 1: ARCTIC RISING......................................................................................................................... 1

ARCTIC PEOPLES ...................................................................................................................................... 2

A WARMING WORLD................................................................................................................................ 3

TRANSIT AND TRADE ................................................................................................................................ 4

THE GREAT ARCTIC SHORTCUTS ............................................................................................................ 4

UNTAPPED ENERGY RESERVES ...............................................................................................................14

PART 2: U.S. INTERESTS ........................................................................................................................16

THE IMPORTANCE OF RATIFYING UNCLOS..........................................................................................16

ICEBREAKERS...........................................................................................................................................19

THE FUTURE OF NAVAL AND OTHER MILITARY OPERATIONS ..............................................................32

PART 3. CONCLUDING REMARKS ......................................................................................................34
Security Consideration for a Warming Arctic 

Summary

Three powerful trends are poised to affect the strategic importance of the Arctic over the 

next several decades. First, the accelerating effects of climate change. Second, the 

exponential growth in global energy demands. Finally, rising levels of world trade and 

demand for consumer goods.

1 These converging realities have already begun to impact 

the region and its peoples. 

Climate Change

Rising temperatures and retreating ice packs have serious implications for local 

populations affected by environmental degradation and increased human traffic. Climatic 

changes have also sparked a wave of commercial interest among resource extractive 

industries (hydrocarbons, mining, timber, fishing, etc) that view the region as a rich 

source of new raw materials. 

Energy

As a potential source of energy, the Arctic represents a relatively untapped frontier. Over 

the next 25 years, energy companies around the world are poised to invest roughly $40 

trillion dollars to meet increasing consumer energy demand.2 A major focus of their 

effort will be devoted to exploiting new sources of undiscovered Arctic oil (13 percent of 

world totals) and natural gas (30 percent of existing totals) predicted to lie under the 

region’s warming waters. 3

Trade

Rising temperatures are also revealing, for the first time in human history, at least three 

potential Arctic ‘shortcuts’ for transit over the top of the world. More than 90 percent of 

goods are carried by sea, and the demand for efficient transport has ballooned in recent 

years with the rapid expansion of world trade—due in part to rising middle class 

populations in emerging BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) economies. Maritime trade 

patterns have important implications for global prosperity and international security, 

creating fresh opportunities for economic development and innovation.

But such wide-ranging political and environmental adjustments also bring with them the 

possibility of serious regional disputes. International tensions during the summer of 2007 

aptly illustrate the potential for friction. 

As a record breaking polar thaw combined with precipitous, year-long spikes in the cost 

of crude oil, the Russian Federation moved to assert its claim over a vast new slice of 

Arctic terrain. On August 2, 2007, an undersea expedition led by Russian parliamentarian 

and Arctic explorer Artur Chilingarov planted the Russian flag on a previously 

1 Most notably opening the Northern Sea Route as a major transportation alternative .

2 Wan, Kwok, “World Needs $38 Trillion Energy Investment,” Petroleum Economist, October 18, 2011. 

Available at < http://www.petroleum-economist.com/Article/2919494/Corporate-and-markets/Worldneeds-38-trillion-energy-investment.html> 3 “90 Billion Barrels of Oil and 1,670 Trillion Cubic Feet of Natural Gas Assessed in the Arctic,” USGS 

Newsroom, July 23, 2008, available at <www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1980>.

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inaccessible deep sea bed beneath the North Pole, symbolically staking Russia’s 

sovereign jurisdiction. Though legal experts dismissed the provocative gesture as a media 

stunt, the act succeeded in sending an unambiguous message; Russia intended to project

its influence over disputed territory in the high northern latitudes.4

The purpose of this report is to examine the state of changes in the high north and assess 

their implications for American territorial and geopolitical interests. Part one will serve as 

a primer for understanding the region and introducing the reasons it is likely to play an 

increasingly large role in world affairs. Part two will address the security implications of 

climate change for U.S. interests, both domestically and internationally. 

4 C.J. Chivers, “Russians Plant Flag on the Arctic Seabed,” The New York Times, August 3, 2007, available 

at <www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/world/europe/03arctic.html?_r=0>.

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Part 1: Arctic Rising

The Arctic is a frozen ocean surrounded by continents at the northernmost extremity of 

Earth.5 Circumscribed on its southern border by a poorly defined latitude called the 

“Arctic Circle,” the region straddles 24 time zones and is home to roughly 4 million

permanent inhabitants, the majority of whom are Russian.6 Statistically, residents inhabit 

relatively small, geographically isolated coastal settlements.7

North of the Arctic Circle, daylight waxes and wanes in exaggerated cycles throughout 

the year. In many places, light conditions remain virtually static for months at a time, 

plunging residents into prolonged darkness or subjecting them to periods of near constant 

daylight. Those living north of the Arctic Circle—roughly 66°33′ 39′′ latitude—

experience at least one 24 hour period of light and darkness annually. Freezing 

temperatures, though not uniform, are generally harsh.

These extreme conditions can freeze ground soil to a depth of 500 feet or more, creating a 

host of problems for civil and municipal infrastructure. During the summer months, the 

topmost layer of permafrost thaws, producing soggy tundra sprinkled with bogs, lakes, 

and marshes. The softened topsoil is easily damaged. Man-made structures built on 

permafrost frequently sink and tilt as the underlying soil warms, compresses, and 

resettles.8 When the soil freezes again during the winter months, it swells and heaves, 

damaging roads, pipelines, and other industrial structures. As a consequence, the Arctic 

has few permanent highways. Juneau, Alaska’s State Capital, is not accessible by road. 

Paradoxically, overland mobility improves during the region’s 8-12 months of winter.9

When seasonal temperatures drop, Arctic residents can rely on winter “ice roads” for resupply and transport over frozen lakes, rivers, and marshlands. However, rising 

temperatures are shortening the seasonal lifespan of these frozen overland routes. 

Historical data indicate the tundra travel season on the North Slope of Alaska has been 

cut in half since the early 1970s; a pattern which can be attributed to dramatic 

environmental changes.10

In some areas, maritime traffic is possible during the short summer months when 

retreating Arctic sea ice exposes open water bays and inlets, allowing for the possibility 

of some commercial shipping. The vast majority of these natural access points, however, 

5 Its polar opposite, the Antarctic, is commonly thought of as a continent surrounded by oceans.

6 Dmitry Bogoyavlenskiy and Andy Siggner, “Arctic Demography,” in Arctic Human Development Report

(Akureyri: Stefansson Arctic Institute, 2004), 38. 7 Dmitry Bogoyavlenskiy Andy Siggner, “Arctic Demography,” in Arctic Human Development Report

(Akureyri: Stefansson Arctic Institute, 2004), 30; Hugo Ahlenius, Kathrine Johnsen, Christian Nellemann, 

ed., Vital Arctic Graphics: People and Global Heritage on Our Last Shores (Arendal, Norway: United 

Nations Environment Program, February 2005), 4.

8 Seppo Saarelainen, “Arctic Roads,” Northern Dimension Forum, June 17-18, 2002, available at 

<http://arcticcentre.ulapland.fi/pohjoinen_ulottuvuus/kajaani_docs/Saarelainen_1.pdf>. 9 Ahlenius, et. al., Vital Arctic Graphics: People and Global Heritage on Our Last Shores, 8. 10 Arne Instanes, “Infrastructure: Buildings, Support Systems,” in Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (NY: 

Cambridge University Press, 2005), 934.

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The Arctic shares much in common 

with the third world:

• Modern trends in globalization 

mingle freely with kinship-based, 

subsistence economies. 

• Rapid urbanization in recent 

decades has begun challenging 

ancient cultural identities. 

• Central governments invest in 

“over developed” public 

expenditures to alleviate local 

pressures.

• Private sector economy is 

primarily buoyed by resource 

extraction on an industrial scale.

lie undeveloped. 11 In Alaska, roughly half the state’s coastline has no maritime 

infrastructure, and there are no deepwater ports.12

For the Arctic’s coastal communities, global warming poses an increasingly complex 

problem. Permafrost melt, coastal erosion, glacial retreat, species migration, and violent 

weather events all contribute to the destruction of vital resources. Roughly a dozen 

Alaskan towns have been forced to craft relocation plans, and government officials have 

identified 31 villages that face “imminent threats” due to changing climactic conditions.13

Environmental damage to Alaskan communities is predicted to grow significantly during 

the next several decades as the effects of global warming grow more severe. Experts 

forecast the cost of maintaining the state’s public infrastructure will rise 20 percent by 

2030, adding as much as $6 billion to 

maintenance and replacement costs.14 Alaska’s 

most vulnerable structures will be those that 

provide its most essential services—roads, 

runways, water, and sewage systems.15

Arctic Peoples

Indigenous peoples constitute roughly one-third 

of all Arctic residents, and many still embrace 

traditional, subsistence lifestyles like fishing, 

reindeer herding, and hunting.16 Living in poor 

communities, these native peoples generally 

suffer from grave disparities in income, 

education, health, and welfare compared to 

general populations.17 Statistically, the Arctic’s 

indigenous communities experience higher rates 

of infant mortality and shorter life spans than national averages.18 The effect of 

environmental contamination also has disproportionate effects on the health of Arctic 

11 National Research Council of the National Academies, Polar Icebreaker Roles and U.S. Future Needs: A 

Preliminary Assessment (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2005), 28. 12 Arthur E. Brooks, “There is no Dutch Harbor in the Arctic. The only harbor at all is Nome and there is 

nothing north of Nome,” in Coast Guard Journal: Arctic Journal-Part 1, United States Coast Guard, April 

7, 2008, available at <www.uscg.mil/cgjournal/message.asp?Id=65>.

13 Polar Icebreaker Roles and U.S. Future Needs: A Preliminary Assessment (Washington, DC: The 

National Academies Press, 2005), 14; Alaska Native Villages: Limited Progress Has Been Made on 

Relocating Villages Threatened by Flooding and Erosion, GAO-09-551 (Washington, DC: Government 

Accounting Office, June 3, 2009), 12. 14 Peter Larsen and Scott Goldsmith, How Much Might Climate Change Add to Future Costs for Public 

Infrastructure, , UA Research Summary No. 8, (Anchorage, Alaska, Institute of Social and Economic 

Research, June 2007), 1, available at <www.iser.uaa.alaska.edu/Publications/Juneclimatefinal.pdf>. 15 Ahlenius et. al., Vital Arctic Graphics: People and Global Heritage on Our Last Shores, 17. 16 Ahlenius, et. al., Vital Arctic Graphics: People and Global Heritage on Our Last Shores; Brooks, in 

“There is no Dutch Harbor in the Arctic....” 17 Ahlenius et. al., Vital Arctic Graphics: People and Global Heritage on Our Last Shores, 21. 18 Ahlenius, et al., Vital Arctic Graphics: People and Global Heritage on Our Last Shores, 21; Henry 

Huntington and Gunter Weller, “An Introduction to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment,” in Arctic 

Council, International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, 1-20 (New 

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communities. Water and airborne pollutants traveling from the lower latitudes tend to 

accumulate and linger at the poles, where they are absorbed by native wildlife and 

consumed.19 The presence of these invisible contaminants can be especially damaging to 

humans that depend on local game for their livelihood. Indigenous Arctic residents have 

the highest blood concentrations of chemical toxins and heavy metals in the world due to 

their consumption of fish and fatty mammals.20

The risk of ecological contamination remains inextricably linked to the Arctic’s 

economic importance. Its largest potential polluters are also its most profitable business 

sectors: hydrocarbon, mining, timber, and fishing industries.21 Economic activity 

generated by these extractive industries has accelerated the creation of new roads, 

settlements, and other expensive development projects. Yet, since large sums of 

investment capital are most often controlled by corporations based elsewhere, revenue 

naturally flows from the region.22 Economic and social tensions with poor Arctic 

communities must be carefully managed for sustained development. 

A Warming World

Scientists agree the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet. In Alaska, 

average temperatures have risen at more than twice the national rate.23 Environmental 

“feedback loops” generated by the presence of more dark, warming water and less light 

reflective ice have created an accelerating cycle of thaw at sea. Ashore, melting 

permafrost layers have begun releasing large natural reservoirs of greenhouse gasses 

frozen for aeons in the Arctic soil.24 Air masses and ocean currents from lower latitudes 

strongly influence conditions, as well.25 The net effect has been to raise Arctic 

temperatures more dramatically than climate models predicted only a few years ago.

In September 2012, thawing sea ice on the Arctic Ocean surpassed all previous records, 

shrinking to the smallest extent ever recorded. The decline exceeded official predictions 

by an alarming margin, and some scientists began dramatically revising previous 

estimates for a seasonally ice free Arctic by as much as 20 years, to a timeframe of 

York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 14; Dmitry Bogoyavlenskiy and Andy Siggner, “Arctic 

Demography,” in Arctic Human Development Report, ed. Niels Einarsson, Joan Nymand Larsen, Annika 

Nilsson, and Oran R. Young (Akureyri: Stafansson Arctic Institute, 2003), 34-35.

19 Oran R. Young and Níels Einarsson, “Human Development in the Arctic,” in Arctic Human Development 

Report (Akureyri: Stefansson Arctic Institute, 2004), 24; “DDT on Ice,” The New York Times, June 27, 

2008, available at <www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/opinion/27fri4.html?_r=2>.

20 Ahlenius et. al., Vital Arctic Graphics: People and Global Heritage on Our Last Shores, 22. 21 Mark Nuttall, “Hunting, Herding, Fishing, and Gathering: Indigenous Peoples and Renewable Resource 

Use in the Arctic,” in Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 649. 22 Gérard Duhaime, “Economic Systems,” in Arctic Human Development Report (Akureyri: Stefansson 

Arctic Institute, 2004), 71-72. 23 “Climate Assessment Warns of Dire Effects in Alaska,” Associated Press, May 6, 2014. 24 Florida State University. "Permafrost thawing could accelerate global warming." ScienceDaily. 

ScienceDaily, 7 April 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140407153939.htm>.

25 Huntington and Weller, “An Introduction to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment,” 10.

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2020.26 Though current predictions of a seasonally ice-free arctic vary considerably, 

commonly repeated conservative models cite the years 2030-2040 to be a tipping point 

and key period of change.27

Transit and Trade

While experts debate the precise timetable for polar melt, there is widespread agreement 

a thinning Arctic icecap is carving new transit routes across the top of the globe, raising 

expectations for commercial cost and time savings. Strong “multi-year” ice—more than 6 

meters thick in some regions—has decreased by 98 percent over the last two decades.28

Because this durable ice represents the principal obstacle to maritime traffic in the high 

north, its disappearance has generated speculation about the development of new and 

existing waterways, particularly Russia’s Northern Sea Route (which hugs Siberia), the 

fabled Northwest Passage (a contested Canadian channel), and a Transpolar Route 

(passing directly over the North Pole). Beginning in 2004, thin seasonal ice became the 

dominant type in the Arctic.

29 However, the region cannot be judged uniformly.

NASA studies suggest sea ice will remain thickest along Canada and Greenland’s 

northern margins long after significant melt has diminished ice in the central and eastern 

regions.30 Similar observations have confirmed that the Russia’s Northern Sea Route is 

experiencing significant gains in the length of its navigable season, while trafficability 

due to melt in the Northwest passage is advancing at a much slower pace.

The Great Arctic Shortcuts

The United States is in many ways a maritime nation, with 95,000 miles of shoreline and 

361 commercial ports. It conducts 95 percent of its commercial trade by sea, a figure that 

underscores the importance of the global commons to America’s economic welfare.31

Trans-polar maritime waterways have the potential to dramatically shorten the distance 

between key shipping locations. A popular benchmark for expressing this savings is by 

comparing the distance between ports in northern Europe (Hamburg) and Japan 

(Yokohoma). In general, trans-polar waterways offer a distance savings of roughly 40% 

over conventional routes. However, in recent years many commentators have cited such 

26 Justin Gillis, “Ending Its Summer Melt, Arctic Sea Ice Sets a New Low That Leads to Warnings,” The 

New York Times, September 19, 2012, available at <www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/science/earth/arcticsea-ice-stops-melting-but-new-record-low-is-set.html>. 27 Seth Borenstein, “Arctic Sea Ice Gone in Summer Within Five Years?” National Geographic, December 

12, 2007, available at <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071212-AP-arctic-melt.html>. 28 Gordon McBean, “Arctic Climate: Past and Present” in Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (NY: 

Cambridge University Press, 2005), 30.

29 Marc Kaufman, “Perennial Arctic Ice Cover Diminishing, Officials Say,” The Washington Post, March 

19, 2008, available at <www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/03/18/AR2008031802903.html>; Andrew C. Revkin, “Arctic Melt Unnerves the 

Experts,” The New York Times, October 2, 2007, available at 

<www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/science/earth/02arct.html>. 30 Malte Humpert and Andreas Raspotnick, The Future of Arctic Shipping, Arctic Institute, October 11, 

2012, available at < http://www.thearcticinstitute.org/2012/10/the-future-of-arctic-shipping.html> 31 Victor E. Renuart, Jr., and Dane S. Egli, “Closing The Capability Gap: Developing New Solutions to 

Counter Maritime Threats,” National War College Review 61, no. 2 (Spring 2008), 15-24.

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statistics as optimistic evidence the shipping industry is likely to be one of climate 

change’s big ‘winners,’ with benefits to be expected in all sectors from expedited global 

trade. 

The Northwest Passage

The Northwest Passage 

(NWP) has the 

potential to become the 

planet’s most efficient 

new Arctic shortcut. 

The deep water 

corridor off the shores 

of Canada, a traditional 

American ally, could 

someday accommodate ships at least as large as an American aircraft carrier and could be 

an ideal route for extremely large cargo ships of all kinds. 

The NWP has two main navigable branches. These generally skim along the northern 

Canadian coastline, narrowing in the west at the Bering Strait, and in the east at the 

funnel-shaped Baffin Bay, which separates Greenland from Canada. Canada claims as 

sovereign territory the entire Arctic Archipelago, an area that includes roughly 37,000 

islands32 and, more controversially, the Northwest Passage itself.33

Despite the significant effects of global warming on the channel and a high demand for 

its commercial use, Canadian officials have no expectation that the NWP will be used by 

container ships within the next several decades. Rising temperatures are likely to free the 

thickest, landlocked ice from northern coastlines, driving solid pieces through the 

channels on unpredictable wind and ocean currents. Ice-infested lanes are likely to prove 

a hazard to commercial shipping, and local weather variations will make conditions risky 

for a transport industry which favors predictability and regular timetables.34 Many 

experts have pegged the year 2030 as a convenient marker for commercial navigation of 

the NWP.35

U.S.-Canadian Dispute over the NWP

Canada views the NorthWest Passage as part of its “historic internal waters,” a claim not 

widely recognized by the international community. Legal recognition would secure 

Ottawa’s right to police maritime traffic along the channel, enforce domestic laws and 

32 Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report, 2nd print (Akureyri, Iceland: Arctic Council, April 

2009), 18.

33 Robert Dufresne, Canada’s Legal Claims Over Arctic Territory and Waters (Ottawa, Canada: 

Parliamentary Information and Research Service of the Library of Parliament, December 6, 2007), 

available at <www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/PRBpubs/prb0739-e.htm#sovereignty>. 34 “Marine Traffic in the Arctic: A Report Commissioned by the Norwegian Mapping Authority,” Analyse 

& Strategi, August 2011, 8, available at <www.iho.int/mtg_docs/rhc/ArHC/ArHC2/ARHC2-

04C_Marine_Traffic_in_the_Arctic_2011.pdf>. 35 Ronald O’Rourke, Changes in the Arctic: Background and Issues for Congress (Washington, DC: 

Congressional Research Service, May 24, 2013), 12, available at <www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41153.pdf>

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regulations over international shipping, and assert other sovereign prerogatives. Though 

few states have recognized Canada’s legal claims, none have contested them more 

strenuously than the United States, which regards the NWP as an “international strait,”

and worries legal precedents set over the Canadian claim might be applied elsewhere; 

such as the strategically located Straits of Malacca and Hormuz.36 If the U.S. view were 

to prevail, transiting vessels would be entitled to enjoy nearly unrestricted access through 

the Passage, and Canada’s ability to police, regulate, and maintain the waterway would 

be significantly blunted. 

Tensions between the United States and Canada over the NWP began roughly 40 years 

ago. In the late 1960s, the Humble Oil & Refining Company (later consolidated into 

Exxon) —working closely with the U.S. Government—began searching for an 

economical means of transporting petroleum from newly discovered fields in northern 

Alaska. The company preferred to use a sea route, if possible, to avoid constructing an 

expensive and technically challenging trans-Alaskan pipeline. In August 1969, Humble 

launched its prototype supertanker, the S.S. Manhattan, into Canada’s Northwest 

Passage, to test the feasibility of transforming the route into a corridor for regular 

shipping. The 1,005 foot long supertanker was the largest and most powerful commercial 

vessel ever constructed in the U.S.,37 but during the months that followed, the ship 

survived its harrowing journey only with the assistance of the Canadian icebreaker John 

A. McDonald and the U.S. Coast Guard ship Staten Island.

38 The Manhattan’s punishing 

journey represented an operational failure, ending hopes for the possibility of routine 

navigation through the NWP. 

It also marked the beginning of a longstanding legal dispute between the United States 

and Canada over the jurisdiction of the Passage.39 Despite Canadian requests, the U.S. 

Government had pointedly declined to seek Canada’s authorization before using the 

NWP, on the grounds that it represented an international strait.40 This unresolved legal 

dispute survives virtually unchanged, and the voyage of the Manhattan is remembered in 

Canada as a provocative act which has left its legacy on U.S.-Canadian regional relations. 

In 1985, the United States attempted again to test the legal jurisdiction of the NWP when 

it announced plans to send one of its heavy icebreakers, the USCG Polar Sea, through the 

straits without requesting Canadian permission. The incident created a diplomatic crisis 

that only ended when the proposed mission was aborted. Less than a year later, Canada 

36 Carl Ek and Ian Fergusson, Canada-U.S. Relations (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 

April 5, 2012), 27, <www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/96-397.pdf>. 37 “A $40 Million Gamble on the Northwest Passage,” Time Magazine 94, no. 10 (September 5, 1969), 

available at <www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901369,00.html>; Larry Gedney and Merritt 

Helfferich, “Voyage of the Manhattan,” Article #639, Alaska Science Forum, December 19, 1983, available 

at <www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF6/639.html>. 38 Larry Gedney and Merritt Helfferich, “Voyage of the Manhattan,” Article #639, Alaska Science Forum, 

December 19, 1983, available at <www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF6/639.html>.

39 Donald M. McRae, “Arctic Sovereignty: Loss by Dereliction?” Northern Perspectives 22, no. 4 (Winter 

1994-95), available at <www.carc.org/pubs/v22no4/loss.htm>. 40 Alicia Zorzetto, “Canadian Sovereignty at the Northwest Passage,” ICE Case Studies, Number 185, May 

2006, available at <www1.american.edu/ted/ice/northwest-passage.htm>.

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tightened its claim over the straits by proclaiming the Northwest Passage would now be 

considered internal waters through the inclusion of “straight baselines” around the Arctic 

Archipelago.41 A deal was brokered in 1988 that eased tensions and granted the U.S. 

unrestricted access in exchange for adhering to a formal protocol that sought Canadian 

permission for each individual transit. The “Arctic Co-operation Agreement” managed to 

neatly defuse political tensions while leaving the root issues intact.42

It seems likely that unresolved differences over the status of the NWP will increase as 

climate change makes the waterway more navigable. The Canadian Arctic Archipelago 

represents 40 percent of Canada’s land mass, and encompasses the largest of its military 

regions.43 In July 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper voiced his country’s strong 

sentiment when he declared, “Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our 

sovereignty over the Arctic. We either use it or lose it. And make no mistake; this 

Government intends to use it. Because Canada’s Arctic is central to our national identity 

as a northern nation.”44 In August, 2010, the Canadian Government released a formal 

Arctic Foreign Policy statement that, while including a number of development and 

governance goals for the region, most strongly reiterated the importance of Canadian 

sovereignty, declaring, “Exercising Canadian sovereignty is our number one Arctic 

foreign policy priority.”45

An important challenge for future U.S.-Canadian relations will be negotiating a durable 

compromise for jurisdiction over the NWP. The United States has consistently argued the 

waterway should be considered international waters, while Canada has asserted that since 

the Passage has essentially been frozen throughout human history, no historical precedent 

exists which could refute Canada’s territorial claims. This reasonable assertion is 

nevertheless founded on a crumbling reality. Foreign submarines have, in all probability, 

been operating in the NWP for decades, and global warming has made the transit 

increasingly navigable to other international traffic as well.46 In an Arctic background 

paper issued in July 2007, Canada’s Ministry of National Defence declared it lacked the 

capability to effectively patrol its own Arctic territory.47 As more ships slip through the 

41 Robert Dufresne, Controversial Canadian Claims Over Arctic Waters and Maritime Zones, PRB 07-47E 

(Ottawa, Canada: Parliamentary Information and Research Service of the Library of Parliament, January 

10, 2008), available at <www.parl.gc.ca/content/LOP/ResearchPublications/prb0747-e.pdf>. 42 Agreement Between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America on 

Arctic Cooperation, No. 31529, January 11, 1988. 43 “Government of Canada Launches Arctic Operation,” National Defence and the Canadian Forces, April 

2, 2009, accessed at <www.forces.gc.ca/site/news-nouvelles/view-news-afficher-nouvelleseng.asp?id=2935>.

44 “Prime Minister Stephen Harper Announces New Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships: Canada’s New 

Government to move forward with deep water port in the Arctic,” Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen 

Harper, July 9, 2007, available at <http://pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?id=1742>.

45 Statement on Canada's Arctic Foreign Policy: Exercising Sovereignty and Promoting Canada's Northern 

Strategy Abroad (Ottawa, Canada: Government of Canada, September 25, 2012), available at 

<www.international.gc.ca/polar-polaire/canada_arctic_foreign_policyla_politique_etrangere_du_canada_pour_arctique.aspx?lang=eng&view=d>.

46 ”Canada to Monitor Water Traffic in Northwest Passage,” September 24, 2007, CBC News, available at 

<www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/09/24/technology-passage.html> 47 “Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ships,” Canadian American Strategic Review, July 10, 2007, available at 

<www.casr.ca/doc-dnd-icebreaker.htm>. 

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NWP unchallenged, Canada’s claim to ownership risks being undermined by common 

practice and its continued limited icebreaker capability.48

To effectively prevent the de facto international transit zone from becoming an 

international waterway according to international law, Ottawa will need to enforce access 

restrictions over the Passage.49 This effort has already begun. In August 2008, Prime 

Minister Harper announced new environmental legislation that would require ships 

transiting the NWP to log their movements with Canadian authorities. “As an 

environmental matter, as a security matter, and as an economic matter we are making it 

perfectly clear that not only do we claim jurisdiction over the Canadian Arctic, we are 

also going to put the full resources of the government of Canada behind enforcing that 

jurisdiction,” Harper said.50 Registration had previously been conducted only on a 

voluntary basis. 

Canadian Build-up & Prospects for Cooperation

Canadian assertiveness in the Arctic should come as no surprise. The territory is an 

extremely important symbol of Canadian sovereignty. According to a University of 

Toronto survey of public opinion conducted in 2011, a majority of Canadians believe the 

Arctic should be the primary focus of Canada’s military and foreign policy. When it 

comes to military security, the report details, most Canadians would endorse reducing its 

military presence in other parts of the world to enforce security in the high north.51

Consequently, the Canadian government has responded to international interest in the 

high north by embarking on a host of new security measures to “monitor, patrol, and 

protect” its Arctic territory. These include the creation of a new winter warfare training 

center at Resolute Bay,52 the construction of $100 million deep water port facilities at 

Nanisivik (a strategic location along the NWP),53 the expansion of the region’s Canadian 

Ranger Patrol Groups,

54 the addition of 6–8 armed light icebreakers to its coastal fleet 

48 “A $40 Million Gamble on the Northwest Passage,” Time Magazine 94, no. 10 (September 5, 1969), 

available at <www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901369,00.html>; Larry Gedney and Merritt 

Helfferich, “Voyage of the Manhattan Article #639,” Alaska Science Forum, 

December 19, 1983, available at <www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF6/639.html>. 49 Franklyn Griffiths, ed., Politics of the Northwest Passage (Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 

September 1, 1987).

50 “Canada Requires Ship Registration in Arctic,” USA Today, August 27, 2008, available at 

<www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-08-27-3491437195_x.htm>. 51 Ekos Research Associates Inc., Rethinking the top of the World: Arctic Security Public Opinion Survey

(Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, January 2011). 52 “Backgrounder-Expanding Canadian Forces Operations in the Arctic,” Office of the Prime Minister, 

Canada, August 10, 2007, available at <www.pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?id=1785>. 53 “Preliminary Work Underway on High Arctic Naval Port,” CBC News, August 5, 2008, available at 

<www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2008/08/05/nanisivik.html>.

54 The 4,100 part-time reservists carry Lee Enfield .303 caliber rifles, a weapon first adopted by the British 

Army in 1895. Most of the Rangers are Inuit natives accustomed to traveling on snowmobile through 

winter temperatures as cold as -58 F. Canada plans to expand the force to 5,000 members. “The Rangers: 

Guarding Sovereignty in Remote Coastal, Northern Regions,” CBC News, April 10, 2007, available at, 

<www.cbc.ca/news/background/cdnmilitary/rangers.html>.

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(the Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ship Project),55 and building one heavy icebreaker at a cost of 

$720 million.56 In October 2011, the Canadian government concluded bidding on a $25 

billion dollar shipbuilding project that included $4.4 billion in the construction and 

maintenance of up to eight Arctic offshore patrol ships.57

Plans to enhance Arctic surveillance systems are also underway using Canadian space, 

coastal, and air assets. Canada’s Polar Epsilon Project, a wide-area satellite imagery 

system used for military and environmental surveying, recently became operational over

the Arctic, producing more accurate imagery to military commanders and early detection 

and tracking of foreign vessels.58 Canadian coastal forces have begun testing an 

integrated maritime surveillance system at Devon Island at the western entrance of the 

Northwest Passage, once a secret Cold War listening station.59 The facility will allow 

Canada to more closely monitor traffic through the NWP. Ottawa has also advertised its 

interest in purchasing a fleet of rugged Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for conducting 

constant sweeps of the straits from the air.60 In August 2011, Boeing ScanEagle drones 

were part of a Canadian military exercise in the far north called, Operation Nanook. 

Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay called the machines, “precedent setting,” and 

told reporters, “They are a harbinger of things to come.”61 Maritime situational awareness 

is only one component of the country’s assertive new Arctic strategy, but U.S.-Canadian 

tensions over developing a disputed territory are not inevitable.

Policymakers may consider the example of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Roughly 50 

years ago, a dispute between the two neighbors arose over the sovereignty of the lucrative 

waterway project linking the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. A crisis was amicably 

averted using a joint investment and management scheme approved by the U.S. 

55 Carl Ek and Ian F. Fergusson et. al, Canada-U.S. Relations (Washington, DC: Congressional Research 

Service, May 12, 2008), available at <http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/106147.pdf>; 

“Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ship (PMO AOPS)”, National Defense and the Canadian Forces, undated, 

available at, <www.materiel.forces.gc.ca/en/aops.page>.

56 “PM Announces New Polar Class Icebreaker Project to be Named After Former PM John G. 

DieFenbaker,” Office of the Prime Minister, Canada, August 28, 2008, available at 

<http://pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?id=2251>. 

57 David Pugliese, “Arctic Patrol Ship Contract to Set Sail by Summer,” The Montreal Gazette, October 

19th, 2011, available at 

<www.montrealgazette.com/news/arctic%20patrol%20ship%20contract%20sail%20summer/index.html>; 

Allan Woods, “Two Winners and One Big Loser in Contest to Build Military Ships,” The Star, October 19, 

2011, available at <www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1072710--two-winners-and-one-bigloser-in-contest-to-build-military-ships>. 58 “Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ships,” Canadian American Strategic Review, July 10, 2007, available at 

<www.casr.ca/doc-dnd-icebreaker.htm>. 

59 CBC News, “Northwest Passage surveillance tested by Canadian scientists,” July 14, 2008, available at 

<www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/07/14/northern-monitoring.html>; “Canada’s Polar Epsilon Project 

Delivers Enhanced Arctic Surveillance Capability,” Canadian Forces Canada Command, July 5, 2010, 

available at <www.canadacom.forces.gc.ca/daily/archive-north-eng.asp>. 60 “Remote-Controlled Aircraft Would Patrol Arctic: Military,” CBC News, October 24, 2007, available at 

<www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/10/24/arctic-drones.html>. 61 Matthew Fisher, “Canada Deploys Unmanned Drones in Arctic Military Exercise,” Calgary Herald, 

August 5, 2011, available at <www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=2cef7dbb-e201-47ae9d08-ed4611d0a353>.

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Congress. In 1959, President Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth inaugurated the completed 

2,300 mile canal, hydroelectric, and marine highway system.62 It now generates $9 

billion in U.S. revenue and is regulated by a bi-national, government-run corporation.63

The Saint Lawrence Seaway represents an innovative solution for managing an expensive 

development project in disputed territory and could be replicated as a solution to the 

NWP issue. Like the Seaway, the management of the NWP will require integrated 

security and economic cooperation, massive infrastructure improvements, and a 

coordinated regulatory scheme. As U.S.-Canadian interests in the region are intimately 

aligned, this type of solution could be relatively easily achieved.

Timeline for Use of the NWP

While the deep waters of the NWP offer unmistakable advantages to maritime shipping, 

over the next several decades it will likely rank as the most problematic of the three 

emerging sea routes across the Arctic. First, large chunks of free-floating ice are likely to 

continue to crowd the channel’s constricted straits long after the area’s major sheets have 

retreated, posing unpredictable hazards to thin-skinned cargo vessels. Second, Canadian 

environmental, cultural, and security sensitivities are likely to constrain operations 

indefinitely.

64 Finally, scientists predict the NWP will be the last of the three great Arctic 

shortcuts to thaw. Russia’s Northeast Passage, more commonly called the “Northern Sea 

Route” (NSR), and the theoretical straight-line journey across the top of the world, 

dubbed the “Transpolar Route” (TPR), are the sea lanes predicted to open first.65

The Northern Sea Route and Russia

The Northern Sea Route (NSR) is a 2,450-mile waterway that resembles a braided ribbon 

lodged between the polar ice cap and the Eurasian continent’s northern coastline. The 

corridor’s actual distance is subject to some interpretation, as it includes a multitude of 

alternate sub-routes through straits, island chains, and open seas. Outsiders have long 

referred to the waterway as the “Northeast Passage,” suggesting the legendary maritime 

highway that many believed would someday connect Europe and East Asia. More 

recently, the Russian term “Northern Sea Route” has gained widespread acceptance, 

implicitly acknowledging the internal character of Russia’s national waterway. 

Scientists predict the NSR will be the first transpolar passage to open for regular transit. 

It offers a number of important advantages to ships navigating through the Arctic: a 

distance savings similar to the NWP, an established infrastructure of maritime services, 

easier navigation, and less dangerous summer ice conditions.66 The NSR’s major 

62 “1959: Queen and Eisenhower Open Seaway,” On This Day 1950-2005, BBC News, available at 

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/26/newsid_2988000/2988148.stm>.

63 Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation: Fiscal Year 2007 Annual Report, undated, available 

at <www.greatlakes-seaway.com/en/pdf/fy2007ar.pdf>. 64 A ‘nightmare scenario’ might include the regular transit of unseaworthy oil tankers through Canada’s 

most environmentally sensitive territories. 

65 Ray Chartier Jr., Presentation during the National Defense University Seminar, “Frozen Treasures,” May 

13-14, 2008. 66 Jonathon Seymour and Associates Inc and The Mariport Group, Inc, Transport Canada Seaway and 

Domestic Shipping Policy: Canadian Arctic Shipping Assessment: Scoping Study ̧ Prepared for Transport 

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drawbacks are likely to be its high user fees and shallow straits, which prohibit the 

passage of large cargo vessels along some parts of the route.

The United States disputes Russian claims over the NSR by arguing, as in the NWP case, 

that the passage represents an international strait under the terms of the United Nations 

Convention on the Law of the Sea. The American argument in this case may be a weak 

one, as Russia’s historical claims are based on its exclusive control of the area since 

1917, when the waterway was first closed to foreign vessels. During the Cold War, the 

Soviet Union maintained its ban on foreign vessels while it developed its high northern 

infrastructure, constructing Arctic industrial and port facilities, integrating the region into 

its strategic military plans, and servicing its users with the world’s most advanced fleet of 

ice-hardened vessels.67

The NSR was opened to foreign traffic after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but fell 

almost immediately into a state of serious disrepair. Post-Soviet privatization reforms 

slashed government subsidies to almost ten million Russians, Ukrainians, Belarussians, 

and other Soviet peoples who had been lured north by patriotic appeals and enticingly 

high pay.68 As local economies collapsed, workers were effectively stranded in blighted 

conditions. Defunct government incentives from the Soviet-era compounded worsening 

conditions.

The high-water mark for shipping in the region had arrived in 1987, when the Soviet 

Union operated 17 icebreakers and roughly 300 transport ships carrying over 6.6 million 

tons of freight through the NSR. The Kremlin amply funded icebreaking, navigation, 

hydro-meteorological measurements, communication, port facilities, and search and 

rescue operations as a means of demonstrating communist commitment to development 

projects on a grand scale.69 Arctic food and fuel shipments ranked among the Soviet 

Union’s most subsidized government programs, and workers were enticed to move north 

by good pay and access to freshly built hospitals, housing, schools, and entertainment 

complexes.

By the mid-1990s, however, paychecks grew less regular and mandated benefits 

disappeared. Shipping tonnage through the NSR dropped to barely 1.5 million tons, and 

the northern economy collapsed.70 Much of the population grew too impoverished to 

make the journey home. Within a few years, Russia’s thriving subsidized settlements 

Canada, November 19, 2005, available at 

<http://arcticportal.org/uploads/S6/wU/S6wUwsXenytmIiT0nmUxHw/CASA-Scoping-Study-amsa.pdf>. 67 Claes Lykke Ragner, “The Northern Sea Route,” The Fridtjof Nansens Institute, 2008, available at 

<www.fni.no/doc&pdf/clr-norden-nsr-en.PDF>. 68 Michael R. Gordon, “Forsaken in Russia’s Arctic: 9 Million Stranded Workers,” The New York Times, 

January 6, 1999, available at <www.nytimes.com/1999/01/06/world/forsaken-in-russia-s-arctic-9-millionstranded-workers.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm>. 69 Claes Lykke Ragner, The 21st Century-Turning Point for the Northern Sea Route? (Netherlands: Kluwer 

Academic Publishers, 2000), 25.

70 Oleg Bukharin, “Russia’s Nuclear Icebreaker Fleet,” Science & Global Security vol. 14, no. 1 (2006), 26.

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became dilapidated, famished, and dying communities.71 Residents cynically compared 

themselves to the region’s original Soviet prison colonists.72 Russia’s coastal 

infrastructure had sunk into a “critical” condition.73

Interest in the NSR began slowly rebounding after 1997, when Russia ratified the United 

Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. A year later, at an international transport 

conference, representatives of European and Asian governments elevated the NSR to the 

status of an “independent Euro-Asian transportation corridor.”74 The positive moniker 

nevertheless concealed endemic management and maintenance problems.

In 1999, Russian, Norwegian, and Japanese researchers published a study detailing the 

NSR’s most serious challenges and charting a path towards modernization. Many of the 

problems identified by the landmark study are still relevant today: ice hardened vessels 

are expensive but necessary for safe passage in Arctic waters; unavoidable straits are too 

narrow or shallow for large ships; and icebreaker services are insufficient for regular 

traffic during the short summer seasons.75 Perhaps most troublesome of all, from the 

point of view of the maritime shipping industry, were the shifting ice and weather 

patterns that made transit times unpredictable. Nevertheless, researchers remained 

optimistic that a profitable NSR business model could be found. 

The region represents a vital part of Russia’s long-term economic growth strategy. 

Currently, 11 percent of the country’s GDP is derived from Arctic territories, accounting 

for the vast portion of its hydrocarbon assets (93 percent of natural gas, 75 percent of oil 

exports).76 The Kremlin is hoping output will increase with time, but serious challenges 

remain, particularly with respect to shipping. “Considering the projected increase in 

hydrocarbon transport to 40 million tons by 2015,” remarked Russian President Vladimir 

Putin in 2007, “We are going to need to develop our Arctic transportation system.”77 In 

2011, Russia acted on its longstanding policy goals by announcing a multi-billion dollar 

infrastructure plan that included the construction of three additional nuclear and six diesel 

icebreakers for servicing the NSR.78

71 Aleksandr Bakin, “Northern Sea Route Awaits Revival,” Barents Observer, October 5, 2005, available at 

<www.barentsobserver.com/?cat=16149&id=279558>.

72 Oleg Bukharin, “Russia’s Nuclear Icebreaker Fleet,” Science & Global Security 14, no. 1 (2006), 26. 73 Vsevolod Peresypkin, “The Strategy of Development,” New East International Magazine, May 6, 2000, 

available at <http://segodnya.spb.rus.net/5-6-00/eng/17_e.htm>. 74 International Euro-Asian Conference on Transport: Declaration (St. Petersberg, Russia: United Nations 

Economic Commission for Europe, May 12-13, 1998), available at 

<www.unece.org/trans/main/eatl/docs/1stEATC_decl_e.pdf>. 

75 Claes Lykke Ragner, The 21st Century-Turning Point for the Northern Sea Route? (Netherlands: Kluwer 

Academic Publishers, 2000), 25.

76 “Canada and Russia Stress Arctic Economic Development,” CBC News, January 21, 2013, available at 

<http://ca.news.yahoo.com/canada-russia-stress-arctic-economic-development-213554312.html>. 77 “Putin Vows to Develop Arctic Transport for Energy, Strategy,” RIA Novosti, February 5, 2007, 

available at <http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070502/64795742.html>. 78 Lyubov Pronina and Stephen Bierman, “Putin Orders Icebreakers for Arctic Sea Lane, May Cap Rates,” 

Bloomberg News, September 22, 2011, available at, <www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-22/putin-orders3-nuclear-icebreakers-built-by-2020-to-open-arctic.html>.

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Despite the new commitments, Russia still struggles to implement a successful NSR 

business model. In 2011, Russia’s nuclear icebreaker fleet operated with 40 percent state 

subsidies and was not projected to return to profitability for the next three years, 

according to company officials. High user fees collected by the Russian state have 

generally driven up transit costs and discouraged commercial shipping, though service 

fees were lowered in 2011.79 Graft and bureaucratic inefficiencies are also serious 

challenges for a country widely perceived as one of the most corrupt regimes in the world 

(ranked 133 out of 176).80

For businesses, government bureaucrats, and ordinary Russians, rampant corruption has 

become a corrosive mainstay of everyday life, an important source of private revenue, 

and a hindrance to a healthy economy.81 Many experts believe graft costs Russia between 

16-25 percent of its GDP, and some believe the percentage could be even higher.82

Government control of the oil and gas sector has led to an environment in which opaque 

price fixing schemes and politically influenced business projects are routine, leaving 

some experts pessimistic about Russia’s ability to attract long-term investment. It is no 

accident that the state run gas giant Gazprom, whose profits produced 10 percent of 

Russia’s Gross Domestic Product last year (2012),83 ranked among the least transparent 

companies in the world.84

Despite these internal and external challenges, Russia views the NSR as a major source 

of revenue and a strategic maritime connection between Europe and Asia. In a 2009 

Arctic Strategy document posted on the official Russian Security Council website, 

Kremlin policy-makers outlined their vision for the route as a nationally integrated 

transportation asset and top strategic base for natural resources by 2020.85 More recently, 

in September 2011, at the Second International Arctic Forum in Novosti, Putin reinforced 

the dominant role he expected Russia to play in the high north, declaring, “Developing 

modern infrastructure along the Northern Sea Route is a major objective. We are 

79 Oleg Bukharin, “Russia’s Nuclear Icebreaker Fleet,” Science & Global Security 14, no. 1 (2006), 26; 

Nadia Rodova, “Shaping Russia’s Northern Sea Route in the Arctic,” Platts McGraw Hill Financial, 

December 12, 2011, available at <www.platts.com/newsfeature/2011/nsr/index>.

80 Transparency International, Corruption By Country/Territory, Data & Research (graphic), available at 

<www.transparency.org/country#RUS_PublicOpinion>.

81 Nataliya Vasilyeva, “Bribes Part of Everyday Life in Putin’s Russia,” Associated Press, February 24,

2012, available at <www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20120224/eu-russia-living-with-corruption/>. 82 “Putin’s Phony War on Corruption,” Bloomberg Businessweek, May 9, 2013, available at 

<www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-09/bloomberg-view-putins-phony-war-on-corruption>; Angus 

Roxburgh, The Strongman: Vladimir Putin and the Struggle for Russia, London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, 

2012), 286.

83 Ahmed Mehdi, “Putin’s Gazprom Problem: How the Kremlin Accidentally Liberalized Russia’s Natural 

Gas Market,” Foreign Affairs, May 6, 2012, available at <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137615/ahmedmehdi/putins-gazprom-problem>. 84 Barbara Kowalczyk-Hoyer, Transparency in Corporate Reporting: Assessing the World’s Largest 

Companies, (Berlin: Transparency International, June 2012), 13, available at 

<www.transparency.org/whatwedo/pub/transparency_in_corporate_reporting_assessing_the_worlds_larges

t_companies>.

85 The Fundamentals of State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Arctic in the Period up to 2020 and 

Beyond (Moscow: Russian Security Council, March 2009), Russian language, available at 

<www.scrf.gov.ru/documents/98.html>.

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launching a comprehensive transport project designed to ensure the dynamic 

development and exploration of our northern territories....”86 According to Charles 

Emmerson, an Arctic expert at the British think tank Chatham House, “The Russian state 

is very keen to develop the Arctic because they see it as key to maintaining exports...For 

Russia, it is difficult to exaggerate the potential geopolitical and geoeconomic importance 

of the Arctic.”87

Untapped Energy Reserves

The Arctic may be the largest, most promising unexplored area in the world for 

hydrocarbon resources. A comprehensive survey of the region completed by the USGS 

estimated the region may hold as much as 90 billion barrels of petroleum and 1,670 

trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.88 This would account for roughly one-fifth 

of all unrecovered hydrocarbon resources on the planet (not taking into account the 

potential from hydrocarbon fracturing and tar sands, where productivity and future yields 

remain uncertain.

89

Most of this trapped energy exists in the form of natural gas lodged under the Arctic’s 

forbidding polar waters. Scientists believe there may be roughly three times the amount 

of natural gas as petroleum deposits, with the largest untapped reserves believed to be 

located in the West Siberian and East Barents Basins.90 If current projections are 

accurate, this would make the Arctic home to as much as 30 percent of the planet’s total 

remaining gas reserves.

86 Vladimir Putin, Speech at the Second International Arctic Forum, Arkhangelsk, Russia, September 23, 

2011, available at <http://arctic.ru/news/2011/09/vladimir-putins-speech-second-international-arcticforum>.

87 Oleg Vukmanovic and Balazs Koranyi, “Russia’s Revival of the Arctic Northern Sea Route at Least 10 

Years Away,” Reuters, January 25, 2013, available at 

<www.thestar.com/business/2013/01/25/russias_revival_of_arctic_northern_sea_route_at_least_10_years_

away.html>.

88 “90 Billion Barrels of Oil and 1,670 Trillion Cubic Feet of Natural Gas Assessed in the Arctic,” USGS 

Newsroom, July 23, 2009, available at <www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1980&from=rss_home>.

89 No reliable figures currently exist for North American shale oil and gas deposits that might be 

recoverable under favorable market conditions, and estimates have varied widely. In April 2011, the U.S. 

Energy Information Administration released an official report estimating the amount of technically 

recoverable shale gas in North America could amount to as much as 827 trillion cubic feet. A year later, the 

agency revised its estimates downward by 40 percent. Some experts believe environmental concerns and 

technological limitations- particularly with regard to the processing of oil shale– make final conclusions 

uncertain. See Annual Energy Outlook 2011 with Projections to 2035, Powerpoint, U.S. Energy 

Information Administration, Washington, D.C, December 16, 2011, available at 

<www.eia.gov/neic/speeches/newell_12162010.pdf>; Annual Energy Outlook 2021 with Projections to 

2035, DOE/EIA-0383(2012) (Washington, DC: U.S. Energy Information Administration, June 2012), 

available at <www.eia.gov/neic/speeches/newell_12162010.pdf>; Ian Urbina, “New Report by Agency 

Lowers Estimates of Natural Gas in U.S.,” The New York Times, January 28, 2012, available at 

<www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/us/new-data-not-so-sunny-on-us-natural-gassupply.html?pagewanted=all>.

90 Kenneth J. Bird, Ronald R. Charpentier, Donald L. Gautier (CARA Project Chief), David W. 

Houseknecht, Timothy R. Klett, Janet K. Pitman, Thomas E. Moore, Christopher J. Schenk, Marilyn E. 

Tennyson, and Craig J. Wandrey, Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal: Estimates of Undiscovered Oil and 

Gas North of the Arctic Circle, United States Geological Survey, Fact Sheet 2008-3049, 2008, available at 

<http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3049/fs2008-3049.pdf>.

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The Alaskan Arctic is also emerging as a promising new zone for petroleum 

development. According to United States Geological Survey estimates, American assets 

in the region may increase current proven U.S. oil reserves by as much as 40 percent.

Taken alone, this would be equivalent to roughly one year of world consumption.91 At 

$100/barrel of oil, the Alaskan Arctic could hold as much as $3 trillion in U.S. 

hydrocarbon assets.92

Conclusion

In part one of this report, we described the Arctic as a region ‘on the rise,’ with warming 

temperatures raising interest in new commercial investments, expanding opportunities for 

global trade, and increasing levels of human traffic into previously inaccessible areas. 

Conversely, climate change has raised new risks for the Arctic’s fragile ecosystems, 

created fresh uncertainties for local peoples and native species, and accelerated damage 

to existing structural and institutional infrastructures. In part two, we will examine how 

the Arctic’s profile on the world stage is affecting U.S. security interests, with an

emphasis on the key issues for policy-makers.

91 “Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal: Estimates of Undiscovered Oil and Gas North of the Arctic Circle,” 

July 27, 2009, Powerpoint, accessed at <http://energy.usgs.gov/arctic/>.

92 These figures do not account for economic factors, such as the cost of exploration and development.

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Part 2: U.S. Interests

As the implications of climate change in the Arctic grew at an alarming pace through 

much of the last decade, U.S. policymakers generally failed to recognize the substantial 

risks it posed to the nation’s public health, environment, economy and national security. 

Distracted by war abroad and mired in scientific debate at home about the root causes of 

‘global warming,’ the U.S. for years neglected to begin important preparations for 

safeguarding its national interests during a transformative period. Both the executive and 

legislative branches of Government share responsibility for important lapses. 

In recent years, however, a broader recognition of the dangers posed by environmental 

change has altered the political landscape, leading to host of new task forces, initiatives, 

strategy reviews, and official assessment. This effort first began in 2009 during the final 

days of the George W. Bush administration.

As one of the last official acts of his presidency in January 2009, President George Bush 

signed a defining Presidential Directive on Arctic Region Policy (National Security 

Presidential Directive 66).

93 The administration’s ‘eleventh hour’ order emphasized the 

importance of the region to U.S. maritime and economic security, urged Senate 

ratification of UNCLOS, and recommended the protection of the environment and rights 

of indigenous peoples. 

In the intervening years, the Obama Administration has followed with more practical 

steps to monitor climate change in the high north, prepare for future needs, and 

participate more actively in the region’s emerging governing institutions. However, these 

efforts generally remain under-resourced, due to a number of political and economic and 

factors. In the second half of our report, we examine these shortfalls in more detail along 

the following lines of inquiry; Icebreakers; The United Nations Convention on the Law 

of the Sea (UNCLOS); Militarization and Governance Issues; U.S. Maritime capabilities.

The Importance of Ratifying UNCLOS

The most significant legal framework affecting the sovereign jurisdiction of Arctic States 

is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Among other 

provisions, the treaty defines the coastal area over which nations can exercise an 

exclusive right to all natural resources as 200 nautical miles. Under the terms of 

UNCLOS, the limit of this boundary, or, Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), is subject to 

revision based on a coastal states measured continental shelf. 

The zone is critical to Arctic development because it delineates the economic jurisdiction 

of coastal states; natural resources found in the area belong exclusively to a single 

93 National Security Presidential Directive 66 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 25, Arctic 

Region Policy, January 9, 2009, available at <www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-66.htm>.

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country.94 This UNCLOS provision potentially expands the economic territory of over 30 

coastal states, potentially ceding a wealth of maritime and undersea resources. 

As of May 2011, 162 nations have ratified the UNCLOS agreement and a number of 

them have submitted substantial claims to the United Nations reviewing body, called the 

Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). Between 2007-2008, Brazil, 

Australia, and New Zealand were rewarded large swathes of new territory, thanks to their 

early submissions. However, certification has been a slow process; of the 57 submissions 

to the CLCS by September 2011, only 14 have resulted in adopted recommendations. 

Four of the five Arctic states retain unresolved claims in the region and have either 

formally submitted proposals or are working on collecting new evidence. Among the 

most controversial claims is a submission made by the Russian Federation, which argued 

for jurisdiction over the North Pole.95

As a party to UNCLOS, the United States could stand to gain over 1.2 million additional 

square kilometers of territory, an area roughly the size of Alaska. Other states anticipate 

significant territorial gains, as well, bringing with them potentially vast untapped natural 

resources. Though the U.S. played a significant role in authoring UNCLOS and fought 

hard to include provisions favoring American interests, it was never officially adopted by 

the U.S. Senate. Final ratification has been repeatedly blocked by a minority of 

congressional opponents who believed UNCLOS risked compromising U.S. sovereignty 

by making some international disputes subject to third-party arbitration. They also 

worried the treaty might tie the U.S. to an excessively strict international environmental 

and humanitarian regime. The treaty was nevertheless signed by President Bill Clinton in 

1994 and recognized as part of general international law.

Advocates of the treaty have maintained the agreement is fair-minded and allows the 

United States to benefit from an arrangement it authored, honors, and has promoted. Most 

experts believe the failure to ratify UNCLOS and participate in its legal framework has 

constrained the U.S. from asserting its legitimate claim to new territory and clarify rights 

over already recognized areas.96 American intransigence also guarantees the country will 

not be fairly represented during international negotiations which promote the national 

interest and chart future development throughout the region.

The U.S. armed services have also strongly supported the ratification of UNCLOS and 

regard its implementation as an essential element in securing America’s long and short 

term interests. Examples of public letters, statements, and congressional testimony urging 

ratification of the Convention are included below:

97

94 Importantly, UNCLOS does not prohibit vessels from moving through the area. Transiting ships maintain 

their “right of innocent passage.” This is contained in Article 38, Right of Transit Passage, and includes 

continuous and expeditious passage between parts of the high seas or exclusive economic zones.

95 Nathanial Gronewold, “Rising Seabed Claims Swamp U.N. Commission,” The New York Times, April 

13, 2009, available at <www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/04/13/13greenwire-rising-seabed-claims-swamp-uncommission-10511.html>. 96 Gail Harris, “U.S. Must Remove UNCLOS Handcuffs,” The Diplomat, March 23, 2012, available at 

<http://thediplomat.com/2012/03/23/u-s-must-remove-unclos-handcuffs/?all=true>. 97 See “The Convention on the Law of the Sea,” U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General Corps, website, 

available at <www.jag.navy.mil/organization/code_10_law_of_the_sea.htm>.

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Date From Excerpt

March 2012 Ray Mabus, Secretary of 

the Navy, before the 

Subcommittee of the 

Committee on 

Appropriations.

“The convention (UNCLOS) has been approved by nearly 

every maritime power and all the permanent members of the 

UN Security Council, except the United States. Our notable 

absence as a signatory weakens our position with other 

nations, allowing the introduction of expansive definitions of 

sovereignty on the high seas that undermine our ability to 

defend our mineral rights along our own continental shelf and 

in the Arctic. The Department strongly supports the accession 

to UNCLOS, an action consistently recommended by my 

predecessors of both parties.”98

March 2011 Admiral Gary Roughead, 

Chief of Naval Operations 

(CNO), testimony before 

the House Armed Services 

Committee.

“I believe it is essential that the United States become a full 

Party to the (UNCLOS) treaty.”99

May 2010 National Security Strategy 

of the United States

“As one key effort in the sea domain, for example, we will 

pursue ratification of the United Nations Convention on the 

Law of the Sea.” 100

November 

2009

U.S. Navy Arctic Roadmap 

(CNO directed task force) 

released by Rear Admiral 

David Titley, 

Oceanographer of the 

Navy.

“This roadmap specifies Navy actions over three 

phases...(phase 1 includes) ...Advocacy for accession to the 

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.”101

June 2007 Letter from Chairman and 

Vice Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff to Senator 

Joseph Biden, Chair of the 

Committee on Foreign 

Relations.

”From sustaining forward deployed military forces , to 

ensuring the security of our ports and waters as well as 

advancing our most important economic and foreign policy 

objectives, it is important that the United States become a 

Party to The Convention (UNCLOS).”102

September 

2007

Michael Chertoff, Secretary 

of Homeland Security, 

letter to Senator Joseph 

“I reiterate the strong support that the Department has 

provided since its inception to the United States becoming a 

party to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of 

98 Ray Mabus, “Summary Statement of the Honorable Ray Mabus,” Subcommittee of the Committee on 

Appropriations, Department of Defense Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2013, U.S. Senate, 112th Congress, 

March 7, 2012, available at <www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112shrg29104503/html/CHRG112shrg29104503.htm >

99 Gary Roughead, “Statement of Admiral Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations before the House 

Armed Services Committee on FY 2012 Department of Navy Posture,” House Armed Services, March 1 , 

2011, available at 

<www.navy.mil/navydata/people/cno/Roughead/Testimony/CNO%20Roughead_Testimony_030111.pdf>

100 National Security Strategy of the United States (Washington, DC: The White House, May 2010), 50. 101 U.S. Navy Arctic Roadmap (Washington, DC: Task Force Climate Change/Oceanographer of the Navy, 

October 2009).

102 Admiral E.P. Giambastiani (USN), General Peter Pace (USMC), Admiral Michael Mullen (USN), 

General Michael Moseley (USAF), General J.T. Conway (USMC), General George Casey (U.S. Army), 

letter to The Honorable Joseph Biden, Jr., Chairman Committee on Foreign Relations, June 26, 2007, 

available at <www.jag.navy.mil/organization/documents/test24%20star%20ltr.pdf>

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Date From Excerpt

Biden, Chair of the 

Committee on Foreign 

Relations.

the Sea.”103

October 

2007

Admiral Vern Clark, 

Former Chief of Naval 

Operations, testimony 

before the Committee on 

Foreign Relations.

“What is significant, I believe, is that every living CNO--and 

they 

go back to Admiral Holloway, now, who began his term over 

33 

years ago as Chief of the Navy in 1974—everyone believes 

that this treaty is in the best interest of the United States of 

America.”104

Icebreakers

Icebreakers are essential for providing security and commercial services in tough Arctic 

conditions, but they represent a significant and burdensome investment. Designed with a 

service life of 30 years, the ships take a decade to build and cost roughly $900 million 

each. Consequently, most of the world’s 50 icebreakers105 are owned either directly or 

indirectly by governments, rather than private industry.106 They are not combat ships, 

though several (U.S. Polar Star and Polar Sea and Canada’s Louis St. Laurent) have 

been built to military standards.107

The basic principles of breaking maritime ice were established more than a century ago 

with the introduction of the world’s first seagoing icebreaker, the Murtaja, which was 

built in Sweden in 1890.108 That ship featured a spoon-shaped prow designed to crush ice 

rather than ramming it. Forward momentum pushed the hull onto an ice sheet, which 

broke under the vessel’s weight.109 A modern icebreaker combines this principle with a 

robust power plant generating at least 10,000 horsepower, an exceptionally well-armored 

hull, and the ability to prevent drifting debris from damaging its rear propulsion 

system.110 Despite powerful engines, an icebreaker’s weight and blunt shape make it up 

to 40 percent less fuel-efficient than conventional vessels on the open seas.111

103 Michael Chertoff, letter to Senator Joseph Biden, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, 

September 26, 2007, available at <www.oceanlaw.org/downloads/references/government/HomeSec_Letter27Sep07.pdf>.

104 Vern Clark, statement before the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 110th Congress, 

September 27 and October 4, 2007, available at <www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG110shrg45282/html/CHRG-110shrg45282.htm>. 105 Committee on the Assessment of U.S. Coast Guard Polar Icebreaker Roles and Future Needs, National 

Research Council, Polar Icebreakers in a Changing World: An Assessment of U.S. Needs (Washington, 

DC: The National Academies Press, 2007), 53.

106 Polar Icebreakers in a Changing World, 88. 107 During the Cold War, American and Soviet fleets were routinely armed, but Russia now operates the 

world’s only armed icebreaker. See Polar Icebreakers in a Changing World, 58. 108 Polar Icebreakers in a Changing World, 58.

109 Polar Icebreakers in a Changing World, 58. 110 Polar Icebreakers in a Changing World, 58. 111 Kimmo Juurmaa, Tom Mattsson, and Göran Wilkman, The Development of the New Double Acting 

Ships for Ice Operation, POAC 2001, OTTAWA 12-17.8.2001 (Helsinki, Finland: Aker Arctic Technology 

Inc., August 12-17, 2001), 1, available at <www.akerarctic.fi/publications/pdf/Poac01XNewDAS.pdf>.

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Icebreakers typically plow ice-clogged channels on behalf of less capable ships following 

behind. The path they open is not free from hazards, however, and may close quickly 

under windy conditions or fill with destructive chunks drifting behind the lead vessel. A 

collision can puncture or crush an ice-hardened hull, which is typically reinforced in the 

plating and frame for maximum protection. Even relatively small pieces of ice, called 

“bergy bits,” are capable of doing severe damage to the hardened vessels. If a ship’s crew 

suspects ice is in the water, an icebreaker must slow its movement and proceed with 

caution.

America’s Icebreaker Gap

In 2005 (FY06), the White House shifted budgetary authority for Coast Guard icebreakers to 

the National Science Foundation (NSF). The move came after an Office of Management and 

Budget report concluded the United States Coast Guard (USCG) had established a record of 

icebreaker maintenance deficiencies and operational neglect.112 Investigators also cited 

misplaced budgetary responsibilities. According to their review, most U.S. icebreaker 

missions had been undertaken on behalf of the NSF.113 Indeed, America’s only full time 

(185-200 days/year) Arctic icebreaker, the Healy, had been designed primarily for scientific 

research and was unable to access the deep north during periods of heavy ice cover.114 Ninety 

percent of its deployments were devoted to NSF missions.115 Such statistics led the OMB to 

conclude the NSF was “driving the costs of the Coast Guard program but not itself bearing 

them, a market failure that precludes efficiency.”116

In candid Congressional testimony before the House Science Committee on March 9, 2005, 

Arden Bement, Director of the National Science Foundation, explained icebreaker programs 

had been displaced from the USCG budget because the Bush administration viewed 

terrorism—not science—as its main priority. “A high-level decision (was) made within the 

White House...supporting science was not going to be sustained by the Department of 

Homeland Security.”117 The transfer of icebreaker authority to the NSF was fraught with 

political and fiscal ambivalence. Congress ratified the move but under-funded the shifted 

programs. Approximately $48 million was removed from the USCG’s budget and given to 

the NSF to cover icebreaker expenses. That amount represented less than two thirds the 

112 USCG officials dispute these assessments in interviews. Polar Icebreaker Roles and U.S. Future Needs, 

10.

113 Detailed Information on the Coast Guard: Polar Icebreaking Program Assessment (Washington, DC: 

The White House, January 9, 2009), available at 

<www.whitehouse.gov/omb/expectmore/detail/10002434.2004.html>.

114 Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr., Testimony Before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, 

Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, U.S. House of Representatives, 109th

Congress, September 26, 2006, available at 

<www.nsf.gov/od/opp/opp_advisory/briefings/oct2006/bement_house_testimony_written_final.pdf>. 115 Bement, Jr.,“Testimony Before the House Committee, September 26, 2006. 116 The OMB assessment gave the USCG Polar Icebreaking Program failing marks of 60 percent for 

“Program Purpose and Design”, 25 percent for “Strategic Planning,” and 8 percent for “Program 

Results/Accountability.” The only passing grade was 71 percent for “Program Management.” Detailed 

Information on the Coast Guard: Polar Icebreaking Program Assessment

117 Sherwood L. Boehlert, National Science Foundation Budget and Management Challenges, Hearing 

before the Subcommittee on Research, Committee on Science, House of Representatives, 109th Congress, 

First Session, March 9, 2005, available at <http://ftp.resource.org/gpo.gov/hearings/109h/99574.txt>.

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actual cost of maintaining the ships.118 Privately, the Coast Guard opposed the decision, and 

funding issues continue to trail the ability to maintain the fleet adequately.

The budgetary transfer of polar programs appears to have complicated management 

challenges without resolving the underlying funding difficulties. In an official National 

Academies icebreaker assessment study published in 2007, investigators concluded that 

responsibility for icebreaking programs had been ineffectively distributed among multiple 

agencies and congressional oversight committees.119 The report also noted the Bush 

administration’s decision to transfer budgetary authority had been taken without regard to the 

non-scientific functions icebreakers perform, “such as law enforcement, marine pollution 

response, search and rescue, providing a U.S. presence, and defense operations...”120 The 

budgetary loss of icebreakers has constrained the USCG from conducting essential missions 

while giving the NSF fiscal control for security assignments which lie outside that agency’s 

core expertise. 

U.S. capabilities in the Arctic lag far behind international competitors and do not reflect 

the country’s global standing or regional responsibilities. Currently, the United States has 

a single operational icebreaker dedicated to both the Antarctic and Arctic regions, the 

USCGC Healy. Two additional icebreakers have been sidelined and are in non-working 

order, having sustained chronic maintenance and breakdown problems after exceeding 

118 Polar Icebreaker Roles and U.S. Future Needs, 21.

119 Polar Icebreakers in a Changing World, 10. 120 Polar Icebreaker Roles and U.S. Future Needs, 21.

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their intended 30 year service lives. One of these, the Polar Star, was placed in caretaker 

status on July 1, 2006. After four years, work began at Todd Pacific Shipyards in Seattle 

to reactivate the vessel, at a cost of $57 million in repairs and upgrades.121

The remaining American icebreaker, Polar Sea, is likely to be decommissioned in 2012 

following a catastrophic “engine casualty” two years earlier (June 2010). The accident 

followed an unsuccessful attempt to overhaul and upgrade the ship.122

121 “Todd Shipyards contract for USCGC Polar Star,” MarineLink.com, January 2011, available at 

<www.marinelink.com/news/shipyards-contract-uscgc336751.aspx>; Jacqueline Klimas, “Coast Guard 

Asks to buy new Arctic Icebreaker,” Navy Times, March 24, 2012, available at 

<www.navytimes.com/news/2012/03/navy-coast-guard-arctic-ice-breaker-032412w/>; The Coast Guard’s 

Polar Icebreaker: Maintenance, Upgrade, and Acquisition Program, OIG-11-31 (Washington, DC: 

Department of Homeland Security, January 2011), 4 (table 1).

122 Ronald O’Rourke, Changes in the Arctic: Background and Issues for Congress (Washington ,DC: 

Congressional Research Service, Updated version on August 8, 2010), 38.

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According to a pivotal USCG capabilities assessment conducted in 2010, the U.S. will need 

six heavy and four medium icebreakers to fulfill its statutory obligations and maintain the 

continuous presence called for by the Naval Operations Concept.123 While the Coast Guard’s 

proposed FY2013 budget included $8 million in acquisition funds to begin planning for the 

construction of a single new polar icebreaker, the timeline is likely to be from 12-15 years for 

completion, at an estimated cost of more than $850 million.124 Commenting on the small 

initial investment and apparent lack of urgency, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski reportedly 

joked, “8 million dollars will barely buy you a porthole.”125 In an embarrassing admission, 

the Inspector General of DHS concluded in 2011 that the Coast Guard is unable to meet its 

current statutory requirements and must depend on foreign nations to perform critical 

“scientific, logistical and supply activities.” 

In the absence of deep investments and administrative reforms, the OIG predicted the 

scenario would only worsen.126 Coast Guard Commandant Robert Papp summarized his 

assessment of U.S. Arctic capabilities before a Senate panel by warning, “Right now we’ve 

got zero capability to respond in the Arctic...When people ask me what keeps me awake at 

night, (I say) an oil spill, a collision, a ship sinking in the Arctic keeps me awake at night, 

because we have nothing to respond. Or if we respond, it’s going to take us weeks to get 

there.”127 With both American heavy ice-breakers currently inoperable, his assessment joins 

a rising chorus of experts who believed that the U.S. is under-equipped for essential 

operations in the high northern latitudes.128

Climate changes have only amplified U.S. icebreaker program complexities. The retreating 

icecaps have fundamentally altered the potential for human activity in the Alaskan Arctic, 

forcing the Coast Guard to provide a wider range of services in an area of operations larger 

than was previously considered possible. At the same time, the NSF has expressed an 

increasing reluctance to continue fully funding the remainder of the aging U.S. icebreaker 

123 ABS Consulting, Potomac Wave Consulting, SPA Inc., United States Coast Guard High Latitude 

Region Mission Analysis: Capstone Summary, Arlington, VA, July 2010, available at 

<http://assets.fiercemarkets.com/public/sites/govit/hlssummarycapstone.pdf>

124 Ronald O’Rourke, Coast Guard Polar Icebreaker Modernization: Background and Issues for Congress

(Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, April 25 2013), Summary. 125 Lisa Murkowski, “Murkowski Questions DHS Whether Icebreaker is a True Priority,” Lisa Murkowski 

for Senate, March 8, 2012, available at 

<www.murkowski.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=2d43078a-cb3a4d7f-a6f9-6ba0926caafd&ContentType_id=b94acc28-404a-4fc6-b143-

a9e15bf92da4&Group_id=c01df158-d935-4d7a-895d-f694ddf41624>. 126 The Coast Guard’s Polar Icebreaker: Maintenance, Upgrade, and Acquisition Program, Department of 

Homeland Security, Office of the Inspector General, OIG-11-31, January 2011, 1. 127 David Perera, “Papp: Coast Guard Must Prepare for New Arctic Ocean Mission,” Fierce Homeland 

Security, June 26, 2011, available at <www.fiercehomelandsecurity.com/story/papp-coast-guard-mustprepare-new-arctic-ocean-mission/2011-06-26>. 128 In May 2008, the Commanders of USPACOM, USTRANSCOM, and USNORTHCOM delivered a 

personal letter to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff requesting additional funding for icebreakers. 

The memorandum cited routine maintenance deficiencies in the current “fleet” and requested the expansion 

of existing icebreaker programs, increased funding, and the construction of new ships. See Commanders of 

USPACOM, USTRANSCOM, USNORTHCOM, Memo, “Memorandum for Chairman, Joint Chiefs of 

Staff: Icebreaker Support,” May 21, 2008, available at <www.arctic.gov/testimony/icebreakersupport.pdf>.

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fleet.129 According to NSF estimates, operational expenses outpace the cost of leasing or 

building comparable, non-military research icebreakers.130

The current problems associated with the U.S. icebreaker fleet can be traced to traditional 

notions that the ships serve primarily as platforms for scientific research. In fact, climate 

change has redefined their role as coastal security assets. During a 2008 interview with 

Alaska Public Radio, Commandant Allen reflected on the changes, saying, “For about the 

last 20 years, the conventional view for policymakers in Washington is that any activity in 

the Arctic and Antarctic is basically related to science... (the new policy) will deal with more 

issues of sovereignty, security, and presence.”131

Russia’s Icebreaker Problems

The Russian perspective of its icebreaker fleet has been quite different from the shifting 

American view. In Russia, icebreakers have long been viewed as economic and security 

assets, and an essential means of clearing northern arctic shipping routes. Russia’s seven 

nuclear ships were far more powerfully designed than American models, with each vessel 

capable of breaking through ice nearly twice as thick as its diesel competitor and can 

operate for extended periods on the open seas.132

The Russian Federation operates the largest number of conventionally powered 

icebreakers in the world and owns the only nuclear fueled fleet. The ships constitute a 

vital part of the Kremlin’s economic and development plans by providing a lifeline to 

frozen Arctic settlements, services to the developing Northern Sea Route, and assistance 

with the export of hydrocarbon, mineral, timber, and other natural resources from the 

region.133

Like much of Russia’s Arctic infrastructure, its icebreaking fleet of approximately 18 

ships is recovering from a period of steep decline and will need to attract massive new 

investment to meet projected goals. Moscow’s criticism of the Murmansk Shipping 

Company for its slipshod management of the state owned fleet ended in a surprise move 

when authority for the ships was transferred to the state owned company, Rosatom (now 

Rosatomflot).134 It remains unclear whether the new company will be capable of 

129 Philip Ewing, “CG Steps Up Bid to Rescue Icebreaker Funding,” Navy Times, March 24, 2008, 

available at <www.navytimes.com/news/2008/03/coastguard_icebreakers_032408w/>.

130 Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr., “Testimony Before the House Committee on Transportation and 

Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation,” July 16, 2008, U.S. House of 

Representatives, 109th Congress, available at 

<www.nsf.gov/about/congress/110/alb_transportation_071608.jsp>. 131 Randy Boswell, “U.S. Coast Guard Plans ‘Sovereignty’ Policy Shift,” National Post, August 9, 2008. 132 These are the Rossiya, Sovetsky Soyuz, Yamal, 50 Let Pobedy, Taymir, Vaygach, and Sevmorput. The 

Lenin, Sibir, and Arktika are out of commission, as of this writing. See, Rosatom Flot, Homepage, 

available at <www.rosatomflot.ru/index.php?menuid=5&lang=en>

133 Oleg Bukharin, “Russia’s Nuclear Icebreaker Fleet,” Science & Global Security 14, no. 1 (2006), 26-27. 134 Anna Kireeva and Rashid Alimov, “Rosatom Takes Over Russia’s Nuclear Powered Icebreaker Fleet,” 

The Environmental Foundation Bellona, August 28, 2008, available at 

<www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2008/atomflot_torosatom>.

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renovating operations and boosting goods transport by 700 percent, as it has claimed.135

Russia’s entire diesel icebreaking fleet is at the end of its service life and the ships face 

decommissioning during the next several years, and federal authorities suffer from a poor 

record of investment.136

Nevertheless, Russian authorities have embarked on an ambitious plan to renovate NSR 

infrastructure in an effort to turn the Soviet era shipping lane into a maritime link that

would one day rival the Suez Canal.137 In 2011, Russia announced it had committed more 

than $500 billion to modernize its icebreaker fleet. The move stood in stark contrast to 

U.S. icebreaking resources, which one U.S. Navy sponsored report recently concluded, 

remains “limited...old, obsolete, and under the control of an agency that does not have a 

national security operational mandate.”138

Military Posture in the Arctic: Background

The military importance of the Arctic Circle was established during the Cold War when 

Ballistic Missile Submarines (SSBNs) patrolling under the polar ice pack formed part of 

a nuclear triad maintained by the U.S. and Soviet Union. The region provided an ideal 

environment for concealment and evasion. Dangling ice formations distorted sonar, 

making accurate measurements dangerously difficult and the possibility of freezing in 

place a constant concern.139

In 1981, the Cold War cat-and-mouse game in the high northern latitudes accelerated 

with the appearance of an advanced weapons system optimized for the region; the Soviet 

Typhoon Class SSBN. These new submarines were designed to surface quickly under 

thin ice and fire a rapid volley of ballistic missiles at U.S. targets.140 By the end of the 

Cold War, the Soviet fleet had developed a protective strategy called a ‘bastion’ concept, 

sheltering their SSBN fleet in relatively small areas under an umbrella of ice pack, 

surface ships, and air cover.141

135 “Russia Invests in New Icebreakers,” Barents Observer, June 16, 2008, available at 

<www.barentsobserver.com/russia-invests-in-new-icebreakers.4492350-16175.html>; Murmansk managers 

had complained much of the company’s revenue stream had been the result of shuttling tourists to the 

North Pole. 136 Government of the Russian Federation, “Reeingineering Russia’s Icebreaking Fleet,” July 2009, 

available at <www.premier.gov.ru/eng/visits/ru/117/info/3283.html>.

137 Gleb Bryanski, “Russia’s Putin Says Arctic Trade Route to Rival Suez,” The Associated Press, 

September 22, 2011, available at <http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE78L5TC20110922>.

138 Committee on National Security Implications of Climate Change for U.S. Naval Forces and the National 

Research Council, National Security Implications of Climate Change for U.S. Naval Forces (Washington, 

DC: The National Academies Press, 2011), S-6.

139 William J. Broad, “A Cold War Mission, Deep in the Arctic,” The New York Times, March 18, 2008, 

available at <www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/world/americas/18ihtarctic.1.11210324.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>.

140 David F. Winkler, “The Great White Fleet Returns Home,” Seapower 52, no. 2 (February 2009), 48, 

available at <www.seapower-digital.com/seapower/seapower_sample/?pg=51>. 141 Jon Bowermaster, “The Last Front of the Cold War,” The Atlantic Online, November 1993, available at 

<www.theatlantic.com/politics/foreign/front.htm>.

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The capability of Russia’s SSBN fleet has diminished since the end of the Cold War, and 

the frequency of Russian submarine patrols has consequently plummeted. According to 

open source estimates, Russian SSBNs embarked on only three missions in 2007, and ten 

in 2008.142 The Soviet Union’s Northern Fleet had once risen to prominence as a 

centerpiece of the Soviet nuclear powered surface and submarine forces.143 Basing 

shortages and financial woes followed Russia’s economic collapse in the 1990s,144 and 

the total number of ships in the Northern Fleet dropped by a precipitous 40 percent.145

Crews went unpaid, and ships were often sent on patrols without their full complement of 

qualified officers. 

Russia’s nuclear submarine forces were hit particularly hard. The vessels were 

decommissioned at a dizzying pace—faster than Russian yards could safely or affordably

dismantle them. As an emergency measure, the Northern Fleet turned to foreign 

assistance as a means of fulfilling its basic naval obligations.146 Perhaps the low point for 

Russia’s Arctic command arrived in 1995, when a Victor-III class submarine was used to 

transport food as a means of earning money. Its missiles had been removed and the empty 

tubes filled with potatoes in order to carry the maximum possible load.147

In recent years, the Kremlin has signaled its intention to rebuild its submarine and surface

naval forces. In 2008, Russian defense officials announced an ambitious eight year 

timetable for the construction of a new generation of nuclear powered ballistic missile 

and attack submarines, and a fleet of 5-6 aircraft carrier battle groups.148 Plagued by 

grave internal problems in the Northern Fleet, the timetable appears extremely optimistic. 

However, in November 2011, Prime Minister Putin unveiled Russia’s multi-billion naval 

modernization plan, announcing, “This means the naval shipbuilders must brace

themselves for mass production of new ships and naval weapons systems.”149 The Fleet 

will need to work hard to repair its badly damaged reputation and recover from high 

profile disasters like the 2001 accidental sinking of the nuclear missile submarine Kursk, 

in which 118 crew members died. Unable to mount a successful rescue attempt, the 

142 Hans M. Kristensen, “Russian Strategic Submarine Patrols Rebound,” FAS Strategic Security Blog, 

February 17. 2009, available at <www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2009/02/russia.php>. 143 “Northern Fleet,” Global Security.org, April 22, 2006, available at 

<www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/mf-north.htm>. 144 “Nuclear Submarine Dismantlement,” The Henry L. Stimson Center, May 30, 2007, accessed at 

<www.stimson.org/cnp/?SN=CT200705231268#TalkingPoints>. 145 “Northern Fleet,” Global Security.org, April 22, 2006, available at 

<www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/mf-north.htm>. 146 Jon Bowermaster, “The Last Front of the Cold War,” The Atlantic Online, November 1993, available at 

<www.theatlantic.com/politics/foreign/front.htm>. 

147 Aleksandr Nikitin, Igor Kudrik, Thomas Nilse, The Russian Northern Fleet: Sources of Radioactive 

Contamination, The Bellona Foundation, 1996, available at, 

<www.bellona.org/reports/The_Russian_Northern_Fleet_report_chapters/1175892548.15>; Debora 

MacKenzie, “Russian Secrecy Could Sink Nuclear Aid,” New Scientist, Issue 2626, April 20, 1996, 

available at <www.newscientist.com/article/mg15020260.300-russian-secrecy-could-sink-nuclearaid.html>.

148 “Russian Navy Prioritizes Construction of Nuclear Submarines,” RIA Novosti, July 25, 2008, available 

at <http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080725/114927762.html >. 

149 Svetlana Andreyeva, “Russian Navy in Modernization Drive,” Voice of Russia, November 9, 2011, 

available at <http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/11/09/60128745.html>. 

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Kremlin had been forced to turn to British and Norwegian diving experts for assistance. 

While the episode represented a high profile embarrassment for the Northern Fleet, 

appealing to foreign assistance has not been an unusual occurrence. 

The Fleet has regularly drawn upon international funds to safely dismantle and dispose of 

decommissioned nuclear submarines and associated equipment. The United States, 

Norway, and a dozen other European states maintain significant financial programs 

designed to store and secure Russia’s vulnerable nuclear submarine materials.150

Though the Northern Fleet’s outstanding problems often appear at odds with the 

Kremlin’s robust rhetoric, in recent years, the Kremlin has moved quickly to re-assert 

Russian prerogatives around the world. Within four years of ratifying the United Nations 

Convention on the Law of the Sea, Russia claimed jurisdiction over nearly half the Arctic 

Ocean, including the North Pole.151 It also initiated a number of high profile military 

exercises intended to demonstrate its commitment to the region. Senior-level Russian 

defense officials declared the exercises had been provoked by international objections to 

the Kremlin’s expansive territorial claims.152 Its actions have demonstrated Russia’s 

spirit and strategic ambition. 

Russia’s Assertive Record

Date Description

November 2011 Russia announces a build-up of Northern Sea Route submarine patrols and 

Arctic security infrastructure.

September 2011 Prime Minster Putin announces plans for crash naval modernization in the 

Arctic, with the delivery of three nuclear and six diesel icebreakers.

August 2011 Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov announces plans for the formation of 

two new Arctic brigades.

September 2010 Russia and Norway resolve 40 year Arctic Border dispute in the Barents Sea. 

March 2009 Russia declares it will create an Arctic military force, to include new border 

guard facilities, modernized airfields, and reorganized units from the Pacific 

and Northern fleets.153

February 2009 Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay accuses Russia of sending bombers 

too close to Canadian airspace.154

August 2008 Russia successfully launches a ballistic missile from the submerged Delta-3 

nuclear submarine Ryazan, of the Northern Fleet.155

150 Richard G. Lugar, The Nunn-Lugar Scorecard: Destroying Weapons & Materials of Mass Destruction 

Through Cooperation, available at <http://lugar.senate.gov/nunnlugar/scorecard.html>; “Nuclear 

Submarine Dismantlement,” The Henry L. Stimson Center, May 30, 2007, available at 

<www.stimson.org/cnp/?SN=CT200705231268#TalkingPoints>.

151 Polar Icebreaker Roles and U.S. Future Needs: A Preliminary Assessment, 25. 152 “Russia Military to Uphold Arctic Claim,” International Business Times, June 24, 2008, accessed at 

<www.ibtimes.com/articles/20080624/russia-plans-to-hold-military-exercises-in-arctic.htm>. 153 David Pugliese and Gerard O’Dwyer, “Canada, Russia Build Arctic Forces,” Defense News, April 6, 

2009 available at <www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4025065>. 

154 David Pugliese and Gerard O’Dwyer, “Canada, Russia Build Arctic Forces,” Defense News, April 6, 

2009 available at <www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4025065>. 155 “Test launch from Ryazan submarine,” Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, August 1, 2008, available at 

<http://russianforces.org/blog/2008/08/test_launch_from_ryazan_submar.shtml>; “Russia Extends It’s 

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July 2008 Russia declares the goal of upgrading the Northern Fleet’s ballistic missile 

submarine force a high priority for the Navy. A top Navy admiral sets 2016 as 

completion date.156

July 2008 Russia announces it will resume patrolling arctic waters with armed warships 

for the first time since the breakup of the Soviet Union.157

August 2007 President Vladimir Putin and the head of Russia’s Air Forces, Alexander 

Zelin, confirm the resumption of strategic bombing training missions over the 

Arctic Ocean.158

August 2007 Russian Parliamentarian and explorer Artur N. Chilingarov plants the Russian

flag on the seabed under the North Pole, symbolically laying claim to the area 

as an extension of Russia’s continental shelf.

August 2007 Russian forces conduct military exercises near the North Pole using antisubmarine and long-range bombers, a provocative gesture in a disputed region 

believed to hold significant quantities of oil and natural gas.159

The United States first recognized the strategic significance of the Arctic in the early days 

of the Cold War when Soviet long range bombers plotting a course over the top of the 

world exposed the vulnerability of its northern flank to a surprise attack.160 As a means of 

shoring up North America’s aerial defense systems, the United States and Canada 

constructed an elaborate chain of early warning radar stations across Northern Greenland, 

Canada, Alaska and Iceland. Operations were managed according to a 1958 agreement 

between the U.S. and Canada which created a joint military command, now called the 

North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). The completed system 

provided roughly one hour of warning for inbound strategic bombers and 15 minutes for 

Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs).161

During the closing days of the Cold War, NORAD sought to find new missions to sustain 

its relevance in an era looking for peace dividends.162 In 1989, Congress assigned it a 

prominent role in President George H.W. Bush’s “war on drugs,” and within a year the 

Arctic Naval Powerhouse,” International Online Defense Magazine, August 2008, available at 

<www.defense-update.com/newscast/0808/070802_russian_navy_in_the_arcrtic.html>. 156 “Russia to Upgrade Ballistic Missile Subs by 2016,” NTI, July 28, 2008, accessed at 

<www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2008/7/28/bd58e236-7a42-428f-beb8-6e54519cc174.html>. 157 “Russia Restarts Cold War Patrols,” BBC News, August 17, 2007, available 

at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6950986.stm>. 158 Vladimir Putin, “Press Statement and Responses to Media Questions following the Peace Mission 2007 

Counterterrorism Exercises and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit,” The President of Russia, 

August 17, 2007, available at 

<http://president.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2007/08/17/2033_type82915_141812.shtml>; “Russian strategic 

bombers continue Arctic, Atlantic patrols,” RIA Novosti, September 7, 2008, available at 

<http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080709/113588157.html>.

159 “Russia Restarts Cold War Patrols,” BBC News, August 17, 2009, available at 

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6950986.stm>. 160 Blair Watson, “NORAD: Watching the Skies for 50 Years,” Aviation, May 12, 2008, available at 

<www.aviation.com/technology/080512-norad-50th-birthday.html>. 161 “While Canada Debates Nuclear Warheads and Arctic Defense, Here the U.S. Fights the Coldest War,” 

Life Magazine, March 1, 1963, 18-26. 162 Eric Schmitt, “Built for Cold War, Bunker Shifts its Weaponry to Drug Battle,” The New York Times, 

July 18, 1993, available at <www.nytimes.com/1993/07/18/us/built-for-cold-war-bunker-shifts-itsweaponry-to-drug-battle.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm>.

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Security Consideration for a Warming Arctic Part 2: U.S. Interests

command had diverted 40 percent of worldwide Airborne Warning and Control Systems

to the assignment, along with 16 radar-carrying balloons, a variety of high-tech 

reconnaissance planes, and 44 U.S. and Canadian jet fighter interceptors.163 Four years 

later, 50 percent of NORAD’s air defense missions were devoted to counter-drug 

operations, mostly on the American southern border.164

Critics complained the command was both cost ineffective and poorly suited to its new 

task. Their objections exposed some operational limitations of a high-end network 

applied to a low-end mission; NORAD’s ground-based surveillance network had been 

designed to identify Soviet targets higher than 10,000 feet and were less effective at 

lower altitudes; military balloons spying on drug routes with downward looking radar 

frequently had to be lowered because of inclement weather; and supersonic jets often 

moved too fast to identify and track slow Cessna’s, the drug smugglers’ airplane of 

choice.165 In 1994, a Government Accountability Office report concluded bluntly, “A 

dedicated continental air defense force is no longer needed...”166 NORAD had become, in 

many ways, a command in search of a mission. 

If NORAD’s role in U.S. defense strategy had diminished in the years between the fall of 

the Soviet Union and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the command’s relations 

with Canada had grown just as uncertain. Canada objected to the development of new 

anti-missile technology which violated the popular Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, first 

signed in 1972. Canadians worried that by abrogating the treaty, the U.S. could incite a 

fresh nuclear arms race and the weaponization of space.167 They also questioned an 

important U.S. strategic assumption—that small nuclear states would choose to deliver an 

atomic weapon via ballistic missile.168

U.S. proponents of Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) have clashed over the implications 

of Canada’s opposition. Some have suggested Canadian objections have no operational 

impact on BMD programs and pose no additional hazards to bilateral security 

arrangements.169 Other officials, like Vice-Admiral Herbert Browne, retired Deputy 

163 Michael R. Gordon, “U.S. is Stepping Up Efforts to Seize Cargoes of Drugs,” The New York Times, 

March 10, 1990, available at <www.nytimes.com/1990/03/10/world/us-is-stepping-up-efforts-to-seizecargoes-of-drugs.html>. 164 Eric Schmitt, “Built for Cold War, Bunker Shifts its Weaponry to Drug Battle,” The New York Times, 

July 18, 1993, available at <www.nytimes.com/1993/07/18/us/built-for-cold-war-bunker-shifts-itsweaponry-to-drug-battle.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm>. 165 Eric Schmitt, “Built for Cold War, Bunker Shifts its Weaponry to Drug Battle,” The New York Times, 

July 18, 1993, available at <www.nytimes.com/1993/07/18/us/built-for-cold-war-bunker-shifts-itsweaponry-to-drug-battle.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm>. 166 Continental Air Defense: A Dedicated Force Is No Longer Needed, GAO/NSIAD-94-76 (Washington, 

DC: United States General Accounting Office, May 3, 1994), available at 

<www.fas.org/man/gao/gao9476.htm>.

167 Michael E. O’Hanlon, “Don't Blame Canada for Missile-defense Snub,” The Brookings Institution, 

March 3, 2005, available at <www.brookings.edu/opinions/2005/0303defensestrategy_ohanlon.aspx>. 

168 Doug Struck, “Canada Likely to Face Missile Defense Issue Head-On,” The Washington Post, 

November 14, 2004, available at <www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48191-2004Nov13.html>.

169 The system is financed and controlled entirely by the U.S., which currently has 30 ground-based BMD 

interceptors in Alaska and California.

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Security Consideration for a Warming Arctic Part 2: U.S. Interests

Commander of U.S. Space Command, have voiced frustration with Canada’s political 

intransigence. If Ottawa were attacked and had not lent its support to anti-missile 

initiatives, he warned reporters, the United States might choose to hold its BMD in 

reserve. ''Detroit would be next, and the United States would be reluctant to say (to its 

people), Well, we've expended all of our ground-based interceptors protecting Ottawa 

(even though Canada opposed BMD).”170

Canada’s rejection of BMD systems raised serious questions about how NORAD could 

be fully integrated into a U.S. early warning and missile interception network. Should 

Canadian commanders at NORAD contribute to BMD command and control? Must the 

U.S. act to defend Canadian cities using technology its leadership opposes? In 2008, 

NORAD/NORTHCOM Commander, General Gene Renuart, clarified NORAD’s 

position when he announced the command would share BMD early warning information 

with his Canadian Deputy Commander.171 It remains unclear, however, how cooperation 

will evolve as U.S. BMD systems mature, the Obama Administration clarifies it position 

on national BMD, and Canada’s positions evolve. Moreover, recent Russian reaction to 

U.S. plans for regional BMD deployments are likely to enflame internal and international 

discussions in the near term.

In the years following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, NORAD experienced a 

fundamental erosion of authority. The establishment of overlapping national security 

organizations (NORTHCOM, Canada COM, STRATCOM) and the creation of new 

domestic agencies (Department of Homeland Security in the United States, Public Safety 

and Emergency Preparedness Canada) indicated NORAD’s chief area of responsibility 

had been practically diminished. Canadian Lt. Gen. Eric Findley, the former Deputy 

Commander of NORAD, speculated that NORAD might one day be entirely absorbed 

into some other security arrangement. “I can see Northern Command, Canada Command 

and NORAD all becoming one,” he told reporters.172 Currently, the head of 

NORTHCOM also leads NORAD, and operates out of the same command headquarters 

in Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.173 NORAD’s former complex in Cheyenne 

Mountain is simply maintained as an alternate command center and training site.174

While NORAD’s main purpose has been diluted by competing civil and military 

commands performing similar missions, the tempo of its aerospace warning and 

interdiction operations has increased dramatically. Since 9/11, the command has turned 

170 James Brooke, “Greenlanders Wary of a New Role in U.S. Defenses,” The New York Times, September 

18, 2000, available at <www.nytimes.com/2000/09/18/world/18GREE.html?pagewanted=all>; See also the 

article on the March 2005 snubs from Bush administration following Canada’s rejection of BMD, Doug 

Struck, “U.S.-Canada Relations Seen Growing Chilly,” The Washington Post, March 4, 2005, A17. 171 The Ottawa Citizen, “Canada Kept in Loop at NORAD About All Missile threats,” The Canada.com 

Network, April 10, 2008, available at <www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=7171bab0-

8434-41e2-b9a6-3f5b8470e568>. 172 Bruce Finley, “Fate of Defense Post Iffy,” The Denver Post, June 11, 2008, available at 

<www.denverpost.com/northcom/ci_3503161>.

173 Gail Braymen, “NORAD, NorthCom Open Integrated Command Center,” American Forces Press 

Service, May 14, 2008, available at <www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=49865>. 174 “Cheyenne Mountain Complex,” NORAD, Homepage, available at <www.norad.mil/about/cmoc.html>.

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Security Consideration for a Warming Arctic Part 2: U.S. Interests

its attention to potential threats originating from within the domestic United States. 

Networked with the Federal Aviation Administration, NORAD now tracks passenger 

airplanes in an ongoing operation called, “Noble Eagle,” that scrambles jet fighter 

interceptors to investigate suspicious activity tens of thousands of times at a total cost of 

more than $28 billion.175

NORAD’s operational tempo has increased in the Arctic as well, where the Russian 

Federation has resumed TU-95 strategic bomber patrols near American airspace after 

roughly 15 years of inactivity. The missions were “permanently” reinstated in August 

2007, 176 and by the end of the year, NORAD fighter jets had scrambled 46 times and 

recorded 18 Russian incursions.177 “They didn’t do it to practice alone,” observed 

Colonel Andre Dupuis, a Canadian NORAD official, “They’re making a point.”178 By 

2012, NORAD officials had reported a total of 54 incursions; more than double the total 

number recorded since the end of the Cold War (1991).179

In 2006, NORAD’s operations also expanded beyond its traditional air surveillance and 

interdiction mission to include a complex new maritime warning assignment. The 

command’s additional responsibilities require it to “develop a comprehensive shared 

understanding of maritime activities to better identify potential maritime threats to North 

American security.”180 Most maritime “players” are civilian rather than military, and it 

remains unclear how NORAD plans to incorporate untested Maritime Domain Awareness 

(MDA) tools across the profusion of commercial, security, and interagency 

communities.181 Indeed, the concept of comprehensive MDA presents a daunting array of 

virtually unprecedented challenges. “The lack of standardized data, analytic tools, and 

data-sharing methodologies...among our maritime partners complicates the correlation 

process,” observed General Victor “Gene” Renuart, Commander of 

175 Source for patrols: Victor E. Renuart, Jr Statement Before the House Armed Services Committee 

Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities, United States House of 

Representatives, House Armed Services Committee, 110th Congress, March 5, 2008, available at 

<http://armedservices.house.gov/pdfs/TUTC030508/Renuart_Testimony030508.pdf>; Source for cost: 

Amy Belasco, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global

War on Terror Operations Since 9/11 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, July 14, 2008). 176 “Russia Restores Soviet-Era Strategic Bomber Patrols,” RIA Novosti, August, 17, 2007, available at 

<http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070817/72189719.html>. 

177 Bruce Finley, “Russian-Bomber Flights Alarm NORAD,” The Denver Post, March 11, 2008, available 

at <www.dispatch.com/content/stories/national_world/2008/03/11/norad.html>; Rowan Scarborough, 

“Russian Flights Smack of Cold War: U.S. fighters ID bombers near Alaska,” The Washington Times, June 

26, 2008, available at <www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jun/26/russian-flights-smack-of-coldwar/?page=all>

178 Adrian Blomfield, “Moscow 'Unmasks' MI6 Spy,” The Daily Telegraph, August 16, 2007, available at 

<www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1560491/Moscow-unmasks-MI6-spy.html>.

179 NORAD Public Interview with Authors, June 7, 2012. 180 Agreement Between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America on 

the North American Aerospace Defense Command, April 28, 2006, available at <www.treatyaccord.gc.ca/ViewTreaty.asp?Treaty_ID=105060>.

181 Emelie Rutherford, “NORAD, NORTHCOM Leader Cites Challenges with Maritime Warning Role,” 

Defense Daily, August 21, 2008, available at <www.defensedaily.com/publications/dd/NORADNORTHCOM-Leader-Cites-Challenges-With-Maritime-Warning-Role_3726.html>.

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Security Consideration for a Warming Arctic Part 2: U.S. Interests

NORTHCOM/NORAD in 2008.182 NORAD’s comprehensive maritime tracking system 

is clearly in the early stages of development, and will require significant innovations in 

technology, interagency coordination, international and tribal cooperation, and publicprivate partnerships. According to a U.S. Defense Department Arctic operations 

assessment submitted to Congress in 2011, “The ability to locate, identify, and track 

surface vessels in the Arctic today is limited, and depends in part on collaboration with 

partner nations and use of commercial assets. This gap will likely remain significant through 

the time period of this analysis (through the year 2030), based on projected investments over 

the Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP).”183

The Future of Naval and other Military Operations

The U.S. Navy was not poised to operate in the Arctic in the first years of the 21st century 

and, until 2009, had few if any plans to address the expanding missions previously 

distributed among the USCG and three U.S. Combatant Commands ((EUCOM, PACOM, 

NORTHCOM) that met at the Pole.184 In April, 2011, a new Unified Command Plan 

shifted responsibilities among the COCOMS, relieving PACOM of its Arctic area of 

responsibility and narrowing the number of COCOMs to two, with NORTHCOM 

assuming the lead. A key issue for command authorities will be defining NORTHCOM’s

practical role as chief Arctic “advocate” and reconciling its perceived duties with the 

more established EUCOM. Coordination challenges are likely to remain complex and 

fraught with fiscal, bureaucratic, and cultural complexities.

Traditional polar tactics, technology, and strategy will be unreliable future guides for 

military operations in a thawing Arctic. Global warming is fundamentally altering the 

maritime ‘rules of the road,’ and the effect on U.S. naval operations in the region is likely 

to grow increasingly pronounced over the next several decades. 

Submarine operations in the thawing Arctic will not resemble the Cold War battleground 

in which nuclear powered ships concealed themselves under thick sheets of ice. The 

seasonal disappearance of the region’s ice canopy will leave fewer havens and a noisier 

underwater environment suffused with ambient noise and wind generated waves. As the 

quiet, echoing Arctic of the past degrades the range and operation of sonar—used for 

navigation and weapons systems—will more closely resemble temperate climes.185

Changing environmental conditions are likely to make strategic submarine forces in the 

region increasingly vulnerable, something that should greatly concern U.S. submariners.

Surface ships will also be expanding their queue of tasks in a widening area of 

operations. The deterioration of the American polar icebreaking fleet is predicted to open 

key capability gaps for the U.S. Coast Guard that negatively impact nearly all of its 

182 Victor E. Renuart, Jr., and Dane S. Egli, “Closing The Capability Gap: Developing New Solutions to 

Counter Maritime Threats,” National War College Review 61, no. 2 (Spring 2008), 19. 183 Report to Congress on Arctic Operations and the Northwest Passage (Washington, DC: Department of 

Defense, May 2011), 14. 184 The Navy lacks any double-hulled surface vessels capable of operating in the region, which is not 

traditional blue water.

185 Garrett W. Brass, The Arctic Ocean and Climate Change: A Scenario for the US Navy (Suitland, MD: 

National Ice Center, 2002), accessed at <www.natice.noaa.gov/icefree/NavyArcticPanel.pdf>.

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Security Consideration for a Warming Arctic Part 2: U.S. Interests

critical missions in the region (see Figure ? below). An official analysis prepared for the 

agency in 2010 predicted the USCG will be 

unable to fulfill its statutory obligations 

without committing to significant—and 

highly unlikely—new investments.186 A 

more recent Department of Homeland 

Security (Office of Inspector General) audit 

broadened the impact of gaps in U.S. icebreaker capabilities, asserting that serious 

deficits are already being felt among 

agencies as diverse as NASA, National 

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 

National Science Foundation, and the 

Department of Defense.

The DOD has been criticized for its sluggish 

response to projected capability shortfalls in 

the Arctic that affect four of the 

Department’s nine Arctic mission areas; 

maritime domain awareness, sea control, maritime security, and search and rescue. 

Nevertheless, the Department’s position has generally been that the regions low threat 

environment makes investment in ice-breakers, deep water ports, and other supporting 

infrastructure unnecessary for the foreseeable future. In official assessments to Congress, 

DOD has asserted its existing missions have not been compromised, reporting, “With the 

low potential for armed conflict in the region in the foreseeable future, the existing 

defense infrastructure (e.g., bases, ports, and airfields) is adequate to meet near-to midterm U.S. national security needs.”187

Paradoxically, some officials have stated DOD has not yet conducted a mature review of 

its Arctic requirements, undermining the Department’s assessments.188 All this suggests 

the Arctic remains a low priority for the DOD. “It is unclear,” summarized one 

Government Accountability Office study, “Whether DOD will be in a position to provide 

needed capabilities in a timely and efficient manner...(because it) has not yet evaluated, 

selected, or implemented alternatives for prioritizing and addressing near-term Arctic 

capability needs.”189 Currently, the U.S. Navy has no ice-hardened surface ships capable 

of conducting operations in the Arctic.

186 ABS Consulting, Potomac Wave Consulting, and Systems Planning and Analysis Inc, United States 

Coast Guard High Latitude Study Mission Analysis Report Capstone Summary, prepared for the United 

States Coast Guard, July 2010, 10.

187 Report to Congress on Arctic Operations and the Northwest Passage (Washington, D.C.: Department of 

Defense, May 2011), 25. 188 Arctic Capabilities: DoD Addressed Many Specified Reporting Elements in its 2011 Arctic Report but 

Should Take Steps to Meet near and Long-term Needs, GAO-12-180 (Washington, DC: Government 

Accountability Office, January 2012), 14. 

189 DOD Addressed Many Specified Reporting Elements in Its 2011 Arctic Report but Should Take Steps to 

Meet Near- and Long-term Needs, GAO-12-180 (Washington, DC: Government Accountability Office, 

January 13, 2012), 14.

The Arctic Poses a Complex Operational 

Challenge for U.S. Security Operations

• U.S. Executive Order 13175 mandates consultation and 

coordination with Indian tribes on a government-togovernment basis. Alaska has 229 federally recognized 

American Indian tribes which exercise sovereign 

powers over their members and territory. 

• Two U.S. Component Commands, Northern Command

(NORTHCOM) and European Command (EUCOM) 

are assigned to the Arctic and operate alongside the 

U.S. Coast Guard (Department of Homeland Security). 

NORTHCOM is assigned “advocacy responsibility” 

for the region.

• Four of the five Arctic states- Canada, Denmark, 

Norway, Russia, and the United States- have 

unresolved territorial disputes in the Arctic.

• The international status of two developing maritime 

passages (Northwest Passage, Northern Sea Route) 

remains unresolved.

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Security Consideration for a Warming Arctic Part 3: Concluding Remarks

Part 3. Concluding Remarks

Something important is happening in the Arctic, and the United States has been neither 

sufficiently attentive nor equipped to meet the new challenges. American shortfalls 

compare unfavorably with the commitment other Arctic coastal states and members of 

the Arctic Council have demonstrated, most notably Russia.

Definitive scientific evidence indicates climate change is affecting the Arctic more 

dramatically than other parts of the globe. The most visible evidence of this is the rapid 

shrinking of the “permanent” ice that once defined much of the Arctic landscape. This 

melting is opening the Arctic for economic development—principally but not limited to 

energy resources, particularly oil and natural gas. Reasonable estimates point to 

recoverable amounts that would extend these global fossil fuel supplies another 10-15 

years.

Equally important are emerging new transportation routes—the familiar Northwest 

Passage, a similar Northeast passage above Siberia, and even a possible Trans-Polar 

Route. These cut in half the distance between many current principal routes. This could 

potentially provide billions in extra revenue to multiple countries, save time and money 

on transportation costs. Simultaneously, they also provide a new security problem to be 

dealt with.

Since Congress has not ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the United 

States cannot participate in one of the most important legal frameworks available for 

adjudicating the exercise of sovereign jurisdiction and participating in institutions of 

Arctic governance.

Finally, the sea services are not well-positioned to advance and defend U.S. interests in 

the Arctic. The U.S. Navy passed this mission to the U.S. Coast Guard years ago and

showed no interest in re-claiming a serious role for several decades. It was not until 2009 

that the U.S. Navy responded with some sense of urgency with its Arctic Road Map. The 

Coast Guard today effectively plays with a weak hand; the Healy, a modern but unarmed 

icebreaker, two older generation icebreakers not currently active, and one for St.

Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes operations. The fleet lacks doubled hulling and 

other protective measures for safe operations—and the lead time to build a force is 10-20 

years. Moreover, the current budget environment will complicate efforts to make the 

resource commitment necessary to transform the U.S. Navy into an effective force in the 

Arctic.

Summarizing the situation before a congressional subcommittee in December 2011, 

Admiral Jeffrey M. Garret, former commander of the 13th Coast Guard District, observed, 

“The most critical-and effective capability the Coast Guard could apply to its expanding 

Arctic responsibilities is largely missing from the scene...(and the) consequences of 

icebreaker disinvestment are beginning to emerge...When Healy is engaged in dedicated 

science support, or undergoing maintenance, the Coast Guard has no polar icebreakers for 

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Security Consideration for a Warming Arctic Part 3: Concluding Remarks

other Arctic or Antarctic missions or contingencies.”190 Despite a new focus on the dearth 

of needed icebreakers, it seems highly unlikely the U.S. can design and construct new 

ships within the next decade. Policymakers must anticipate the gap between surface 

capabilities and mission requirements in the region to widen. 191

The future of U.S. security operations in the Arctic will also depend on how the region’s 

governing-institutional structures evolve. Will its transition from a relatively barren, 

frontier to a rich, accessible territory segmented by porous borders lead to international 

conflict, or cooperation? In a widely quoted report, Arctic Council researchers 

graphically outlined four possible scenarios, basing their political forecasts on the global 

demand for Arctic resources and willingness for states to engage in collaborative, rulesbased action.

192 The range of potential scenarios - from highly competitive to highly 

cooperative - illustrates the degree of uncertainty which surrounds the region’s political 

future.

All possible outcomes, however, will require the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to 

coordinate with a patchwork of territorial, environmental, and regulatory considerations 

which constrain maritime and aviation missions in the region. Operationally, the United 

States will need to master the ability to coordinate its activities among a broad range of 

state, civil, tribal, security and commercial organizations.

Whatever the causes of global warming, its effect on U.S. national security in the 

northern latitudes represents a serious challenge to American resources and resolve. 

Thad Allen, former Commandant of the Coast Guard, pragmatically summarized the 

situation for the U.S. when he observed, “All I know is, there is water where there didn’t 

used to be, and I’m responsible for dealing with that. I think we’re at a crisis point on 

making a decision.”193

190 Jeffrey M. Garrett, Protecting U.S. Sovereignty: Coast Guard Operations in the Arctic, Testimony to the 

House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, U.S. House of Representatives, 112th

Congress, December 1, 2011, available at 

<http://republicans.transportation.house.gov/Media/file/TestimonyCGMT/2011-12-1-Garrett.pdf>.

191 “The Future of Arctic Marine Navigation in Mid-Century: Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment of the 

Arctic Council’s Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment Working Group,” Global Business Network, 

March 2008, available at <http://arcticcouncil.org/filearchive/AMSA%20Scenarios%20of%20the%20Future%20-

%20%20Narratives%20Report.pdf >.

192 “Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment: Scenarios of the Future,” Global Business Network, March 2008, 

3, available at <www.institutenorth.org/assets/images/uploads/articles/AMSA_Scenarios_Brochure.pdf>.

193 Andrew C. Revkin, “A Push to Increase Icebreakers in the Arctic,” The New York Times, August 16, 

2008, available at <www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/world/europe/17arctic.html?_r=0>.

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