BUS604: Innovation and Sustainability

Of the Arctic Five, the United States government has been the slowest to move on Arctic affairs. In the very last days of the George W. Bush Administration, the Arctic Region Policy was announced on 9 January 2009 as a Presidential Directive,  which was reaffirmed by the Obama administration in the National Security Strategy of 2011. This is a policy concept, not a strategy.

The directive enumerates familiar Arctic themes: emphasizing the question of sovereignty that the US holds in the Arctic; urging protection of the environment and environmentally sustainable resource management; protecting and involving indigenous communities; and enhancing scientific research. On the legal front, the directive acknowledges the Beaufort Sea dispute with Canada and seeks consultation with the Senate to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

What sets the American view of the Arctic apart from other states is that it is viewed solely as a security and homeland defense challenge. The melting ice opens a back door to the American continent, and this has to be secured. Whereas the Arctic strategies of Norway and Denmark are largely diplomatic pamphlets written by diplomats for international consumption, and Canada has an integrated social development strategy, President Bush's 2009 Arctic Region Policy and the Pentagon's 2011 Report to Congress on Arctic Operations and the Northwest Passage treat the Arctic solely as a security matter. And if it is only a security challenge, then it competes for attention and money with the Middle East, the South China Sea, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

It is therefore very difficult to finance even the modest ambitions that these documents contain. Although Hillary Clinton attended the 2013 Kiruna session of the Arctic Council, the State Department under her and her successor John Kerry did not take any initiatives on the Beaufort Sea dispute or the Law of the Sea. With such little attention and guidance coming from the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department, the US Navy and US Coast Guard chose to develop their own Arctic policies and strategies. Not to be upstaged, the White House and Department of Defense did eventually produce two short Arctic strategy documents of their own.  

The US Navy's department of Energy, Environment, and Climate Change established the Task Force on Climate Change in 2009. This office, until recently headed by Rear Admiral David Titley, the chief oceanographer and navigator of the US Navy, has carried out the most innovative work on the Arctic in the American government. The TFCC's remit included research on the changing Arctic, rising sea levels, changes in storm patterns, assistance to vulnerable nations, and increases in humanitarian assistance and disaster response.  In October 2009, the TFCC published the US Navy Arctic Roadmap, which provided a comprehensive overview of investments in capabilities the Navy requires, as well as new methods of strategic and operational planning. The roadmap in the document describes three phases of navy action, from assessments to developing capabilities and their implementation. This work was followed up in May 2010 with the publication of the US Navy Climate Change Roadmap, which includes a similar phased plan, calling for education on climate change in the Naval War College curriculum and implementation of climate change assessments in training and in strategic and operational planning.  Rear Admiral Titley and his successor Rear Admiral Jonathan White, with their staff, have shown valuable leadership in laying the intellectual and organizational foundations for the US Navy's future activities in the Arctic.

In May 2013 the US Coast Guard took the lead and published its Arctic Strategy, the only constabulary agency in the world to do so. This is the most comprehensive document produced by the American government, covering its vision, policy concept, and long-term strategic objectives, which are defined as improving awareness, modernizing governance, and broadening partnerships. Each of these objectives is tied to a strategy for long-term success.

In the same month the White House released its first National Strategy for the Arctic Region, a rushed 11-page document that aims to be an overarching framework. It describes a set of policy preferences, with an emphasis on security, responsible stewardship, and international cooperation. The document lists objectives in a familiar range of areas: energy security, domain awareness, freedom of the seas, environmental conservation, integrated management, and to "increase understanding of the Arctic through scientific research and traditional knowledge".  While it states all these goals, the document says very little about how they are to be carried out. Despite its title, the objectives are not tied to clear processes, which are left for other departments to figure out. This document can therefore not be considered a serious strategy.

Six months later, the Department of Defense issued its own first Arctic Strategy, another brief document of 14 pages. The Pentagon defines the "desired end-state of the Arctic" as "a secure and stable region where US national interests are safeguarded, the US homeland is protected, and nations work cooperatively to address challenges".  In an improvement over the White House, the Pentagon document connects these goals to processes and means to achieve them, including multilateral security collaboration, preparation for a wide range of contingencies, engagement with private and public partners for domain awareness, and support for the Arctic Council. The emphasis of this document is on the exercise of sovereignty and the protection of the homeland.

With this relative inattention from the highest levels of executive authority in the American government, it is not surprising that the US Navy and Coast Guard took the lead in developing their own comprehensive strategies. In the 2011 Report to Congress on Arctic Operations and the Northwest Passage – reiterating the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review – the Pentagon urged both the development of necessary capabilities and the ratification of the Law of the Sea:

There is a slightly tragic sense in this report, in which the urgency and need for capabilities is recognised, but the limitations in the present fiscal environment are also acknowledged. The appeal to ratify the Law of the Sea is sensible, but has not moved the Senate to action. If the US fails to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in time, it will not have access to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) to submit its claim before 16 November 2014 (the Danish deadline) despite the fact that the US recognises its guiding principles as international law.

This is an egregious oversight, not least because it was President Truman who first declared US sovereignty over its continental shelf in his Proclamation of 1945, initiating a custom that has matured into an established rule of international customary law. It is remarkable that in a situation where the international legal community, the defense establishment, and the White House are all in agreement about the necessity for ratification, the US Senate remains incapable of pulling together 60 senators to overcome the threat of a filibuster. The US has wasted several great opportunities already and risks being left behind in the Far North if the Senate doesn't take the region more seriously very soon.

On the political level, the US is a bystander in the big developments occurring in the region, and has no overall vision for the Arctic. Nonetheless, there have been some important positive moves. When Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton did attend the Arctic Council sessions, and expressed support for its growth and development. The US Navy's Task Force on Climate Change has done the most important intellectual groundwork and policy for the future of the Navy. This is the only part of the US government where an innovative vision, concept, strategy, and phased plan are being carried out to a genuine breakthrough transforming the US Navy on the whole spectrum from its curriculum and research to its activities. The US Coast Guard also developed a comprehensive vision, concept, and strategy for the long term. At the highest level, however, the two short documents published by the White House and Pentagon reflect their inattention. The Senate's failure to ratify the Convention on the Law of the Sea is the greatest oversight, but it is not necessarily the greatest obstacle for regional governance, which can still be developed on the basis of international law and agreements.