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The main threat to Arctic security comes not from military rivalry but climate change, and the common dangers we face from accelerating environmental collapse. Robert English evaluates these dangers, and discusses how we can defend against them.

Image courtesy of interviewee. June 10, 2024

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This video discusses the increasingly tense geopolitical situation in the Arctic, which was previously seen as a zone of peace for nearly 30 years following the end of the Cold War. The area has transformed into a zone of military rivalry, primarily between Russia and Western NATO countries, exacerbated by the aftermath of the Ukrainian invasion, leading to a significant halt in cooperation on crucial issues including environment and scientific research.

The speaker emphasizes the irony of nations seeing each other as adversaries while facing a common existential threat: climate change. The Arctic is experiencing accelerating environmental degradation, including melting permafrost, increased wildfires, and rising sea levels, which require international collaboration that is now obstructed by geopolitical tensions.

Historically, the Arctic Council facilitated cooperative efforts among the eight Arctic states (US, Canada, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Denmark), resulting in various agreements on environmental protection and resource management. However, the recent militarization and the freezing of diplomatic relations have halted this cooperative spirit.

The primary concerns raised include growing military buildups, the risk of accidental conflict, and the urgent need to address environmental challenges. The speaker calls for a renewed commitment to international cooperation post-Ukraine conflict, as the Arctic holds the potential for mutual benefit and collaboration in tackling climate issues rather than conflicts over resources.

Ultimately, the speaker argues that the true enemy is the looming threat of environmental collapse, which cannot be tackled unilaterally, and stresses the importance of rekindling collaborative efforts for the health of the Arctic and the planet.

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Now what's happening in the high North in the Arctic is

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very troubling, and it's potentially tragic, a region

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that had been described as a zone of peace

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for nearly 30 years, right?

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Since the end of the Cold War is now abruptly becoming a

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zone of rivalry and potential military confrontation.

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The Russians on one side and America

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and the NATO members on the other side

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are building up military power.

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They're deploying more ships, more aircraft.

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They're basically facing off against each other

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as they conduct pole, patrols

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and maneuvers, circling each other.

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Wally. And meanwhile, cooperation on environmental issues,

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on scientific research

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and a whole host of other priorities has come

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to a halt, right?

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For 30 years, roughly from 91 92

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until 20 21, 20 22, it was this zone of peace.

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It was, referred to as this exceptional, the zone

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of Arctic exceptionalism.

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It seemed isolated from the kind of conflicts

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that would spill over into great power rivalries

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everywhere else in the world.

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Um, no longer ever since the invasion of Ukraine

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cooperation has been frozen,

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and it's coming at the worst possible time.

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Um, what my colleagues

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and I in our research are particularly concerned about is

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this is also a time

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when environmental degradation is accelerating.

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When the crises before us,

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with everything from polar wildfires, permafrost melt,

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coastal erosion storms,

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and many more problems, just as they're becoming more grave,

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just as they demand more international cooperation,

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we are cooperating less.

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And I like to put it in a kind of ironic way.

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We are now seeing each other as enemies, right?

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The Russians and the Western powers and the Arctic.

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We were cooperating.

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We were maybe not friends, but we were colleagues,

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but now we're enemies.

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Now we're facing off Wally.

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And it's happening right when the real enemy is just over

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the horizon, and that is climate disaster.

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And that real enemy demands cooperation

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because the problems I've described,

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and we'll go into more detail,

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those problems cannot be solved nationally.

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They cannot be addressed unilaterally.

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They demand transnational cooperation

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just when we've halted it.

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So that is the looming tragedy of the Arctic.

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The, those 30 years of Arctic exceptionalism

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were truly exceptional.

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Um, I could say in a nutshell that the Arctic powers,

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and that's eight countries, right?

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The us, Canada, Russia, Norway, Sweden,

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Finland, Iceland,

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and Denmark, those eight countries achieved a whole series

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of agreements, bilateral multilateral agreements, again,

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on everything from environmental protection,

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fisheries regulation, marine mammal protection,

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oil spill, and environmental pollution, recovery,

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navigation, search

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and rescue, commercial regulation, on and on.

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Um, so it was a remarkable blossoming of cooperation, unlike

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what we've seen in any other region of the world,

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not in Southeast Asia, not in Africa.

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It was truly a model.

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So much so that, scholars began looking at the Arctic

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as perhaps an exemplar for other regions.

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How were they doing it? Right?

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Um, what institutions, what kind

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of leadership is it a model for future global governance

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around the globe, right?

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We were starting classes in global governance

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and cooperation, and the Arctic

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seemed to be leading the way.

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Um, so that's the first thing.

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All of this cooperation broke out parallel simultaneously.

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Of course, it was important that the militarization,

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the military side went down, right?

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During the Cold War, the Arctic was a venue

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for confrontation, right?

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We had our cat, cat and mouse games at sea.

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We had under sea, through our submarines

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with nuclear missiles circling and tracking each other.

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And of course, missiles

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that might have been fired would transit the polar regions

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and bombers and surveillance aircraft

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were constantly circling.

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So it was a highly militarized, dangerous region.

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And when the Cold War ended, much of that went away.

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Um, the United States,

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the Western Allies definitely reduced their presence, right?

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Bases in Greenland, bases in Iceland were dialed back.

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The level of activity was reduced.

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Um, you know,

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there wasn't an American aircraft carrier across the Arctic

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Circle for more than 20 years.

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Um, but in fairness, we have to admit

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that it was the Russian side

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that demilitarized even more, right?

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They had an extensive presence in the Arctic as well,

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and it just tumbled down, right?

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They probably cut their Arctic presence by about 90%, right?

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Their northern fleet, their navy was sharply reduced.

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They closed many bases

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and, you know, significantly reduced all kinds

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of military activity.

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And so together with the Russians, the NATO powers, the us,

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it just got quiet.

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It wasn't scary and threatening anymore,

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and that allowed this blossoming of scientific cooperation

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of environmental research and all the rest.

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Um, that's what happened for those 25, almost 30 years.

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And the last thing I'd like to say is

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what put it all together was a remarkable new organization

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called the Arctic Council, right?

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The eight Arctic powers that I mentioned

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formed on their own, this new international,

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this intergovernmental agency, not under the United Nations,

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not under any other great power condominium or control.

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They came together as equals in Ottawa, Canada

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In 1996 and signed the charter of this Arctic Council.

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And that's the organization that has facilitated so much

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negotiation, so much cooperation, so much research.

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It has working groups.

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It has full members and observer members, right?

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It has special subgroups for, again, environment, commerce,

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social, political, cultural, right,

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native people's concerns.

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Um, the Arctic Council did all of that remarkably well.

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So we have an institution, a model institution that together

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with that demilitarization

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and together with that desire to solve problems

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and come to agreement, tied it all in one into one knot

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and just performed remarkably.

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And that's what's at risk.

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Now, it's a number of things, and I'll get to Russia

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and the invasion Ofra in a moment.

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But a good decade or decade and a half

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before that, at the beginning of the two thousands,

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things started to change,

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and a sense of rivalry began creeping in,

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because that's when we saw this rapid melting

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of the polar ice caps,

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particularly in the summers when the ice recedes.

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Anyway, in 2007, in 2011, there were remarkable

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retreats of that polar ice.

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And suddenly, right, the oil companies,

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the mineral extraction companies, the shipping companies,

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tourism containers, tankers,

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everybody saw some potential for gain in the Arctic.

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Now we can get at these minerals, now we can tap

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that oil or gas.

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Now we can ship a shortcut between Europe and Asia.

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So this expectation of a just a buzzing hive of activity

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suddenly burst on the scene again

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in the early two thousands.

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And it was hard for that not

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to immediately become securitized to become a competition,

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because we want the oil, but so do they.

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Who's gonna get the mineral resources?

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Who's gonna get the contracts?

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What about the territorial issues that haven't been settled?

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Is that natural gas in our zone or in Norways?

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Is it in Russia's or Finlands? So on and on.

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There was this sense that we have to position ourselves,

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we have to get ready for a oil rush.

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People were calling it a resource race or an oil rush.

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And that even though it would take decades for that actually

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to begin happening, there was already a sense of rivalry

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and a sense of getting poised right to compete.

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And as soon as that was on the horizon, then

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of course there was concern about,

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well, who's more powerful?

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Who can assert their rights?

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Who could grab territory if they want to?

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Who's gonna be dominant and who's gonna be pushed aside?

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And so that immediately turned attention to, well,

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who has the icebreakers?

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Who has the, the frigates and destroyers?

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Who has the submarines that can operate up there,

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whose air force has that reach?

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And above all, who has more arctic bases?

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And so within a couple of years,

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even though nothing had really changed, right on the water

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or on the ice, I should say,

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the whole atmosphere had changed.

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And now it was one of competition.

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And, that went on for a decade in this sort

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of parla state where there was a sense of looming rivalry,

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a fear of each other, but nothing was really happening

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until 20 21, 20 22, and the Ukraine crisis.

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And then, then of course, the fear of Russia

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and Russia's fear of the West became absolutely palpable.

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And cooperation stopped.

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The military buildups grew,

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and we've kind of fallen almost into a spiral, what we used

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to call a, you know, sort of a security dilemma

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where we suddenly see their military assets as a threat.

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And so we want to build up and they see us building up

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and see us as a threat.

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Each of us perceive our own ports, our own airfields,

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our own military presence as defensive

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and the other guys as offensive.

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So each step to strengthen our defenses looks like an

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offensive move by the other.

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And around and around we go,

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and we are now unfortunately,

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following into a spiral of that sort.

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Um, we very much hope that it won't

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actually spill into real conflict.

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Both sides are very wary that we have nuclear weapons

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and that that would be tragic,

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but neither side wants to back down.

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So the tension is high.

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The confrontations continue,

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and I've gotta say war in the Arctic.

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Nobody wants it intentionally,

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but this is an area where accidental war is more

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likely than anywhere else.

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Why is that? Because accidental war happens when you have a

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collision at sea, when you have a false alarm

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for a missile launch, when you have some kind

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of miscommunication over an over flight when an airplane

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gets lost and accidentally flies over

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sensitive territory of the other side.

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These are the things that have started wars in the past have

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started the shooting.

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And I gotta tell you, the likelihood of those kinds

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of accidents in the Arctic

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is much greater than in other places, simply

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because it is so hostile, right?

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This is a region that is dark six months of the year.

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It has increasing storm activity, icing at sea,

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more electromagnetic interference than you can imagine.

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And all of these wreak havoc with warning,

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with communications, with ordinary coordination

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to deescalate potential conflict,

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it could happen accidentally in the Arctic, in the blink

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of an eye, even though nobody wants it.

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And once somebody's killed, once something is damaged, then

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of course we posture, we retaliate,

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and it could get very bad Russian invasion

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of Ukraine, right?

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In February of 2022, by the way, which followed of course,

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years of tension over the annexation of Crimea

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and disturbances in the Donbass.

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It didn't happen overnight.

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It was already affecting some Arctic cooperation

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because the west was already sanctioning Russia.

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But then February, 2022 and all bets were off.

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What first happened was outrage

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and denunciation justifiable and understandable.

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What happened next was

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that essentially Russia was frozen

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out of the Arctic Council.

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The Arctic Council simply, simply stopped meeting

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with Russia and any business

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that the other Arctic powers had,

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they conducted privately, excluding Russia.

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Um, in addition to the Arctic Council,

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there are a whole host of subsidiary organizations

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that had built up around it, right?

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There's the, you know, for example, the Euro,

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the Barrens, Euro Arctic Council,

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there's the Arctic Coast Guard Forum.

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There are various political and cultural exchange groups.

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All of these were frozen.

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Russia's participation in all of them was suspended.

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In some cases, Russia was simply kicked out.

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In other cases, Russia left.

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And so formal arc to council cooperation came to a halt.

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And all this informal diplomacy

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and contacts came to a halt as well.

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So that means we're not moving forward anymore,

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and we're actually going backwards.

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And one of the things within that halt to cooperation

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that is most concerning, it's the end to environmental

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and scientific collaboration.

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That means, for example, that even western scientists

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who were working with the Arctic colleagues on collecting

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data about, let's say radioactivity

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or permafrost in release of methane, right?

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Again, we need to know what's happening in their country,

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in their regions, just as they need

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to know what's happening in ours.

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We all have studies and research

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and data collection that don't stop at national borders

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because these problems don't stop at national borders.

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But unfortunately, all of that's been halted.

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And why I focus on that is not only does that mean

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that we won't be able to address some

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of the environmental problems, we won't be able

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to anticipate where they're going as well as we could have

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had this scientific collaboration continued.

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It also means something worse.

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It means a young generation of scientists

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and, researchers on both sides are no longer

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meeting each other, are no longer becoming colleagues,

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are no longer collaborating,

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are no longer forming friendships

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and going to the same conferences.

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And you know, that's really tragic

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because that's gonna have an impact that lasts generations.

14:58.145 --> 15:02.525
We know that the Cold War itself ended in part

15:03.115 --> 15:04.285
because of that kind

15:04.285 --> 15:07.765
of collaboration built up over the years of Deante in the

15:08.645 --> 15:11.085
1970s and early eighties, even when

15:12.005 --> 15:14.925
military confrontation was high, even when political

15:15.595 --> 15:19.525
rivalry was great, there was a large group

15:19.985 --> 15:23.445
of scientists, nuclear scientists, environmental scientists,

15:23.515 --> 15:26.205
political scientists who continued their work

15:26.665 --> 15:28.525
and collaboration between the US

15:28.705 --> 15:30.725
and the USSR, between the USSR

15:31.065 --> 15:32.685
and the European Union countries.

15:33.305 --> 15:36.045
And those people helped end the Cold War.

15:36.045 --> 15:39.205
Those people on both sides pushed Ronald Reagan

15:39.785 --> 15:44.165
and Michal Gorbachev to compromise to arms control,

15:44.165 --> 15:46.725
to new cultural and political agreements.

15:47.785 --> 15:51.845
So the young researchers in the Arctic who were laying

15:51.845 --> 15:56.285
that same kind of groundwork for better and better collegial

15:56.625 --> 15:58.325
and cooperative relations in the future

15:59.195 --> 16:00.725
have now been cut off at the knees.

16:01.625 --> 16:03.005
So the science suffers,

16:03.585 --> 16:07.165
and the, you could say the scientific diplomacy suffers,

16:07.745 --> 16:09.925
and I'm not sure which is worse in the long run,

16:10.305 --> 16:12.805
but both are really bad for

16:12.835 --> 16:15.245
what we need in the Arctic going forward.

16:16.145 --> 16:19.085
As I said before, I think

16:19.155 --> 16:21.205
it's probably not gonna happen.

16:24.355 --> 16:26.095
The conditions are dangerous.

16:27.035 --> 16:30.135
The rivalry is strong, the militarization is growing.

16:30.835 --> 16:34.375
The prickly confrontational attitudes on both sides are

16:34.375 --> 16:38.135
worse than ever, but through it all, there is a weariness

16:38.155 --> 16:41.175
and understanding that it could get really bad

16:41.405 --> 16:42.775
because of nuclear weapons.

16:43.075 --> 16:46.575
In a strange way, Ukraine is teaching us a lesson

16:47.355 --> 16:50.775
to not let that happen in the high North, seeing the kinds

16:50.775 --> 16:54.735
of destruction and the tit for tat escalation.

16:55.715 --> 16:58.055
Um, so the conditions are dangerous.

16:58.525 --> 17:00.695
They're highly charged, they're militarized.

17:01.275 --> 17:03.655
And as I said, the Arctic environment is hostile

17:03.915 --> 17:06.575
and very conducive to accident and misunderstanding.

17:06.955 --> 17:09.295
But throughout all, throughout all of that,

17:09.295 --> 17:10.375
there is a weariness

17:10.395 --> 17:13.015
and a caution that we don't wanna let it get out of hand.

17:13.955 --> 17:18.225
And I would also add one more thing, which is that

17:19.695 --> 17:24.165
there is an awareness underneath it all, that all

17:24.165 --> 17:25.245
of this is about nothing.

17:25.745 --> 17:29.005
Of course, it's about Ukraine, it's about reprisals, what,

17:29.005 --> 17:30.245
what Russia's doing in Ukraine.

17:30.665 --> 17:32.205
But there's a kind of understanding,

17:32.865 --> 17:35.245
and I know this from talking to naval people

17:35.305 --> 17:36.925
and air force veterans

17:37.185 --> 17:41.405
and arctic experts on both sides, which I've done for years.

17:41.965 --> 17:43.325
I know there's a kind of understanding

17:43.355 --> 17:45.405
that there's something unnecessary

17:45.425 --> 17:46.805
and artificial about all this,

17:46.915 --> 17:48.445
because there really is nothing

17:48.505 --> 17:50.285
to fight over up in the Arctic.

17:50.995 --> 17:53.845
What I mean by that is that oil

17:53.905 --> 17:58.635
and gas minerals, there is more than enough

17:59.495 --> 18:04.355
for everybody to keep pumping and drilling for another 20

18:04.375 --> 18:08.755
or 25 years in their own exclusive economic zones.

18:08.755 --> 18:10.075
In other words, onshore

18:10.095 --> 18:12.555
or near offshore, where there is no dispute

18:13.775 --> 18:15.315
for another 25 years

18:15.615 --> 18:18.275
before anyone would even think of going out

18:18.275 --> 18:21.035
to the North Pole, going out into contested territory.

18:21.335 --> 18:22.875
And if we're still drilling petroleum

18:22.875 --> 18:26.315
and burning it in 25 years, we're all dead anyway, right?

18:26.815 --> 18:29.795
So there's been this understanding that the

18:30.755 --> 18:32.875
resource scramble, the oil rush

18:33.345 --> 18:38.075
that was touted again back in 2007, 2012, is artificial.

18:38.185 --> 18:40.675
It's made up, but it'll never come to be.

18:41.225 --> 18:44.495
Furthermore, even if there wasn't the threat

18:44.555 --> 18:45.815
of greenhouse gases

18:45.815 --> 18:48.855
and just destroying our planet, it's also a fact

18:48.855 --> 18:52.935
that in the time, the last 10 years since that perception

18:52.935 --> 18:57.215
of a resource scramble, first burst on the scene,

18:57.235 --> 19:01.135
and today we've, we've seen a remarkable drop in the price

19:01.595 --> 19:05.735
of solar and wind power, remarkable progress in grid,

19:05.835 --> 19:07.895
in battery, in all kinds of storage

19:07.955 --> 19:11.575
and transmission of electricity, such that it's hard

19:11.575 --> 19:16.175
to imagine anyone ever needing that oil or gas in 25 years.

19:16.435 --> 19:19.775
In other words, the world is shifting away thanks

19:19.775 --> 19:21.135
to technological change,

19:21.355 --> 19:23.855
and thanks to the new economics of energy,

19:24.065 --> 19:26.455
we're shifting away from petroleum in any case.

19:27.315 --> 19:28.655
So the oil, gas,

19:28.795 --> 19:31.695
and coal that's under the ice, under the sea

19:31.695 --> 19:34.375
and the arctic will probably mostly remain there.

19:34.475 --> 19:36.855
And once we understand that, then we all step back

19:36.855 --> 19:38.735
and say, well then what is it we're fighting over?

19:39.425 --> 19:41.935
Right? Nobody needs anyone else's territory.

19:42.375 --> 19:44.815
Remember, the North Pole is a bunch of ice and water.

19:44.965 --> 19:47.215
There's no ground to grab up there.

19:47.755 --> 19:50.855
So if we don't want to take territory and,

19:51.435 --> 19:54.655
and we don't need the resources and they're too expensive

19:54.655 --> 19:55.975
and difficult to get anyway,

19:56.355 --> 19:59.935
and let's all step, take a step back, take a deep breath,

19:59.995 --> 20:02.735
and realize there's nothing much to fight over

20:03.835 --> 20:05.775
except what's happening in Ukraine,

20:05.915 --> 20:07.655
except what's happening in the Middle East.

20:08.515 --> 20:11.615
But that changes the picture dramatically when we realize

20:11.615 --> 20:14.495
that the Arctic itself is a zone of peace.

20:14.495 --> 20:18.135
The arctic itself itself has nothing worth fighting over

20:18.395 --> 20:20.375
and everything worth collaborating on.

20:21.275 --> 20:25.375
So my hope is that when the Ukraine war ends,

20:25.595 --> 20:26.655
and it must end,

20:26.995 --> 20:29.855
and it's a precondition for renewed cooperation,

20:29.925 --> 20:32.175
otherwise the hostility is just too high,

20:32.485 --> 20:34.775
even though it doesn't make sense, it's there.

20:35.235 --> 20:38.655
But when it does, I'm cautiously optimistic

20:38.805 --> 20:42.535
that there'll be a quick resumption of arctic cooperation

20:42.795 --> 20:45.855
and a catching up on so much research,

20:46.115 --> 20:49.405
so much collaboration, that we both need.

20:49.915 --> 20:53.645
Because if we don't prepare for the climate disaster,

20:54.545 --> 20:57.245
if we don't prepare for the environmental collapse

20:57.245 --> 21:00.845
that's coming and all the transnational effects,

21:01.025 --> 21:05.085
all the international spillover, then we will lose a war

21:05.345 --> 21:06.485
to enemy number one.

21:06.875 --> 21:08.445
It's not Russia, it's mother nature.

21:09.265 --> 21:13.165
The enemy, the common enemy that I'm talking about, the

21:13.685 --> 21:16.325
looming threat of environmental collapse

21:17.035 --> 21:18.885
that I say demands our cooperation.

21:18.885 --> 21:21.285
What is it? Am I being alarmist? I don't think so.

21:21.865 --> 21:25.525
And of course, this is the subject of this collaborative

21:26.365 --> 21:27.565
National Science Foundation project

21:27.595 --> 21:29.725
that I'm the principal investigator on

21:30.325 --> 21:33.285
investigating this sort of collision between the environment

21:33.385 --> 21:34.445
and geopolitics.

21:35.045 --> 21:36.285
I would point to three

21:36.465 --> 21:40.365
or four of the biggest threats to give you a concrete

21:40.425 --> 21:41.685
and tangible example.

21:41.985 --> 21:45.165
Number one is the thawing

21:45.165 --> 21:49.065
or the melting permafrost we've already seen.

21:50.085 --> 21:53.625
Not only does that cause a massive release of carbon dioxide

21:53.625 --> 21:56.025
and methane, right, which leads to this

21:56.625 --> 21:58.745
positive feedback loop of more warming,

21:58.775 --> 22:00.345
more melting, more warming.

22:01.165 --> 22:05.745
But it also is starting to have more immediate, tangible,

22:06.385 --> 22:08.625
destructive effects on arctic infrastructure.

22:09.125 --> 22:12.825
For example, in Russia, a massive tank of diesel fuel

22:13.895 --> 22:18.225
spilled into the tundra and flowed out into the arctic ocean

22:18.695 --> 22:21.825
because the ground underneath it collapsed.

22:21.925 --> 22:23.185
The permafrost melted.

22:24.165 --> 22:28.625
We have seen pipelines in Alaska, in Russia, in Canada,

22:29.305 --> 22:30.745
cracking and breaking

22:30.935 --> 22:34.625
because the soil underneath is heaving and buckling.

22:34.795 --> 22:37.625
We've seen roads break, we've seen bridges come down,

22:38.045 --> 22:39.825
and this is just the beginning.

22:40.805 --> 22:45.145
If the perms frost continues at this rate, the amount

22:45.145 --> 22:48.665
of infrastructure damage which spills over immediately into

22:48.665 --> 22:51.705
en environmental damage will be in the tens

22:51.705 --> 22:54.185
of billions annually to repair.

22:54.805 --> 22:57.065
And that's just in the next five, seven years.

22:57.565 --> 23:00.065
If we go out 15, 20 years, it grows

23:00.065 --> 23:01.185
by an order of magnitude.

23:01.205 --> 23:05.345
That's number one. Um, number number two, wildfires

23:06.645 --> 23:09.865
for several years, we've watched sometimes with a kind

23:09.865 --> 23:11.745
of sense of Schaden Freud, unfortunately,

23:12.165 --> 23:15.025
as Siberia was plagued with months

23:15.125 --> 23:17.545
and months of uncontrollable wildfires

23:17.885 --> 23:18.945
in the Russian Arctic.

23:19.605 --> 23:21.945
And of course that's putting an enormous amount of carbon

23:22.125 --> 23:23.545
and soot in the atmosphere.

23:23.885 --> 23:27.305
It has direct public health impacts on local communities,

23:27.805 --> 23:29.745
and then it spreads all over the Arctic

23:30.205 --> 23:31.305
and into the atmosphere.

23:32.215 --> 23:36.375
Well, guess what? Last summer, it was Canada's turn

23:37.285 --> 23:40.655
massive wildfire, struck the boreal forest in Canada,

23:41.035 --> 23:43.895
and again, did tens of billions in damage.

23:44.165 --> 23:47.365
That damage consists of the cost of firefighting,

23:47.535 --> 23:49.805
which in many cases is futile.

23:49.875 --> 23:50.885
They can't be stopped,

23:51.105 --> 23:53.445
but at least we try to protect certain communities.

23:53.785 --> 23:57.045
Number two, the impact on the forestry industry

23:57.185 --> 23:58.245
is catastrophic.

23:58.665 --> 23:59.965
And then of course, tourism

24:00.225 --> 24:03.125
and other affiliated industries suffer as well.

24:03.905 --> 24:08.365
So again, tens of billions in damage were done just in

24:08.925 --> 24:11.815
Quebec province alone last summer,

24:12.675 --> 24:14.935
and there's no reason we won't see worse

24:15.115 --> 24:18.055
and worse wildfire seasons in everybody's arctic.

24:18.445 --> 24:21.935
It's drier, it's hotter. The fire season lasts longer.

24:22.485 --> 24:24.815
It's a problem that is spiraling out of control

24:24.955 --> 24:28.095
and will consume so much of our resources just

24:28.115 --> 24:30.295
to ameliorate these immediate impacts.

24:30.645 --> 24:32.335
It's hard to know where we would get the money

24:32.595 --> 24:33.815
for more icebreakers

24:33.995 --> 24:36.095
and missiles in the Arctic anyway, right?

24:36.095 --> 24:38.255
They're drawing at the same limited budgets.

24:38.955 --> 24:40.735
Um, that's number two. What else?

24:40.735 --> 24:42.575
Number three, let's go out to the seas.

24:43.005 --> 24:44.655
Harmful algae blooms.

24:45.665 --> 24:49.435
We've all seen what happens when there's a red tide off

24:49.435 --> 24:50.995
of Florida, right?

24:50.995 --> 24:55.235
Or an algae bloom off of Cape Cod, massive die-offs of fish.

24:55.815 --> 24:58.795
And you probably know the cycle where the algae bloom.

24:59.455 --> 25:01.795
Um, right? They block out the sunlight,

25:01.925 --> 25:04.275
eventually they create a dead zone fish

25:04.455 --> 25:06.235
or marine mammals are wiped out.

25:06.305 --> 25:08.075
There's no oxygen, right?

25:08.215 --> 25:10.035
Um, and then there are all these toxins,

25:10.035 --> 25:12.755
these cytotoxins caused by the decomposition

25:12.935 --> 25:14.075
of the dead algae.

25:14.785 --> 25:18.755
Well, that problem, guess what is invading the arctic too?

25:19.095 --> 25:20.955
And we're seeing the microorganisms

25:21.375 --> 25:25.635
and the algae cysts that cause these blooms up north

25:25.655 --> 25:27.915
of the bearing strait for the first time.

25:28.615 --> 25:31.355
The likely impact on the native communities

25:31.355 --> 25:32.435
that rely on fishing

25:32.655 --> 25:36.915
and wailing, subsistence, wailing will be devastating.

25:37.495 --> 25:40.675
But don't forget, all of our North Atlantic species,

25:40.985 --> 25:45.195
haddock, cod, all kinds of crabs are all migrating north

25:46.085 --> 25:48.705
to find cold water, to find the right habitat,

25:49.525 --> 25:53.865
and they're already suffering from parasites, from collapse

25:53.865 --> 25:55.145
of their own food chain.

25:55.565 --> 25:58.105
You probably know that for several years running the king

25:58.175 --> 26:00.505
crab, snow crab, red crab harvest

26:01.085 --> 26:02.825
in Alaska have been canceled

26:03.215 --> 26:06.345
because the populations have fallen so low.

26:06.885 --> 26:08.625
Now imagine all of that repeated

26:08.645 --> 26:11.065
and magnified, not just for crustacean,

26:11.065 --> 26:14.505
but for fish, for marine mammals in the Arctic proper.

26:15.325 --> 26:16.385
Um, you have, again,

26:16.785 --> 26:19.065
devastating impacts on commercial fishing

26:19.645 --> 26:20.985
as well as subsistence fishing.

26:22.125 --> 26:24.225
So there's three. What else I could go on?

26:24.245 --> 26:27.105
Let me just quickly mention the most mysterious of all,

26:27.165 --> 26:30.425
and that is disease outbreaks, right?

26:30.735 --> 26:34.345
Anthrax, long dormant viruses

26:34.345 --> 26:36.785
and bacteria that have been frozen in the permafrost.

26:37.135 --> 26:39.465
It's very likely we will see perhaps even

26:39.835 --> 26:41.425
malal outbreaks, right?

26:41.525 --> 26:42.825
As these swampy areas

26:43.115 --> 26:44.115
Warm. Um,

26:44.115 --> 26:45.965
we don't know exactly what they'll be,

26:45.985 --> 26:49.765
but we can predict broad epidemic like outbreaks.

26:50.465 --> 26:53.725
And let me just close by saying like the wildfires,

26:54.275 --> 26:58.085
like the harmful algae blooms, like the permafrost, all

26:58.085 --> 27:00.645
of them will spill over international borders

27:01.705 --> 27:04.725
and do damage that we can only address jointly.

27:05.585 --> 27:07.285
So this is what's looming,

27:07.985 --> 27:11.885
and it could get enormously expensive, enormously dangerous,

27:12.585 --> 27:15.805
and it simply is impossible for us to address them

27:16.365 --> 27:18.405
unilaterally or nationally.

27:18.915 --> 27:22.485
This is why we need at some point, to resume

27:23.435 --> 27:25.005
rapidly and intensively.

27:25.025 --> 27:27.245
We need to resume collaboration with all

27:27.245 --> 27:30.525
of the Arctic states because it's going to get so bad.

27:30.585 --> 27:33.845
We can't imagine. And the kind of petty rivalries

27:34.145 --> 27:38.005
and the arctic agendas, the energy, the transport,

27:38.185 --> 27:41.125
the shipping, all of that will be pushed aside

27:41.585 --> 27:43.765
by one public emergency

27:44.305 --> 27:46.565
and one global disaster after another.

27:46.735 --> 27:47.765
We're not prepared,

27:48.385 --> 27:50.885
and I'm afraid, if we don't start preparing

27:51.345 --> 27:54.725
by cooperating when it comes, it'll be so much worse.

From Peace to Rivalry: The Arctic in Crisis**

00:00:00 - Now what's happening in the high North in the Arctic is very troubling, and it's potentially tragic, a region that had been described as a zone of peace for nearly 30 years, right? Since the end of the Cold War is now abruptly becoming a zone of rivalry and potential military confrontation. The Russians on one side and America and the NATO members on the other side are building up military power. They're deploying more ships, more aircraft. They're basically facing off against each other as they conduct pole, patrols and maneuvers, circling each other. Wally. And meanwhile, cooperation on environmental issues,
00:00:43 - and a whole host of other priorities has come to a halt, right? For 30 years, roughly from 91 92 until 20 21, 20 22, it was this zone of peace. It was, referred to as this exceptional, the zone of Arctic exceptionalism. It seemed isolated from the kind of conflicts that would spill over into great power rivalries everywhere else in the world. no longer ever since the invasion of Ukraine cooperation has been frozen, and it's coming at the worst possible time. what my colleagues and I in our research are particularly concerned about is
00:01:24 - when environmental degradation is accelerating. When the crises before us, with everything from polar wildfires, permafrost melt, coastal erosion storms, and many more problems, just as they're becoming more grave, just as they demand more international cooperation, we are cooperating less. And I like to put it in a kind of ironic way. We are now seeing each other as enemies, right? The Russians and the Western powers and the Arctic. We were cooperating. We were maybe not friends, but we were colleagues, but now we're enemies.
00:02:05 - And it's happening right when the real enemy is just over the horizon, and that is climate disaster. And that real enemy demands cooperation because the problems I've described, and we'll go into more detail, those problems cannot be solved nationally. They cannot be addressed unilaterally. They demand transnational cooperation just when we've halted it. So that is the looming tragedy of the Arctic. The, those 30 years of Arctic exceptionalism were truly exceptional. I could say in a nutshell that the Arctic powers, and that's eight countries, right? The us, Canada, Russia, Norway, Sweden,
00:02:47 - and Denmark, those eight countries achieved a whole series of agreements, bilateral multilateral agreements, again, on everything from environmental protection, fisheries regulation, marine mammal protection, oil spill, and environmental pollution, recovery, navigation, search and rescue, commercial regulation, on and on. so it was a remarkable blossoming of cooperation, unlike what we've seen in any other region of the world, not in Southeast Asia, not in Africa. It was truly a model. So much so that, scholars began looking at the Arctic
00:03:28 - How were they doing it? Right? what institutions, what kind of leadership is it a model for future global governance around the globe, right? We were starting classes in global governance and cooperation, and the Arctic seemed to be leading the way. so that's the first thing. All of this cooperation broke out parallel simultaneously. Of course, it was important that the militarization, the military side went down, right? During the Cold War, the Arctic was a venue for confrontation, right? We had our cat, cat and mouse games at sea. We had under sea, through our submarines

"From Militarization to Collaboration: The Arctic Council and the Shift in Arctic Power Dynamics"

00:04:11 - And of course, missiles that might have been fired would transit the polar regions and bombers and surveillance aircraft were constantly circling. So it was a highly militarized, dangerous region. And when the Cold War ended, much of that went away. the United States, the Western Allies definitely reduced their presence, right? Bases in Greenland, bases in Iceland were dialed back. The level of activity was reduced. you know, there wasn't an American aircraft carrier across the Arctic Circle for more than 20 years. but in fairness, we have to admit
00:04:50 - that demilitarized even more, right? They had an extensive presence in the Arctic as well, and it just tumbled down, right? They probably cut their Arctic presence by about 90%, right? Their northern fleet, their navy was sharply reduced. They closed many bases and, you know, significantly reduced all kinds of military activity. And so together with the Russians, the NATO powers, the us, it just got quiet. It wasn't scary and threatening anymore, and that allowed this blossoming of scientific cooperation of environmental research and all the rest. that's what happened for those 25, almost 30 years.
00:05:34 - what put it all together was a remarkable new organization called the Arctic Council, right? The eight Arctic powers that I mentioned formed on their own, this new international, this intergovernmental agency, not under the United Nations, not under any other great power condominium or control. They came together as equals in Ottawa, Canada In 1996 and signed the charter of this Arctic Council. And that's the organization that has facilitated so much negotiation, so much cooperation, so much research. It has working groups. It has full members and observer members, right?
00:06:19 - social, political, cultural, right, native people's concerns. the Arctic Council did all of that remarkably well. So we have an institution, a model institution that together with that demilitarization and together with that desire to solve problems and come to agreement, tied it all in one into one knot and just performed remarkably. And that's what's at risk. Now, it's a number of things, and I'll get to Russia and the invasion Ofra in a moment. But a good decade or decade and a half
00:06:59 - things started to change, and a sense of rivalry began creeping in, because that's when we saw this rapid melting of the polar ice caps, particularly in the summers when the ice recedes. Anyway, in 2007, in 2011, there were remarkable retreats of that polar ice. And suddenly, right, the oil companies, the mineral extraction companies, the shipping companies, tourism containers, tankers, everybody saw some potential for gain in the Arctic. Now we can get at these minerals, now we can tap that oil or gas. Now we can ship a shortcut between Europe and Asia.
00:07:45 - suddenly burst on the scene again in the early two thousands. And it was hard for that not to immediately become securitized to become a competition, because we want the oil, but so do they. Who's gonna get the mineral resources? Who's gonna get the contracts? What about the territorial issues that haven't been settled? Is that natural gas in our zone or in Norways? Is it in Russia's or Finlands? So on and on. There was this sense that we have to position ourselves, we have to get ready for a oil rush. People were calling it a resource race or an oil rush.

"Rising Tensions and the Threat of Accidental Conflict in the Arctic: A Geopolitical Overview"

00:08:25 - to begin happening, there was already a sense of rivalry and a sense of getting poised right to compete. And as soon as that was on the horizon, then of course there was concern about, well, who's more powerful? Who can assert their rights? Who could grab territory if they want to? Who's gonna be dominant and who's gonna be pushed aside? And so that immediately turned attention to, well, who has the icebreakers? Who has the, the frigates and destroyers? Who has the submarines that can operate up there, whose air force has that reach? And above all, who has more arctic bases?
00:09:05 - even though nothing had really changed, right on the water or on the ice, I should say, the whole atmosphere had changed. And now it was one of competition. And, that went on for a decade in this sort of parla state where there was a sense of looming rivalry, a fear of each other, but nothing was really happening until 20 21, 20 22, and the Ukraine crisis. And then, then of course, the fear of Russia and Russia's fear of the West became absolutely palpable. And cooperation stopped. The military buildups grew,
00:09:47 - to call a, you know, sort of a security dilemma where we suddenly see their military assets as a threat. And so we want to build up and they see us building up and see us as a threat. Each of us perceive our own ports, our own airfields, our own military presence as defensive and the other guys as offensive. So each step to strengthen our defenses looks like an offensive move by the other. And around and around we go, and we are now unfortunately, following into a spiral of that sort.
00:10:29 - actually spill into real conflict. Both sides are very wary that we have nuclear weapons and that that would be tragic, but neither side wants to back down. So the tension is high. The confrontations continue, and I've gotta say war in the Arctic. Nobody wants it intentionally, but this is an area where accidental war is more likely than anywhere else. Why is that? Because accidental war happens when you have a collision at sea, when you have a false alarm for a missile launch, when you have some kind
00:11:09 - gets lost and accidentally flies over sensitive territory of the other side. These are the things that have started wars in the past have started the shooting. And I gotta tell you, the likelihood of those kinds of accidents in the Arctic is much greater than in other places, simply because it is so hostile, right? This is a region that is dark six months of the year. It has increasing storm activity, icing at sea, more electromagnetic interference than you can imagine. And all of these wreak havoc with warning, with communications, with ordinary coordination
00:11:49 - it could happen accidentally in the Arctic, in the blink of an eye, even though nobody wants it. And once somebody's killed, once something is damaged, then of course we posture, we retaliate, and it could get very bad Russian invasion of Ukraine, right? In February of 2022, by the way, which followed of course, years of tension over the annexation of Crimea and disturbances in the Donbass. It didn't happen overnight. It was already affecting some Arctic cooperation because the west was already sanctioning Russia. But then February, 2022 and all bets were off.

"The Deterioration of Arctic Collaboration: The Impact of Geopolitical Tensions on Environmental and Scientific Progress"

00:12:33 - and denunciation justifiable and understandable. What happened next was that essentially Russia was frozen out of the Arctic Council. The Arctic Council simply, simply stopped meeting with Russia and any business that the other Arctic powers had, they conducted privately, excluding Russia. in addition to the Arctic Council, there are a whole host of subsidiary organizations that had built up around it, right? There's the, you know, for example, the Euro, the Barrens, Euro Arctic Council, there's the Arctic Coast Guard Forum. There are various political and cultural exchange groups.
00:13:14 - Russia's participation in all of them was suspended. In some cases, Russia was simply kicked out. In other cases, Russia left. And so formal arc to council cooperation came to a halt. And all this informal diplomacy and contacts came to a halt as well. So that means we're not moving forward anymore, and we're actually going backwards. And one of the things within that halt to cooperation that is most concerning, it's the end to environmental and scientific collaboration. That means, for example, that even western scientists who were working with the Arctic colleagues on collecting
00:13:55 - or permafrost in release of methane, right? Again, we need to know what's happening in their country, in their regions, just as they need to know what's happening in ours. We all have studies and research and data collection that don't stop at national borders because these problems don't stop at national borders. But unfortunately, all of that's been halted. And why I focus on that is not only does that mean that we won't be able to address some of the environmental problems, we won't be able to anticipate where they're going as well as we could have had this scientific collaboration continued.
00:14:34 - It means a young generation of scientists and, researchers on both sides are no longer meeting each other, are no longer becoming colleagues, are no longer collaborating, are no longer forming friendships and going to the same conferences. And you know, that's really tragic because that's gonna have an impact that lasts generations. We know that the Cold War itself ended in part because of that kind of collaboration built up over the years of Deante in the 1970s and early eighties, even when military confrontation was high, even when political
00:15:19 - of scientists, nuclear scientists, environmental scientists, political scientists who continued their work and collaboration between the US and the USSR, between the USSR and the European Union countries. And those people helped end the Cold War. Those people on both sides pushed Ronald Reagan and Michal Gorbachev to compromise to arms control, to new cultural and political agreements. So the young researchers in the Arctic who were laying that same kind of groundwork for better and better collegial
00:15:59 - have now been cut off at the knees. So the science suffers, and the, you could say the scientific diplomacy suffers, and I'm not sure which is worse in the long run, but both are really bad for what we need in the Arctic going forward. As I said before, I think it's probably not gonna happen. The conditions are dangerous. The rivalry is strong, the militarization is growing. The prickly confrontational attitudes on both sides are worse than ever, but through it all, there is a weariness

"The Arctic Paradox: Navigating Military Tensions Amidst Environmental Urgency"**

00:16:41 - because of nuclear weapons. In a strange way, Ukraine is teaching us a lesson to not let that happen in the high North, seeing the kinds of destruction and the tit for tat escalation. so the conditions are dangerous. They're highly charged, they're militarized. And as I said, the Arctic environment is hostile and very conducive to accident and misunderstanding. But throughout all, throughout all of that, there is a weariness and a caution that we don't wanna let it get out of hand. And I would also add one more thing, which is that
00:17:24 - of this is about nothing. Of course, it's about Ukraine, it's about reprisals, what, what Russia's doing in Ukraine. But there's a kind of understanding, and I know this from talking to naval people and air force veterans and arctic experts on both sides, which I've done for years. I know there's a kind of understanding that there's something unnecessary and artificial about all this, because there really is nothing to fight over up in the Arctic. What I mean by that is that oil and gas minerals, there is more than enough for everybody to keep pumping and drilling for another 20
00:18:08 - In other words, onshore or near offshore, where there is no dispute for another 25 years before anyone would even think of going out to the North Pole, going out into contested territory. And if we're still drilling petroleum and burning it in 25 years, we're all dead anyway, right? So there's been this understanding that the resource scramble, the oil rush that was touted again back in 2007, 2012, is artificial. It's made up, but it'll never come to be. Furthermore, even if there wasn't the threat
00:18:45 - and just destroying our planet, it's also a fact that in the time, the last 10 years since that perception of a resource scramble, first burst on the scene, and today we've, we've seen a remarkable drop in the price of solar and wind power, remarkable progress in grid, in battery, in all kinds of storage and transmission of electricity, such that it's hard to imagine anyone ever needing that oil or gas in 25 years. In other words, the world is shifting away thanks to technological change, and thanks to the new economics of energy, we're shifting away from petroleum in any case.
00:19:28 - and coal that's under the ice, under the sea and the arctic will probably mostly remain there. And once we understand that, then we all step back and say, well then what is it we're fighting over? Right? Nobody needs anyone else's territory. Remember, the North Pole is a bunch of ice and water. There's no ground to grab up there. So if we don't want to take territory and, and we don't need the resources and they're too expensive and difficult to get anyway, and let's all step, take a step back, take a deep breath, and realize there's nothing much to fight over except what's happening in Ukraine, except what's happening in the Middle East.
00:20:11 - that the Arctic itself is a zone of peace. The arctic itself itself has nothing worth fighting over and everything worth collaborating on. So my hope is that when the Ukraine war ends, and it must end, and it's a precondition for renewed cooperation, otherwise the hostility is just too high, even though it doesn't make sense, it's there. But when it does, I'm cautiously optimistic that there'll be a quick resumption of arctic cooperation and a catching up on so much research, so much collaboration, that we both need.

"Facing the Inevitable: The Urgent Need for Arctic Environmental Cooperation"

00:20:54 - if we don't prepare for the environmental collapse that's coming and all the transnational effects, all the international spillover, then we will lose a war to enemy number one. It's not Russia, it's mother nature. The enemy, the common enemy that I'm talking about, the looming threat of environmental collapse that I say demands our cooperation. What is it? Am I being alarmist? I don't think so. And of course, this is the subject of this collaborative National Science Foundation project that I'm the principal investigator on
00:21:33 - and geopolitics. I would point to three or four of the biggest threats to give you a concrete and tangible example. Number one is the thawing or the melting permafrost we've already seen. Not only does that cause a massive release of carbon dioxide and methane, right, which leads to this positive feedback loop of more warming, more melting, more warming. But it also is starting to have more immediate, tangible, destructive effects on arctic infrastructure. For example, in Russia, a massive tank of diesel fuel
00:22:18 - because the ground underneath it collapsed. The permafrost melted. We have seen pipelines in Alaska, in Russia, in Canada, cracking and breaking because the soil underneath is heaving and buckling. We've seen roads break, we've seen bridges come down, and this is just the beginning. If the perms frost continues at this rate, the amount of infrastructure damage which spills over immediately into en environmental damage will be in the tens of billions annually to repair.
00:22:57 - If we go out 15, 20 years, it grows by an order of magnitude. That's number one. number number two, wildfires for several years, we've watched sometimes with a kind of sense of Schaden Freud, unfortunately, as Siberia was plagued with months and months of uncontrollable wildfires in the Russian Arctic. And of course that's putting an enormous amount of carbon and soot in the atmosphere. It has direct public health impacts on local communities, and then it spreads all over the Arctic and into the atmosphere. Well, guess what? Last summer, it was Canada's turn
00:23:41 - and again, did tens of billions in damage. That damage consists of the cost of firefighting, which in many cases is futile. They can't be stopped, but at least we try to protect certain communities. Number two, the impact on the forestry industry is catastrophic. And then of course, tourism and other affiliated industries suffer as well. So again, tens of billions in damage were done just in Quebec province alone last summer, and there's no reason we won't see worse and worse wildfire seasons in everybody's arctic.
00:24:22 - It's a problem that is spiraling out of control and will consume so much of our resources just to ameliorate these immediate impacts. It's hard to know where we would get the money for more icebreakers and missiles in the Arctic anyway, right? They're drawing at the same limited budgets. that's number two. What else? Number three, let's go out to the seas. Harmful algae blooms. We've all seen what happens when there's a red tide off of Florida, right? Or an algae bloom off of Cape Cod, massive die-offs of fish. And you probably know the cycle where the algae bloom.

"The Arctic Crisis: Uniting Against Environmental Catastrophes and Public Health Threats"

00:25:01 - eventually they create a dead zone fish or marine mammals are wiped out. There's no oxygen, right? and then there are all these toxins, these cytotoxins caused by the decomposition of the dead algae. Well, that problem, guess what is invading the arctic too? And we're seeing the microorganisms and the algae cysts that cause these blooms up north of the bearing strait for the first time. The likely impact on the native communities that rely on fishing and wailing, subsistence, wailing will be devastating. But don't forget, all of our North Atlantic species,
00:25:46 - to find cold water, to find the right habitat, and they're already suffering from parasites, from collapse of their own food chain. You probably know that for several years running the king crab, snow crab, red crab harvest in Alaska have been canceled because the populations have fallen so low. Now imagine all of that repeated and magnified, not just for crustacean, but for fish, for marine mammals in the Arctic proper. you have, again, devastating impacts on commercial fishing as well as subsistence fishing.
00:26:24 - Let me just quickly mention the most mysterious of all, and that is disease outbreaks, right? Anthrax, long dormant viruses and bacteria that have been frozen in the permafrost. It's very likely we will see perhaps even malal outbreaks, right? As these swampy areas Warm. we don't know exactly what they'll be, but we can predict broad epidemic like outbreaks. And let me just close by saying like the wildfires, like the harmful algae blooms, like the permafrost, all of them will spill over international borders and do damage that we can only address jointly.
00:27:07 - and it could get enormously expensive, enormously dangerous, and it simply is impossible for us to address them unilaterally or nationally. This is why we need at some point, to resume rapidly and intensively. We need to resume collaboration with all of the Arctic states because it's going to get so bad. We can't imagine. And the kind of petty rivalries and the arctic agendas, the energy, the transport, the shipping, all of that will be pushed aside by one public emergency and one global disaster after another.
00:27:51 - and I'm afraid, if we don't start preparing by cooperating when it comes, it'll be so much worse.

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