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5.1 Roundtable 3: Naval
Operations in the Americas
Moderator’s Summary
Mr. Dana Goward
As you all know, the U.S. Coast Guard conducts naval operations in America as well as throughout the Americas. What I would
The moderator is Mr. Dana Goward. Mr. Goward assumed his duties
as Director, Office of Assessment, Integration and Risk Management
in March 2008. His directorate has a varied portfolio that includes
Arctic and oceans policy, coordination of antipiracy efforts, port security assessment, and business planning and analysis for each of the
Coast Guard’s 11 statutory missions. He also serves as the Department
of Homeland Security (DHS) and Coast Guard Executive Agent for
Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) issues. Prior to his selection
to the Senior Executive Service, Mr. Goward was Chief, Search and
Rescue Policy; Chief, Office of MDA Systems and Architecture; and
the Director of MDA Program Integration. Mr. Goward served as an
active duty Coast Guard officer for 29 years. His military assignments
included Deck Watch Officer and Fisheries Inspector; Chief Civil
Penalty Magistrate for the Gulf Coast, Caribbean and Inland River
System;Director of Human Resources for the Eighth Coast Guard
District; and Chief of the Coast Guard’s Office of Boat Forces. In the
latter position he led the world’s largest public safety and security boat
operation with over 1700 vessels and 9000 people. He was awarded
the Legion of Merit for leading the transformation of the U.S. Coast
Guard’s boat operations. A majority of his military career, however, was
spent as a helicopter pilot serving in the Caribbean, Great Lakes, and
on both coasts before being assigned as Commanding Officer of Coast
Guard Air Station New Orleans. He is the recipient of the Air Medal
and the Helicopter Association International’s Igor Sikorsky Award
for Humanitarian Service for the rescue of two fishermen during the
height of a hurricane. He has also been recognized for his creation of
the Coast Guard’s Helicopter Rescue Swimmer program. Mr. Goward
is a 1974 graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London,
Connecticut, where he received a bachelor of science degree. He holds
a master’s degree from the Naval Post Graduate School and a certificate in Human Performance from the University of New Orleans.
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like to talk to you about today, before I turn the podium over to our
panel of experts, is just that: the effect of climate change on naval
operations in America.
Before I start on that, however, I want to assure you that the
Coast Guard is concerned about what climate change can do, and
is doing—not just to our active duty naval forces, but also to our
ability to support naval operations in the lower 48 states as well
as at higher latitudes. We are also interested in how these changes
will affect our shoreside forces and the people who live and work
along the coast.
In our own small way, we are adapting to the new realities
in terms of energy and climate change and we are doing our bit
to further scientific research in areas in which climate change is
most apparent.
Now, let me preview the main points of my talk—there are
three things that I want to leave you with today. First, the United
States is an Arctic nation. Most Americans live in the lower 48
and so we cannot see Russia from our homes. However, there are
Americans who can, and there are folks who can see a lot of ice
from their homes. Both groups are as much a part of the United
States as are the rest of us.
Second, the Arctic is changing. Regardless of your scientific,
political, or cultural philosophy, the change is quite evident. The
Arctic is simply becoming more accessible. And as it becomes
more accessible, more people are accessing it. As a result, the
Arctic is actually becoming a more dangerous place than was the
case previously. When it was frozen (I won’t say it was a frozen
wasteland because that would offend a lot of the scientists here),
it was essentially inaccessible. But now that it is semifrozen and
much more accessible, there is much more human activity and, as
a result, it is much more dangerous and much more variable.
My third and final point is that the United States has the same
sovereign rights and responsibilities in the Arctic as it does in the
Gulf of Mexico. The big difference is that in the Gulf of Mexico
we have a substantial federal, especially Coast Guard, footprint
and we have a friendly neighbor with settled borders next door in
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Mexico. In the Arctic, we have virtually no footprint, the Russians
are next door, the Chinese are on the way, and our borders with
Canada and Russia are not settled and there are a lot of things that
are up for grabs. So that is the whole presentation in a nutshell.
Before I go on, I wanted to let you know that some of what I will
discuss will duplicate information included in other presentations.
You should take from this fact not that your federal government is
boring you with repetition, but that there is some agreement as to
which topics and issues are the most important and most relevant.
So the Arctic is changing and it is changing faster than most
people have predicted. This is leading to increased activity. As
some of you know, last year several German cargo vessels navigated the Northern Sea route unaided by icebreakers. Was it a
pioneering and unusual event? The answer to that question is yes.
Was it a forerunner of a lot more activity of the same kind that will
save people lots of money and lots of time in shipping? The answer
to that question is probably yes as well.
We have a saying in the Coast Guard that when the sailboats
show up, you can guarantee that pretty much everyone is going to
show up. For the last several years, we have had sailboats showing up in the Arctic. In fact, this is about year three of the Arctic
becoming essentially an adventurer’s playground with yachts,
cabin cruisers, folks seeking excitement and death in unusual ways
throughout the summer season. Fortunately, they have yet to find
death in unusual ways, but we know that will happen eventually; it
is only a matter of time.
Of course, you all know oil and gas have been found in the
Arctic. Although the oil and gas companies have been stymied by
environmental concerns and court orders, those restrictions are
now being lifted and we are beginning to see, especially in the U.S.
portion of the Arctic, some serious movement toward exploration.
What is less well known is the fact that there are all kinds of
minerals available in the U.S. Arctic. The world’s largest tin mine,
the Red Dog mine, operates in Alaska above the Arctic Circle.
They have to barge the ore out to the bulk carriers because the
approach is so shallow. The miners accumulate ore over the course
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of the winter and then ship it out in summer—a period that seems
to be getting longer and longer.
I think you all know about the various claims that are unsettled.
These claims are not necessarily just about the borders and whose
country stops where; they also apply to the undersea portion of the
Arctic—especially the so-called Extended Outer Continental Shelf.
You’ve got to love the Russians. Starting with Sputnik, they have
been able to get us galvanized on all kinds of things we should
have been paying attention to but had not been. Last year they
dropped the Russian flag on the bottom of the sea up by the North
Pole and said that they claim a large portion of the Extended Outer
Continental Shelf as Russian territory. This summer they say that
they are going to drop some paratroops on the ice at the North
Pole. That should awaken those complacent Westerners. They have
also resumed their bomber flights to test the Distant Early Warning
(DEW) Line; those flights had been in hiatus since the fall of the
Berlin Wall. We now even have checkpoints in the Bering Sea.
There are a number of operational challenges that affect our
ability to conduct naval operations in the Arctic (Figure 1). One of
the biggest of these is distance. You do not necessarily think of that
when you think of the Arctic. But if you look at Dutch Harbor in
the lower left-hand corner, that is the last refueling point for going
northbound. Unless you have a high-endurance icebreaker that is
outfitted with lots of fuel, by the time you get your normal highendurance Coast Guard cutter up to Barrow, Alaska, you are only
going to have about 4 or 5 days’ worth of fuel left before it’s time
to turn around and head back to Dutch Harbor.
Let’s look next at the issue of governance. We in the Coast
Guard have developed a mental model that helps us understand
our requirements in the maritime domain. We look at three things.
First, you need a rule set or what we call a “regime.” You need to
know the rules, how everybody should operate, the kinds of things
that you want to enforce, best practices, and so forth.
The second thing that you really need is awareness. You need
to understand both the environment and what people are doing
out there. You need to know if they are they obeying the rules,
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Figure 1. Operational Challenges for Naval Operations
in the Arctic
if they are in trouble, and whether things are going according to
the rule set—those expectations that you have established for that
particular area or domain.
Finally, you have to have operational capability based on your
awareness of whether the rule sets are being followed. You need
to be able to go out and interact with the real world and enforce
those rules and bring people’s performance and behavior more in
conformance with the way they ought to be behaving.
I have structured the next few figures in terms of the regimes
we have established for the Arctic, what we have in terms of awareness—not much—and what we have in terms of operational capability—even less. In terms of rule sets, we have a really good one:
the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Figure 2).
Although it is fairly comprehensive, the United States has yet to
ratify it.
We have, however, said that we will abide by it in terms of
making our claim for our portion of the Outer Continental Shelf,
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Figure 2. Convention of the Law of the Sea [1]
in terms of bringing Canada to the table in any kind of binding
arbitration and agreement process to determine whether the
Northwest Passage is internal waters or an international strait, as
we believe. Of course, you can guess who believes it is internal
waters. Currently, we have no seat at the table. We are completely
out in left field along with the Iranians and the North Koreans, who
also have refused to sign on. You might say that we are part of the
axis of nonconcurrence for the Law of the Sea—a good club to be
in, really in our best interest.
Otherwise, we do have good rule regimes there. In fact, the
Arctic Council, the group of the eight Arctic nations that meets
periodically to talk about Arctic issues and ways to keep it a relatively pristine place, how to care for one of the world’s last unexplored wildernesses, has established that an Antarctic treaty-like
device is not needed because the Arctic is all water and we already
have a Law of the Sea. So we are all set.
In the United States, I will not say we are all set, but we have
recently had our Arctic policy refreshed by the release of National
Security Presidential Directive 66/Homeland Security Presidential
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Directive 25 (NSPD-66/HSPD-25), which identifies the following
policy objectives [2]:
• Promote security needs
• Protect Arctic environment
• Conserve biological resources
• Ensure sustainable development
• Strengthen Arctic nation cooperation
• Involve Arctic indigenous communities
• Enhance scientific research
It goes on at some great length to talk about different ways we
should treat the region. As a result, we have at least reasonable
concurrence on what the regime should be and how folks should
behave. We are continuing to develop appropriate multinational
search and rescue agreements as well as others.
How about awareness? Well, it is a big area; satellites tend
to be asleep when they go over and we do not have a whole lot
of any other kind of infrastructure to tell us what is going on. The
U.S. Coast Guard has recently started to focus on this area; the
Department of Defense (DoD) has as well. We have participated
in a number of conferences and meetings with folks throughout the
sensing community trying to address this. One of the things we are
doing is conducting periodic C-130 flights up through the Arctic
to improve our awareness of what is going on and also to provide
some kind of presence patrol in the area. See Figure 3.
One of the challenges we face is that at –43°F, jet fuel turns to
jelly. As a helicopter pilot, I can tell you that it is not a good thing
in any kind of an aircraft because jelly does not flow through the
fuel lines to reach the engines. We are also conducting summer
deployments from southern Alaska to northern Alaska as part of
our Arctic Crossroads Operation. We are doing this to provide
presence in the region, improve our awareness, and learn how to
operate there.
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Figure 3. Arctic Awareness Patrols
So far, we have found that small boats do not work very well,
small helicopters do not work very well, and anything that does not
have de-icing on it does not work very well. We have also learned
that the local folks know a whole lot of stuff that we really need
to know. These activities have also provided unparalleled opportunities for us to learn about them, for them to learn about us, and
for us to assess the damage that the climate change is doing to the
Alaskan coastline.
When examining naval operations in the Arctic, it is important to keep in mind that the polar-class icebreaker is the only
method of ensuring unrestricted surface maneuverability in icecovered waters. The United States currently has three such vessels
(Figure 4). One of them is in mothballs and one is a medium-class
icebreaker—the Coast Guard cutter Healey—as much a science
ship as it is an icebreaker. The third is the Polar Sea, a true heavy
polar-class icebreaker.
In terms of our sovereign rights and responsibilities as an
Arctic nation, a number of important considerations come into
play. Certainly just being able to get up there and move around
is one of them. If you compare our fleet of three icebreakers with
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Figure 4. U.S. Polar Icebreakers
the numbers of similar ships operated by other Arctic nations
(Figure 5), you can see that, from a pure Mahanian naval strategy
perspective, we should all be really worried. Not only does Russia
have a huge fleet of icebreakers, it has an enormous coastline bordering the Arctic.
Figure 5. Comparison of Icebreaker Capacity
of Various Nations
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Another factor underlying the importance of the Arctic to
Russia is the vast store of natural resources that will eventually
become accessible. As indicated in Figure 6, these include substantial amounts of oil and natural gas. As the Arctic continues to
thaw and as we encounter our Arctic neighbors more frequently,
we are going to be at a substantial disadvantage. Although we
do have superiority in the air and under the sea, I do not think
that leaping directly to submarine warfare or air strikes is a good
way to have the continuum of engagement that you need in order
for international relations to go as smoothly as you would like.
Obviously, we are looking at international interest to continue to
conduct research. We certainly want to protect the environment.
Most definitions of the Arctic, by the way, include the Aleutian
Islands that lie along the southern edge of the Bering Sea. The
Bering Sea is ice covered 40–50% at some times of the year and
you need the same kind of operational capabilities to exercise your
sovereignty and protect your rights in that area as you do farther
north. What is now a very pristine environment with increased
shipping and increased hydrocarbon exploration and increased
human activity of all kinds could become very unpristine very
quickly if we are not careful.
Figure 6. Arctic Oil and Natural Gas Potential
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As the ocean warms along the Alaskan coast, seemingly strange
things can happen. We recently had the mayor of Barrow, Alaska,
in for lunch and he told us that all of a sudden they have a crab
fishery in Barrow, all of a sudden they are starting to see salmon.
Some of the people in Barrow had never seen a salmon before.
So, we fully expect that the fisheries will continue to move north
into the Arctic Ocean. The government is currently reassessing its
moratorium on fishing in U.S. waters. As soon as it becomes commercially viable, folks are going to want to exploit that.
The pictures collected in Figure 7 are not from the Arctic, but
rather from the Antarctic. I think it is fairly easy to extrapolate the
fact that if we have X number of cruise ships visiting the Antarctic,
every once in a while, you have a couple of these things happen.
Cruise ships are now visiting the Arctic. Several years ago we had
3000 German tourists arrive unannounced in downtown Nome
looking for T-shirts. You can imagine the locals’ amazement at
seeing these folks with their big cameras, their shorts, and their
beer steins.
As the level of activity builds in the Arctic, we are going to see
these kinds of things. This is a concern to the Coast Guard because
we have responsibilities to respond to or prevent such incidents.
We need to be able to protect the people who are visiting Alaska,
Figure 7. Images from the Antarctic
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and we need to be able to protect the people who already live in
Alaska. One of the tenets of the Presidential Directive and the U.S.
policy for the Arctic is to protect and preserve the local culture
and peoples there. Of course, we have national security concerns
as well.
If you take home nothing else from my presentation, take home
the fact that the United States is an Arctic nation and we have
real concerns about our ability to exercise our sovereign rights
and our sovereign responsibilities there given our current lack
of capability.
References
1. United Nations, United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Sea, Geneva, Switzerland, 10 Dec 1982, http://www.un.org/
Depts/los/convention_agreements/convention_overview_
convention.htm.
2. The White House, National Security Presidential Directive
66/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 25 (NSPD-66/
HSPD-25), Arctic Region Policy, 9 Jan 2009, http://www.fas.
org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-66.htm.
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5.2 Climate and Energy
Availability Impacts on
Operations in USNORTHCOM
Lieutenant Colonel O. Kent Strader
In my presentation, I will examine how changes in climate and
energy availability may affect the evolution of naval force operations
Lieutenant Colonel O. Kent Strader is a Distinguished Military
Graduate of San Diego State University, receiving his commission from
the Reserve Officer Training Corps. Lieutenant Colonel Strader served
in a variety of command and staff positions in airborne and light infantry units for the first 11 years of his career. As a Junior Officer,
he commanded both an airborne training company at the U.S. Army
Airborne School in Georgia and a 320-man Opposing Force Company
at the Combat Maneuver Training Center in Germany. Additionally, he
served as a Light Infantry Task Force (Airborne) Observer/Controller at
the National Training Center in California. As a newly promoted Field
Grade Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Strader served a year overseas as an
advisor to the Saudi Arabia National Guard in Western Saudi Arabia.
He transferred to the Strategic Plans and Policy career field after his
tour in Saudi Arabia. He was later posted as a campaign planner to U.S.
Army III Corps in Texas. When the Corps assumed the role of MultiNational Corps–Iraq in December 2006, he was privileged to serve as
a lead planner for General Ray Odierno during the Iraq Surge. Upon
completion of his tour in Iraq, Lieutenant Colonel Strader served as a
Strategic Policy and Concepts Planner in support of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) Military Committee in Brussels, Belgium,
where he produced and gained consensus from nations on three key
policy documents. Since April 2009, Lieutenant Colonel O. Kent
Strader has served as the Deputy Chief, Strategic Concepts Branch,
Strategy and Policy Division, U.S. Northern Command J5, Plans, Policy,
and Strategy Directorate. Lieutenant Colonel Strader is a graduate of
the U.S. Army Command and Staff College and the School of Advanced
Military Studies. He also is a graduate of the NATO Defence College in
Rome, Italy. Lieutenant Colonel Strader holds a bachelor’s of science in
history from Liberty University and master’s of military art and science
from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. Lieutenant
Colonel Strader has received numerous awards and decorations.
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(Navy, Marines, or Coast Guard) in the U.S. Northern Command
(USNORTHCOM) area of responsibility (AOR), to include changes
in tasking, organization, or equipment. I will frame my discussion
by beginning with some opening remarks, and then attempt to
address the two main issues contained in this question, and conclude with some recommendations.
Let me briefly scope the limits of my comments if I may. First,
I have chosen to limit my remarks to one specific piece of the
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) area of
operations and the USNORTHCOM AOR, specifically, the Arctic
region. The reason I have chosen to do this is because this is a
region where we anticipate the most evolutionary change in naval
force operations in the near and long term. Second, some may be
dismayed but I will not speak to the science of climate change.
The reason I will not do so is because (1) I am not qualified and
(2) at NORAD and USNORTHCOM we concern ourselves with
the fact that access to the Arctic is increasing and we leave the
science to the scientists. Better yet, I know when I am out of my
depth. Third, I will not try to speak for the U.S. Navy or U.S. Coast
Guard (USCG); rather I will limit my remarks to the perspective of
our Commander, General Renuart, and those resultant conditions
in the Arctic that affect USNORTHCOM’s two distinct mission
sets: homeland defense and civil support. With these limitations in
mind, let me now make a few stage-setting remarks.
There is little doubt that interest in the Arctic is growing. Over
the past 10 years a steady stream of sometimes provocative and
alarming headlines has appeared in different news sources (forgive
my overuse of the BBC) telling us that a great game is about to
be played out in the Arctic. I would suggest to you that this is not
what we should be focusing our attention on; rather I would suggest that, like the iceberg in the background of Figure 1, what we
know about the Arctic is only the tip of the iceberg and below the
surface is a vast amount of knowledge and understanding we have
yet to comprehend.
Regions that undergo significant change and possess a high
level of global attention demand a well-developed national strategy. Today’s Arctic region requires diplomatic, military, economic,
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and informational sources of national power synchronized within
a unified effort to realize U.S. interests in the region. The United
States needs to further its own policy efforts directed toward positively influencing the formative Arctic region.
Regardless of the true causes and future ramifications of global
climate change, it is conceivable that a relatively ice-diminished
or ice-infested summer in the Arctic Ocean may become a reality ahead of current 2030–2040 estimates. A routinely accessible
Arctic Ocean portends significant change for the global economy
as trade routes change and new resource reserves become accessible. Nations bordering this area will attempt to harvest new
resources, and increased interest in the Arctic region is already
evident from many countries.
These changes imply challenges for the United States that
involve national boundaries, sovereignty, national security, environmental regulation, resource exploitation, and altered lives of
indigenous peoples. A comprehensive national strategy is critical,
and yet the most recent policy guidance is yet to be implemented.
Figure 1. Recent Headlines Related to the Arctic
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A strategy is necessary to guide the Department of Defense’s (DoD)
Arctic readiness. Specific defense challenges include a divided
U.S. military command structure in the Arctic and the need for
force structure improvements to operate routinely in the region’s
harsh environment.
Increased Arctic access has the potential to mold this region
into a crossroads of global economic activity. An example of this is
the navigation of the Northern Sea Route by the Beluga Fraternity
and the Beluga Foresight this past summer. Today the United States
sits ill positioned to leverage its Arctic interests. As other nations
accelerate their activities in the region, proactive U.S. movement toward a coherent and credible Arctic posture for tomorrow
appears prudent.
In terms of climate change, USNORTHCOM can offer general climate change predictions and their impacts to DoD facilities
based on general scientific consensus:
• Coastal facilities may be vulnerable to effects from more
intense hurricanes and ocean-born storms.
• Coastal facilities may be vulnerable to effects from sealevel rise due to melting of land-based ice masses (glaciers,
Greenland ice sheet, and Antarctica).
• Southern and Southwest U.S. facilities may be vulnerable to effects of severe periods of drought and likely
water restrictions.
• Facilities in Alaska may be vulnerable to permafrost thawing
and coastal erosion due to increasing temperatures in the
Arctic region and the receding icepack.
• Alaskan North Slope facilities are most vulnerable due to
near-pervasive permafrost and coastal erosion.
• Alaskan Interior facilities are potentially vulnerable depending on the location of “discontinuous” permafrost.
As far as energy availability is concerned, the Arctic region
is widely considered to be rich in natural resources to include
oil, natural gas, minerals, lumber, and many species of sea life.
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Untapped oil reserves in the Arctic region may be abundant and
a tremendous supplement to the world’s reserves. However, the
true extent of Arctic oil remains unknown, and predictions vary
widely. Some contend as much as 25% of the world’s oil reserves
may lie beneath the Arctic. The promise of new oil resources
drives national interests toward the Arctic region to include nations
beyond those that border the region. This future global interest
in the assumed Arctic oil reserves assumes continued world reliance on hydrocarbon fuel sources over the next several decades
coupled with a continued rise in oil prices. This scenario enables
the harvest of hidden oil caches that today remain enormously
uneconomical to pursue. The emergence of legitimate alternative
fuel sources may also limit the compelling nature of the Arctic’s
resource implications.
The bottom line is that energy and its availability greatly impact
our national security. Energy is a center of gravity for both homeland defense as well as support to and by civil authorities. Energy is
required to provide basic services expected by our citizenry from
the local, state, and federal governments. It is one of the basic
requirements to help re-establish communities after disasters. For
the DoD, a lack of a reliable and secure energy source directly
impacts the ability of our forces to perform mission-critical tasks
and to ensure our national security.
In terms of the role DoD should play in our nation’s energy
strategy, DoD is both the single greatest federal end user of energy
as well as the largest federal implementer of renewable energy.
DoD can provide secure federal facilities to support the implementation and testing of innovations at both installation and regional
scopes. Some of these innovations such as smart grid technology
and implementation can be used to help forward national efforts
in both energy production and conservation. These kinds of efforts
increase DoD mission assurance through increased energy availability as DoD continues to improve efficiency of facilities and
advanced vehicles to support conservation efforts. The DoD, as an
active partner in the development process, can provide the voice
for the importance of security as other agencies may focus more
on resiliency or efficiency of the advancing technologies.
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Returning to the Arctic region, the emergence of significant
oil reserves in the Arctic threatens to shift some of the focus of
oil production supremacy away from the Middle East. The potential reduction in global influence and wealth may inspire elevated
aggression from the Middle Eastern centers of power. Furthermore,
increased traffic through the Arctic region opens new avenues of
approach to the homeland that illegal immigrants or extremists
may exploit, and sea lines of communication (SLOC) choke points
in the Arctic represent new vulnerabilities to the free flow of commerce. Although an extremist scenario may seem outrageous, I
would remind you what the 911 Report said: “The one thing we
lack that our enemies do not is imagination.” [1]
In short, the Arctic region clearly has the interest of the global
community stemming from a wide range of concerns that includes
economic resources, sovereignty, freedom of navigation, and the
impacts of elevated access upon world markets. As Arctic accessibility and activity increase, the potential for international dispute
rises. An opportunity exists today for the United States to mitigate
international tensions by adopting a course of strategic engagement
that includes resolution of the contentious legal issues surrounding
the Arctic region.
In terms of defense implications and force structure, today, the
U.S. military is poorly postured for increased engagement in the
Arctic. The principal factors underlying that assessment include
the following:
• Access = new approach avenues, SLOC choke points
• Arctic domain awareness
• Communications—limited satellite communications above
65°N latitude
• Search and rescue—increased commercial activity
• Infrastructure and equipment
• Need for increased governance—soft security
• Command authorities
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Our command boundaries, infrastructure, and capabilities are
ill equipped to contend with the operational environment of the
Arctic on the larger scale. Currently, the USCG possesses only three
icebreakers, all at the end of their service lives, and the U.S. Navy
has none. Increased access to the region will inspire greater commercial activity, and leisure cruise lines have already transited the
entirety of the Northwest Passage with no adverse affects. In the
short term, this necessitates increased protection and search-andrescue missions for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard. The USCG
recognizes this growing requirement and now prepares to assess
the state of navigation in waterways previously buried under ice.
In the long term, the perennial U.S. desire to maintain unhindered freedom of navigation will require military capabilities in the
region and corresponding force development. The USCG realizes
the need for aircraft equipped with skis and heated fuel tanks to
increase regional agility. Reduced threat-response times stemming
from increased adversary ability to encroach upon U.S. borders
may require the configuration of regional early warning sites or the
modification of response processes. Unity of effort in infrastructure
development would minimize duplication of effort.
Regarding command authorities, the current Unified Command
Plan (UCP) divides the northern reaches of the globe among three
geographic combatant commanders. In addition, NORAD conducts air-defense and sovereignty operations within the region. A
single military commander for the region, or a clear articulation
of responsibilities within a supported/supporting construct, should
be considered to apply unified effort. The impending increase in
Arctic activity suggests command authorities for the region warrant
reassessment, as our Maritime Division established in its Limited
Objective Experiment (LOE) entitled “Alaska and Arctic Regions
Command and Control” in May 2009. Insights from that experiment are as follows:
• The first key insight from that LOE was if [the DoD was]
faced with increased activity, almost all characteristics of
the command and control (C2) structure [in Alaska] will
need attention.
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• The second key insight was that C2 structure changes are
needed, especially if the region is characterized by increased
activity, but acceptability will be an issue for any changes.
• Third, if the region is characterized by increased activity,
it will not be for many years, so a phased approach to any
changes is both possible and warranted.
• Fourth, there is a need for clearer guidance from senior levels that outlines DoD’s equities and mission requirements,
regardless of activity level.
• Fifth, UCP boundaries should be redrawn and assignment
of roles and responsibilities should be clarified.
• Sixth, there is a need for a single responsible commander
for the Arctic region.
• Seventh, capability considerations are at least as important
as C2 structure, and the two are linked.
• Finally, DoD equities in the Arctic are closely linked to those
of the interagency and international community.
In terms of force structure, U.S. awareness and understanding
of the Arctic activity remains limited. As some have suggested,
“America does not realize it is an Arctic nation.” To address this
deficiency, the USCG now conducts routine surveillance flights into
the northern areas to build “Arctic Domain Awareness.” Although
this represents a laudable first step, the tyranny of distance and
sparse civilian and military infrastructure limit these flights and
other Arctic operations. Consequently, sufficient Arctic domain
awareness requires infrastructure improvements that include a supporting base or series of bases.
Once the United States achieves awareness and understanding,
its military must prepare for a wider range of military operations.
The ability to command and control forces rests on the capability
to communicate. Lack of infrastructure and satellite coverage in
extreme latitudes impedes this capability. Furthermore, increased
commercial demands for existing space-based communications
bandwidth will only exacerbate DoD difficulties in accessing these
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private resources when its need for enhanced communications
in the Arctic becomes more pronounced. Laying a foundation on
which future communications networks can be built will be critical
to establishing a credible, routine presence in the region.
With the above cornerstones in place, U.S. forces should be
capable of conducting the full range of assigned missions within
the region, to include those associated with Civil Support, e.g.,
assistance to civil authorities in response to a natural or man-made
disaster. Extreme cold weather, icing conditions, extreme latitudes
for navigation, and other untested nuisances will challenge the
functioning of some weapon systems and affect adversely all military operations. These negative effects will increase with the continued effect of climate change.
In terms of the effects on naval forces in the USNORTHCOM
AOR, USNORTHCOM anticipates that maritime operations in the
Arctic will require capabilities beyond what is currently available.
Icebreaking is one such capability. Currently USCG District 17
has three polar-class icebreakers in the inventory that operate in
the Arctic. The fleet of polar icebreakers is coming to the end of
their 30-year service life and needs to be replaced. It is for this
reason that the Commander of USNORTHCOM signed a 12-star
memorandum, along with the Commander of U.S. Transportation
Command (USTRANSCOM) and the Commander of U.S. Pacific
Command (USPACOM), addressed to the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff in May 2008, supporting modernization funding of
the USCG fleet. [2]
In general terms, other capabilities (without getting into classification issues) include: the ability to conduct surveillance and
interrogation of objects above, on, and below the surface of the
ocean; the ability to forecast the movement of ice relative to shipping lanes and international straits; the ability to communicate
above the Arctic Circle; charting sufficient to allow surface ships to
navigate Arctic waters; the requisite infrastructure to support passage of ships in coastal waters; the ability to conduct search and
rescue; and, if conditions warrant, the ability to conduct surface
operations in ice-infested waters.
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In conclusion, Arctic climate change portends increased activity in the region. Although the timeframe for this change remains
subject to significant debate, now is the time for the United States
to operationalize its national interests, as defined in the Presidential
Directive, and the strategies required to secure them. [3] Without
such guidance to subordinate military processes and capabilities,
the nation stands susceptible to the forced acceptance of undesirable economic and political outcomes. Most importantly, the
United States must ensure territorial diplomatic annoyances, even
among its perennial partners, do not descend into military or political brinksmanship.
In the near term, the United States should:
• Ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Sea [4]
• Recognize the growing importance of the Arctic region to
national security
• Organize, train, and equip the Coast Guard to accomplish
its expected missions in the Arctic environment
In the long term, the United States should:
• Leverage mutual defense interests to resolve existing Arctic
disputes with Canada
• Expand a regime of agreements or a comprehensive Arctic
governance agreement with Arctic nations to promote governance in the region
• Engage Arctic border nations within the parameters of the Arctic regime to pursue mutual, responsible
resource harvesting
• Consider the ramification of shortened trade routes to
affected economic partners
In the absence of an Arctic strategy, DoD should nonetheless
ready itself for increased engagement throughout the region.
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In the near term, DoD should:
• Re-evaluate Arctic command authorities (currently under
review)
–– Consider placing the region under a single combatant
commander
–– Construct definitive supported–supporting relationships
among the relevant Combatant Commands
• Continue and increase our understanding of the Arctic
• Systematically assess operational and equipment gaps
related to the Arctic
In the long term, the DoD should:
• Extend and modernize NORAD and USNORTHCOM’s
surveillance network, with the communications framework
and infrastructure to support it
• Organize, train, and equip its forces to operate routinely in
the Arctic environment, particularly in the air and maritime
domains
• Expect increased search and rescue, surveillance, and freedom of navigation requirements
Finally, as other nations pursue their interests in an increasingly
accessible region, proactive movement by the United States and
its military establishment toward a coherent and credible Arctic
posture appears prudent. As we at USNORTHCOM frequently say,
“The defense community must anticipate today the Arctic operations that will be expected of it tomorrow.”
REFERENCES
1. 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, Washington,
DC, http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf.
2. Commanders USNORTHCOM, USPACOM, and USTRANSCOM,
Support for Modernization of the USCG Fleet, Memorandum to
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, May 2008.
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3. The White House, National Security Presidential Directive 66/
Homeland Security Presidential Directive 25 (NSPD-66/
HSPD-25), Arctic Region Policy, 9 Jan 2009, http://www.fas.
org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-66.htm.
4. United Nations, United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Sea, Geneva, Switzerland, 10 Dec 1982, http://www.un.org/
Depts/los/convention_agreements/convention_overview_
convention.htm.
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5.3 International Law
and National Strategy:
Anti-Access and Area Denial
Commander James Kraska
My focus will be the relationship between international politics
and international law in the Arctic. It was Mark Twain who said
Commander James Kraska serves as the Howard S. Levie Chair of
Operational Law at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode
Island. He also holds appointments as a Senior Fellow at the Foreign
Policy Research Institute and as a Guest Investigator at the Marine
Policy Center, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole,
Massachusetts. Commander Kraska is an interdisciplinary scholar and
practitioner who specializes in the intersection between international
law and international relations. His forthcoming books cover topics
such as sea power and international law and piracy and international law. As an operational law judge advocate, he completed two operational law assignments with joint and naval task forces, two tours
in Japan, and four Pentagon major staff assignments, including as
Division Chief, International Negotiations Division on the Joint Staff.
Commander Kraska is an elected member of the International Institute
of Humanitarian Law and a Fellow with the Inter-University Seminar
on Armed Forces and Society and serves as Chair of the Use of Force
Committee of the International Law Association. He is author of more
than 60 articles and book chapters, which have appeared in law, policy, and peer-reviewed journals. He also has written articles for the
national security community and has delivered presentations or lectured at numerous research institutions, universities, and law schools on
four continents. He has been interviewed for articles in various leading
publications and has appeared as an analyst and commentator on several television and radio programs. He holds both a research doctorate
and professional doctorate in law, having earned a doctor of juridical
science from the University of Virginia and a doctor of jurisprudence
from Indiana University, Bloomington. Commander Kraska also earned
a master’s of international law from the University of Virginia, a master’s of arts in defense and foreign policy from Claremont Colleges, and
a diploma from the College of Naval Command and Staff, U.S. Naval
War College.
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that eventually all political disputes become legal disputes, and
that could not be truer than in the Arctic. The legal template that
we will look to when attempting to resolve the legal disputes in the
Arctic is the Law of the Sea Convention. [1]
According to the intelligence community, the major takeaways
for Global Trends 2025 [2] in the Arctic are these. First, smallscale conflict is possible, but it is unlikely that we will have major
armed conflict. What is most interesting, in my view, is that China,
Korea, Japan, and other exporting countries in Asia stand to benefit the most from changes in the Arctic. None of these countries
is an Arctic nation, at least not yet. However, China has asserted
that the true Arctic countries have to make way for China, that
the Arctic countries have to expect that China and other countries
have legitimate interests in the Arctic. After all, the Arctic is just
another ocean.
Well, how will these Asian countries capitalize on the Arctic as
a resource? The first area will be the energy and mineral resources
that are going to be made available in the Arctic. The second area
will be the transportation routes—the sea lines of communication—that will open up, at least for part of the year, if not more so
as we go through mid-century.
With regard to energy, Russia stands to gain the most from
an export position, but China is also hoping to develop energy in
the Arctic. We also need to keep Greenland in mind. Although
Greenland is currently a dependency of Denmark, it probably will
not be 20 years from now. Greenland is on a road toward independence. Greenland has a population of about 55,000 people, is
three times the size of Texas, and is loaded with natural resources.
China is already making movements toward talking with Greenland
and expressing their interest in funding development in order to
lock down Arctic resources in that area.
No matter where they get them from, all of those resources will
have to leave the area because they are not going to be used there,
and they will go through one of these sea lines of communication.
I would suggest the Northern Sea route, the Northeast Passage, the
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Northwest Passage, or the Bering Strait, and the last one is one that
we often forget about.
So let’s look closely at some of these routes. The Northern Sea
route runs along the northern periphery of Siberia. Most people
do not realize that you could fit the entire United States, including Alaska, into this immense area. It drains three river systems,
on par with the Mississippi River, that flow north into the Arctic
Ocean, providing transportation routes from all of the development in the Russian interior to the Arctic Ocean. So in 20, 30,
50 years, the Arctic is likely to be a major focus of development for
the Russian state.
There are four primary straits along the Northern Sea route
that the United States and other countries claim are “straits used
for international navigation” under the Law of the Sea Convention.
All of the straits, whether they are greater than 24 nautical miles
wide or more narrow than that, connect one part of the high seas
to another part of the high seas and therefore meet the definition
of an international strait in the Law of the Sea Convention. Despite
this, Russia has closed off all four and claims those straits as internal waters, just like we would say the Great Salt Lake in Utah or the
Newport Harbor in Newport, Rhode Island, is an internal water.
Russia purports to close those off to international shipping unless
the shipping complies with Russian laws and takes on Russian
pilots and complies with other Russian security requirements.
Russia is really the superpower in the Arctic; 76% of the fresh
water that flows into the Arctic Ocean comes from Russia. Russia
occupies 74% of the land territory in the Arctic. Perhaps more
importantly, two-thirds of the oil and gas in the Arctic are Russian
and the U.S. Geological Survey says that 13% of the world’s undiscovered, but technically recoverable, oil and about 30% of its
undiscovered recoverable gas is located in the Arctic, and Russia
controls two-thirds of those resources. Russia also has, depending
on how you count it, between two-thirds and 95% of the population that lives in the Arctic. So Russia is really the Arctic superpower (Figure 1).
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Figure 1. Russia: Arctic Superpower I
Just one other example to underscore this point, the large pie
chart on the right-hand side of Figure 2 shows the entire circumpolar economy; the Russian portion is shown in the darkest shade.
Russia controls about two-thirds of the economic activity that
Figure 2. Russia: Arctic Superpower II
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occurs in the Arctic. By comparison, the United States through
Alaska controls about 12%, Canada has 2%, Iceland has 3%,
Finland has 5%, and Sweden has 5%. This almost overbearing
Russian presence makes some countries nervous.
Figure 3 depicts the Northern Sea route and the Northeast
Passage, which is the European end of the route. Russia has instituted a variety of regulations, which they continue to strengthen.
Specific topics covered by these regulations include the following:
• Notification—4 months
• Construction, design, equipment, and manning standards
• Route management
• Position reports twice daily
• Financial security for civil liability
• Transit fees (beyond costs of services rendered)
• Discriminatory fees (Article 277)
Figure 3. Northern Sea Route
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Russia claims to have authority for doing so under Article 234
of the Law of the Sea Convention, which allows coastal states with
ice-covered areas to be able to prescribe and enforce rules over
those areas. The problem is none of that has been defined. That
is, lawyers disagree on virtually every word of the description that
I just gave of Article 234 including, for example, what is an icecovered area. Is it ice covered 200 days a year, 365 days a year?
Does it have to be multi-year ice? Can it be fresh ice? Can it just be
ice-infested waters? Is it ice covered if it just has big chunks and it
is still dangerous to transit through?
All of these issues have yet to be resolved. Russia is working
to legitimize its view of Article 234, which is rather restrictive.
Russia currently requires 4 months prior notification to transit. It
also includes a number of construction, design, equipping, and
manning standards, which is really the appropriate domain for the
International Maritime Organization (IMO).
In fact, that is why we have an IMO: It is the United Nations
specialized agency to develop construction, design, equipping, and
manning standards so that we have universal standards and ships
can go anywhere on the globe. If one country says you have to
paint your ship purple, then a purple ship is only going to be good
for one country. If you have different requirements for diesel emissions and ice strength levels, then it is going to be a problem. Russia
has also imposed requirements for route management, mandatory
position reports, and financial security for liability. That is, just for
the privilege of going through the area, you have to have some sort
of insurance that says that, if something happens, you have the
money to pay. They then include transit fees that are beyond the
cost of the services rendered. So it is sort of a geographic fee; they
are discriminating against vessels from other countries. All of this is
going to come to a head with regard to environmental regulation.
The seemingly ubiquitous Russian presence in the Arctic is
making Canada extremely nervous. Canada thinks about the Arctic
much more than the United States does. It is a national issue in
Canada. In fact, it is a presidential issue in Canada. All of the politicians run on Canadian Arctic sovereignty. It is interesting though,
because most Canadians have never been to the Arctic.
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Now Russia’s dominance is making the Canadians nervous. In
the upper image of Figure 4 you will see Russia’s claim before the
commission on the limits of the continental shelf. The highlighted
area is the area in which Russia claims to have sovereign rights
to the resources of the seabed. They are not claiming the water
column, but the resources of the seabed under text in Article 76
of the Law of the Sea Convention that says that states can claim
sovereign rights to those resources—oil, gas, and minerals. They
can claim exclusive sovereign rights to those resources so long as
the seabed is a natural prolongation of the continent. Russia bases
their claim on the fact that the Lamona soft ridge goes out to the
North Pole.
Despite the fact that Canada is sitting on more natural gas and
oil than it could possibly use in 200 years, Canada is concerned.
They care very deeply about this claim and there is a sense of
threat as a result. Magnifying that concern is the fact that Russian
strategic reconnaissance aircraft occasionally fly close to, or actually nter, the Canadian air defense identification zone; these areas
are shown in the lower image of Figure 4. The Russians suspended
such flights for 15 years but then resumed the patrols in 2007.
On the left side of Figure 5 you have the Canada air region under
the International Convention on International Civil Aviation. [3]
That is the region that Canada has authority to control, to conduct air traffic control over civil aircraft, not military aircraft. In
the upper right are the distant early warning radar sites, and on the
lower left are the four Canadian fighter jet bases that scramble to
respond to Russian flights. In the lower right you see the Alaska
and Canadian Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZs).
What is an ADIZ? The problem with an ADIZ is that the countries that make them, including at times the United States, sometimes hold the view that this is sovereign airspace. But it is not. It
is international airspace and a country can declare anything they
want. We can call it whatever we want and Canada can call it
whatever they want, but it is international airspace and Russia has a
right to fly reconnaissance aircraft there just like any other country
has that right, exactly the same right that the United States enjoys
in other areas of the world.
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Figure 4. Extent of Russian Claims in the Arctic
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Figure 5. Canadian Air Defense
As part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),
we fly closer to Russia than Russia is flying to us when they enter
this ADIZ. Nevertheless, this has created a big issue in Ottawa.
Canada has asked Russia not to fly in international airspace near its
ADIZ and, if they do so, then they should give prior notification. So
there is a defensive mindset—let’s build a wall to protect us from
the Russians.
Figure 6. Comparison of Russian and Canadian
Shipping Laws in the Arctic
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Now let’s look at the regulations side by side for both Russia
and Canada in the Arctic (Figure 6). I mentioned that Russia is
strengthening their rules. Canada is doing the same thing. Is it a
coincidence that in 2010 both Russia and Canada have decided
to strengthen their rules to keep out foreign powers, to keep out
vessels and aircraft of foreign countries? It is not an accident. They
have actually been collaborating because they are the only two
countries that will accept each other’s excessive claims.
Canada would prefer that the United States accept Canadian
excessive maritime claims because then Canada would be able
to leverage American power in order to keep out not just Russian
ships, but also the Asian ships that are going to be coming in 20,
30, or 40 years. So far, however, the United States has not accepted
Canada’s claim. Why won’t the United States recognize Canadian
excessive maritime claims? Because it serves as a precedent in
international law, and if we recognize their claims then we would
have to recognize Brazil’s and Iran’s and Oman’s, and pretty soon
the freedom of the seas would become the seas that are not free.
So what is Canada doing? Well, they are doubling down with
their unilateral strategy in cooperation with Russia. They are spending about $2 billion on six Arctic patrol vessels with helicopters.
They are strengthening their rules this year; they are going beyond
already excessive baselines. They are going out to 200 miles to
enforce rules under Article 234 regarding ice-covered areas. They
are using a fairly liberal definition of ice-covered areas in that they
are arguing that if they are near ice-covered areas or within 200
miles of ice-covered areas then Canada can still assert jurisdiction
and control.
Why are they doing this now? I would suggest that it has to do
with National Security Presidential Directive 66/Homeland Security
Presidential Directive 25 (NSPD-66/HSPD-25), Arctic Region Policy,
which was signed on January 9, 2009. [4] NSPD-66 says explicitly
that the Northern Sea route and the Northwest Passage are straits
used for international navigation, signaling that the United States is
not going to walk back from 50 years of freedom of navigation and
freedom of overflight and thereby reminding our neighbors that,
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although we are cousins with Canada and we are on very friendly
terms with Russia, we have this disagreement.
Let’s look more closely at the Canadian strait baseline claims
(Figure 7). Canada claims that it has the right to close off a large portion of the North American Arctic that it calls the Canadian archipelago. An archipelago is a term in the Law of the Sea Convention
that is reserved for wholly island nations that meet a specific criterion of land-to-water ratio of 1:10. Canada, as a continental power,
is not entitled to claim archipelagic status such as the Bahamas or
the Philippines or Indonesia and draw straight baselines around
all of those islands and claim what is inside as internal waters, but
Canada has done so.
This has been the result of a number of démarches and sort of
back and forth over the last 40 years or so between Canada and
the United States. Canada has a sense of urgency about it because
we have already mentioned that, in international law, state practice
acquires a sense of customary binding nature.
So, for Canada it is considered an urgent matter to lock down
the legal status of the Northwest Passage, e.g., to gain international
legitimacy and recognition for this wall around the Canadian archipelago before the ships start to come. It is a lot easier to try to
get the United States on board than it will be for other countries
that are not Arctic countries and show up later. The possibility of
Figure 7. Canadian Arctic Waters
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referring the issue to the permanent Joint Board of Defense has
been rejected by Canada as a point of discussion.
This is a satellite photograph of the Northwest Passage, which
actually consists of between five to seven routes through the Arctic
region. It is about 100 nautical miles wide at its widest point and
up to 2000 meters deep. This is not like a canal; this is not the
St. Lawrence Seaway. These are the equivalent Canadian rules for
transit through the Northwest Passage—prior notification, something that the United States has long rejected. If you remember the
Black Sea bumping incident, the United States refused to give the
Soviet Union prior notification to enter the 12-nautical-mile territorial sea. Well, this is asking for prior notification to enter passageways that are 100 nautical miles wide.
With regard to mandatory ship reporting, Figure 8 shows
Canadian and Russian rules side by side. The Canadians designate a shipping safety control zone and they have divided different
areas of responsibility. Overall, these are freedom-of-navigation
rules in Russia and Canada. Both countries require that you take
on board one of their licensed pilots. Some countries, Saudi Arabia
for example in the case of Iran, have claimed that this is a sort of
Figure 8. Russian and Canadian Freedom of Navigation
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moneymaking scheme because pilotage is very expensive. I do
not think it is about that; I think it is much more about gaining a
psychological sense of security.
Put yourself in the place of Canada—you have had an
immensely powerful neighbor guarding your southern border and
you have had an inaccessible northern border, and suddenly now
you have the prospect that this is going to become the Panama
Canal of the north.
Figure 9 shows annual traffic flow, by ship type, through the
Northwest Passage from 1906 through 2006. Interestingly, traffic
using the Northern Sea route actually dipped after the fall of the
Soviet Union, but now foreign traffic, as we just learned with two
German ships last summer, has begun to enter into the Northern
Sea route. Russia is preparing the Northern Sea route as a national
waterway for international use under their terms.
From a liability perspective, both counties maintain what we
would call the authority to conduct search and seizure (Figure 10).
That is, they want to have authority to enforce criminal sanctions
and also civil liability throughout these passageways.
Figure 9. Northwest Passage Annual Traffic Flow
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Figure 10. Comparison of Russian and Canadian
Liability Regulations
On crewing, both countries require pilots or ice navigators,
which is the same thing (Figure 11). Both countries have environmental regulations that are more stringent than those provided
under the Marine Pollution Convention—the broad, multilateral
MARPOL 73/78—which was negotiated through the International
Maritime Organization and has nearly universal acceptance. [5]
The unilateral regulations instituted by both countries affect construction, design, equipping, and manning for transit through
these areas.
All of this leads one to wonder what really is going on here.
First of all, we know that between 80% and 90% of marine
Figure 11. Comparison of Russian and Canadian
Crewing Regulations
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Figure 12. Comparison of Russian and Canadian
Pollution Regulations
pollution is not caused by vessels; it is runoff from adjacent land
areas (Figure 12). It comes from industry, it comes from mines, it
comes from farms. But it is a lot easier to shift that cost onto foreign vessels coming through rather than having to go to your own
industry and your own politicians and your own labor unions and
your own people and ask them to tighten the belt.
In conclusion, I think China is already looking at this area as
a domain for sea lines of communication. What you have with
Russia and with Canada is an asymmetry of motivation. Both of
those countries have great stakes—emotional, economic, political,
and military—in the Arctic. Those stakes eclipse the relative lack
of interest of the United States, and I think that is what is driving
circumpolar politics.
As a final point, I do not think that the United States should
replicate what Canada and Russia are doing. The model I would
prefer is that of Norway. Norway is involved in the Arctic, but
has taken a common-sense approach that balances environmental regulation with a very robust economic and natural resource
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development program. I think Norway just about gets it right, and
that is what I would recommend for the United States.
REFERENCES
1. United Nations, United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Sea, Geneva, Switzerland, 10 Dec 1982, http://www.un.org/
Depts/los/convention_agreements/convention_overview_
convention.htm.
2. National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office,
Nov 2008, http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html.
3. International Civil Aviation Organization, Convention on
International Civil Aviation, Ninth Ed., 2006.
4. The White House, National Security Presidential Directive
66/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 25 (NSPD-66/
HSPD-25), Arctic Region Policy, 9 Jan 2009, http://www.fas.
org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-66.htm.
5. International Maritime Organization, International Convention
for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL), 2 Nov
1973 (and amendments through 2010), http://www.imo.org/
conventions/contents.asp?doc_id=678&topic_id=258.
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5.4 Naval Research Laboratory
Research Focus in the
Arctic Ocean
Dr. Richard B. Coffin
I am going to go over some basic science that we are doing
at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). In conjunction with this
work, we have developed a strong international program by signing memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with several European
nations regarding operations in the Arctic Ocean.
First, I am going to provide some brief background information on methane hydrates, what we are doing, and how they could
affect climate change, energy, and Navy issues.
Hydrates are clathrates that form under specific ocean pressure and temperature conditions (Figure 1). They begin to appear
when the water temperature reaches 7°C, which occurs at about
550 meters depth. If you were to bring a cubic meter of methane hydrate from that depth up to the ocean surface, it would
expand to 164 cubic meters of methane and 0.8 cubic meters of
Dr. Richard B. Coffin is the Marine Biogeochemistry Section Head at
the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, DC. Rick is a NRL
leader for international development of methane hydrate research. His
primary research focus is biogeochemistry related to sediment and water column methane cycling. There is strong experience in applying
geophysics and geochemical approaches to studying the flux of sediment methane to shallow sediment and water column carbon cycling.
Field work, as Chief and Co-chief Scientist, has been conducted off
the mid Chilean Margin, Hikurangi Margin off New Zealand, Cascadia
Margin, along the mid-Norwegian coast, on the Texas-Louisiana Shelf
in the Gulf of Mexico, and, most recently, off the coast of Alaska in
the Beaufort Sea. Currently plans are being set for the Kara Sea during
August 2010; this research addresses climate change and alternate energy exploration. Rick received his Ph.D. in oceanography in 1986 from
the University of Delaware.
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Figure 1. What Are Gas Hydrates?
water—assuming that all the lattice was saturated. Thus, methane
hydrates provide both a high-density energy concentration and a
high concentration of gases that can go into the atmosphere and
effect climate change. We go through a lot of different structural
analysis and the structures are controlled as a function of pressure,
temperature, and gas composition.
Until a few years ago, it was thought that structure H was a
theoretical laboratory structure that did not develop in the environment, and if anyone is interested we published a paper in Nature
that shows that not to be the case. Structure H has been found
outside of the laboratory. [1] We see evidence of it in the Gulf of
Mexico and we proved it on the Cascadia margin. So, based on
pressure and temperature stability, the hydrates are located around
most oceans at depths between 500 and 600 meters, where the
temperature falls to 7°C, the so-called “hydrate stability zone”
(Figure 2). When the gas concentration is high, the right conditions
of pressure and temperature lead to the formation of the ice-like
clathrate structure that has high concentrations of methane.
Moving up into the Arctic, an area on which we are really
heavily focusing now, methane hydrates form at much shallower
depths. Given the colder temperatures, less pressure is needed for
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Figure 2. Hydrate Stability Zone
stability. That enables us to compare a permafrost hydrate that is
very shallow relative to the deep ocean, and that is what the project I will discuss is about.
At one time, we thought that hydrates were probably an order
of magnitude greater than the total petroleum gas reserves. Then,
the projections went down to about half the total petroleum
reserves. Now the projection is back up to two to three times
more. The technology is getting better, our guesses are getting
more focused, and more regions around the world are becoming identified. Although we are still guessing at it, we can say that
methane hydrates are significant relative to the petroleum reserve.
They are significant relative to the Earth’s carbon biomass. Right
now the estimate is about 700,000 trillion cubic feet (Figure 3).
However, one should not assume that this total is all available as
energy. We must have it concentrated and that is why we are starting to work in the Arctic Ocean.
Hydrates give the ability to start changing focus. Twelve years
ago, for example, I started looking at some of the Japanese data
regarding their methane hydrate exploration activities. Within the
next 2 years, they were projecting that hydrates could amount to
about 30% of their total energy. They have gone through a whole
phase of total evaluation. This took them up on the Mallik well
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Figure 3. Global Estimate of Methane Hydrates
in the Mackenzie Delta for a large experiment. But from there, it
has expanded into the Indian Ocean with heavy interest. Chevron/
Texaco is doing energy exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. Because
the Mallik well was discovered to be productive, BP/Amoco has
moved over into the Prudhoe Bay.
From an energy perspective, Figure 4 shows the large-scale
areas around the United States in which we have put our plan to
work. The dark stars show where we have been working recently;
the light stars show areas where we plan to go in the future. We
will be off the coast of Russia near Murmansk this summer. We
were in the Beaufort Sea in September 2009. We are going back
for calibration of a Chevron/Texaco drill site in in the near future.
We are in an international collaboration with the Norwegians.
We are going back into the Southern Ocean off New Zealand. We
also hope to get over into the Bay of Bengal; we have been working at it for almost 10 years and finally have that organized. In 2011
we are returning to the coast of Chile.
Everything I have said about the development of methane hydrates as an energy source works around the experience
being gained by the five nations working in the Mackenzie Delta.
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Figure 4. Global Methane Hydrate Distribution
They started drilling the Mallik wells in 2002. Since then, the project has gone through steps during which they actually lit a flame
for an advertisement. Now they are doing a drilling cost evaluation.
The Japanese are doing a thorough evaluation off the coast
on the Nankai Trough. Other countries are starting to get heavily
involved; BP/Amoco jumped over to the U.S. side of the Arctic
Ocean and is starting very serious exploration efforts. Current predictions from a Department of Energy research panel project that
methane hydrates could be a major component of U.S. energy production within 10 to 15 years.
We are particularly excited about the results of our recent
research trip into the Beaufort Sea. We saw different data, but
we did not see extensive venting. Given that the Beaufort Sea
started warming before some of the other areas, we are wondering whether climate change is now so far along that we are now
wondering whether it is possible that we are already losing methane into the atmosphere? The coastal slope database on methane
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hydrates strongly suggests that there are definitely hydrates there.
The evidence is strong relative to everywhere else I have worked in
the world. When we were up in the tundra though, we could not
find hydrates. Perhaps we did not get cores from the right places.
We worked where all the drilling was going on, right where all the
predictions say they should exist. We need to look carefully at our
database. This suggests that perhaps the climate change is already
on the way. Perhaps you have seen public statements regarding the
massive methane melt-off in Siberia. Maybe we do need to “get
ready for the methane apocalypse.”
On the other hand, there are different ways of interpreting this.
I think we must be careful and understand the science. One of the
other speakers said that we need risk assessment. I would argue
that we need a dataset before we can start the risk assessment.
I was a national biotechnology risk assessment manager for a long
time and know full well that we must have data to do that. We
need to develop the basic science and to look at whether the melting leads or lags atmospheric warming (Figure 5).
Figure 5. Gas Hydrate and the Climate
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In 2006, the journal Nature published a paper saying that
methane hydrates in the coastal ocean are not significant to climate
change—that is a rough paraphrase of it. [2] As I recall, that statement was based on the authors looking at a 1000-year cycle from
a 10,000- to 20,000-year paleo-base. I think we need more data
on this. Does methane escape from the tundra first? Is the ocean
second; is the permafrost next; what is the range in there? What
does the geologic record say? We need that desperately. We are
starting to get at that in the Beaufort Sea.
What do the climate models say? There is a lot that has to go
into that for the methane. We need to know how deep we have
to go, how far the heat is going to penetrate, and then what are
the consequences.
Conditions in the Arctic are changing so fast that the Navy
needs to know how that can affect operations there. Accordingly,
we are out at sea, we are looking at gas fluxes and shallow sediments, we are looking at gas fluxes in the water column. We are
looking at Arctic tundra carbon input that can affect water color,
acoustics, and satellite imaging. Bubble fluxes have a strong influence on some Navy sensor systems. We need to have a thorough
dataset that includes gas fluxes all the way up in the atmosphere.
We can get some of that from satellite imaging. Once we have
that, we can see how it will affect operations. See Figure 6 for a
collaborative field plan.
Four nations and many different universities were involved in
our operation in the Beaufort Sea. On the U.S. side, we had funding
from the Navy and the Department of Energy. We were working
out in Camden Bay. We took fiber-core, piston-core, gravity-core,
and multi-core measurements through the whole expedition.
These sites had very shallow gas fluxes. The fluxes in the nearshore permafrost were about the same. We then moved westward
into a region where there were heavy gas fluxes. We obtained
definite confirmation based on geophysical and geochemical data
that there is a big hydrate bed down off the slope. This is one of
the first confirmed findings in this region and we are eager to start
putting this together. We have reams of data on carbon isotopes
and microbial ecology and all kinds of other things. We are looking
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Figure 6. Collaborative Field Plan
off shore to near shore. We are doing a carbon mass balance. To
model this, we have to go beyond carbon concentrations and look
into what are termed “energetic concentrations” because of all the
diversity in the methane cycle.
Now, let me just step back. One of the major tasks associated with any of these efforts is public outreach (Figure 7). As the
chief scientist on our Beaufort Sea project, I flew up to Nuiqsut,
Alaska, to describe what we were doing. They asked me a million questions about whale migration and 1-year versus multiyear ice. Because climate change is affecting their ability to kill
whales, they are very focused on what is happening. I think that
this public outreach is important; in fact, I am going to be back in
Nuiqsut giving a description of what we were doing there. In the
future, we may be able to send some graduate students there to do
additional research.
Our next expedition will be up in the Kara Sea. We hope to
be leaving out of Murmansk in mid-July or early August, although I
am still trying to get the Russian team to set specific dates. We are
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Figure 7. Public Outreach
going to compare this shelf to the Beaufort Sea, and I think we are
going to see a strong difference between the two.
Another part of the Navy program is being led by Dr. Ruth
Preller. Her team is trying to develop historical data on ice changes
in order to make predictions regarding the nature and extent of
Arctic sea ice. The statistics calculated from historical data do not
match the Arctic climate change now, so they definitely need to be
updated. See Figure 8.
As part of that, Dr. Preller’s team hopes to determine how fast
the databases tend to change so they can understand how frequently they need to do calibration measurements.
As we have seen, the Navy is quite interested in changing ice
conditions in the Arctic. In conjunction with that, NRL is working hard to understand the changing Arctic environment, with
a particular focus on ice volume changes (Figure 9). Their first
task is to make ground truth measurements to support model
forecasting.
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Figure 8. Changing Ice Conditions in the Arctic
Figure 9. Ice Thickness Observations
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References
1. Hailong Lu, Yu-taek Seo, Jong-won Lee, Igor Moudrakovski,
John A. Ripmeester, N. Ross Chapman, Richard B. Coffin,
Graeme Gardner, and John Pohlman, “Complex gas hydrate from
the Cascadia margin,” Nature 445: 303–306 (lett.), 18 Jan 2007,
doi: 10.1038/nature05463.
2. Paul B. Wignall, John M. McArthur, Crispin T. S. Little, and
Anthony Hallam, “Palaeoceanography: Methane release in the
Early Jurassic period,” Nature 441: E5, 1 Jun 2006, doi: 10.1038/
nature04905.
251
5.5 Implications for Maritime
and Cross-Domain
Operations in USSOUTHCOM
Mr. John D. Perez
In my presentation, I will talk a little bit about U.S. Southern
Command (USSOUTHCOM)—about who we are, what we do, and
the challenges and opportunities that we face in the USSOUTHCOM
area of responsibility (AOR). I will also address how what we do
Mr. John D. Perez is the Program Manager for Joint Capability
Technology Demonstrations (JCTD), U.S. Southern Command
(USSOUTHCOM), Miami, Florida. USSOUTHCOM is responsible for
all U.S. military activities, including theater security cooperation, on
the land mass of Latin America south of Mexico; the waters adjacent
to Central and South America; the Caribbean Sea, with its 11 island
nations, European and U.S. territories; the Gulf of Mexico; and a portion of the Atlantic Ocean. As the JCTD Program Manager, Mr. Perez
directs daily interaction with a multitude of Department of Defense
(DoD) organizations, the Services, other government agencies, partner
nation counterparts, industry, and academia to find, demonstrate, transition, and transfer operational concepts and technology solutions for
transformational joint, interagency, and international operations. His
portfolio currently includes seven major programs and various science,
technology, and experimentation initiatives with an aggregate value of
several hundred million dollars. Mr. Perez holds a bachelor of business administration degree from the University of Notre Dame and received his master of science degree from Central Michigan University.
A retired Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force, he is a graduate of
several military academic institutions, is an Outstanding Graduate of
the Air War College, and has served in a wide variety of operations,
technical, and policy leadership positions ranging from unit level to
national and international levels. He has extensive experience throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Prior to his current duties, his
responsibilities at USSOUTHCOM have included serving as Special
Assistant to the Commander and Chief of the International Integration
Division. He is currently an associate with Booz Allen Hamilton and
serves USSOUTHCOM through a consulting engagement.
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is relevant to all of you, whether we are talking about the bigger
national security picture, the future of naval forces in the region, or
our approaches to climate- and energy-related issues.
I will begin by highlighting just how big and diverse the
Americas are. The USSOUTHCOM AOR is everything on the land
mass of the Americas south of Mexico. It includes the waters on
both sides of the American continents as well as the Caribbean.
Inside that region there is incredible diversity. About half a billion
people live there. They speak four major languages and hundreds
of indigenous tongues. The region also has tremendous economic
diversity. At one extreme, there is Haiti, the poorest country in
the Western Hemisphere. Haiti was already in bad shape before
the recent earthquake. Now, it is completely devastated and will
take a very long time to recover. At the opposite extreme, both
physically and economically, stands Chile. Chile is perhaps the
most developed country in South America. It is a first-world country in every sense of the word; it has more free-trade agreements
with other nations than any other country in the world. Thus, the
USSOUTHCOM AOR includes, on the one extreme, poverty and
very little infrastructure and lots of challenges, and on the other
extreme countries like Chile that are quite self-sufficient. Yet, Chile
is also facing the after-effects of its own earthquake. Natural disasters, it seems, are the region’s big leveling factor.
We are fortunate that, unlike other commands, there are no
hot wars in the USSOUTHCOM AOR. Moreover, the likelihood of
any kind of traditional state-on-state conflict is very low. That is not
by happenstance, but rather the result of a lot of hard work, a lot
of cooperation amongst the region’s 41 countries, territories, and
protectorates. But that does not mean that USSOUTHCOM, as an
operational arm of the U.S. military, does not have to be ready, like
any other part of the military, to defend against hard power threats.
The majority of USSOUTHCOM’s time is spent on what we
call soft-power challenges. It is incumbent upon us to understand
these challenges, prepare for them, build on our strong relationships, and leverage every opportunity that we have to accomplish
our objectives.
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As part of our maritime cooperation program, we have a
very extensive series of activities and exercises with our partner
navies. We are also concerned about nontraditional maritime challenges such as the self-propelled, semisubmersible vehicle shown
in Figure 1. Approximately 2 years ago our then-commander at
USSOUTHCOM, Admiral James Stavridas, testified before Congress
that he saw such nontraditional threats as one of the major challenges that we face in the Americas today. [1]
This small submarine-like vessel can be built for an estimated
cost of a million dollars and can transport almost 8 tons of contraband. That 8 tons of illicit traffic could be drugs, and to this point
it largely has been, but it could also be weapons, whether conventional or worse, or it could be people, whether migrants of some
sort or people with more sinister motives. Whatever this vessel carries, it poses a threat and that is an example of the sort of maritime
challenges that we face.
We are also concerned about climate and energy. I include in
that bundle water and food, which are inextricably interwoven as
we consider the environment of the region.
Figure 1. Self-Propelled Submersible:
A Nontraditional Maritime Challenge
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Why are they important? Well, if we are not worried so much
about a conventional military threat, we do have to concentrate
on those soft-power missions. A couple of those are relatively easy
to predict. We have direct links to a humanitarian assistance and
disaster relief mission in which we are very heavily involved right
now. We also have possible involvement in mass migration events.
But if we look at all the lists of potential missions on the right side of
Figure 2, that quad of factors—climate, energy, water, and food—
can help impact or can drive all of these other things.
A common denominator across those things on the right is that
very few, if any, are what we would think of as traditional military missions. They are, however, potential catalysts for instability.
So what do we do? If we look at force structure, if we look at
things in particular that USSOUTHCOM’s naval forces have to be
prepared to do, first and foremost among those in this context are
humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. They have done spectacular work in support of activities in Haiti. In that instance, the
U.S. military is not there as the lead; the military is there to support civil activities. As a result, you are likely to see a U.S. Agency
for International Development (USAID) person supervising the
Figure 2. Soft-Power Challenges
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offloading of supplies or military personnel transporting patients
for civilian doctors to treat.
We also talk about the potential threat of mass migration. To
date, there have not been events in which the environment—the
climate—has driven large-scale mass migrations right off the bat.
However, the environment—in the context of natural disasters—
does drive these mass migrations. In many cases, such disasters
have led to exoduses by sea. So-called “boat people” take many
risks and pose a very serious threat, not so much to the security of the United States, but to the health, safety, and welfare of
the region.
If we look again at those four factors—climate, energy, water,
and food—and at long-term trends, it is apparent that changes in
any one of those variables is going to impact the others. As a result,
we have to be in a position to be able to respond to migratory
events caused by changes in climate, energy, water, or food.
So what are the key capabilities that USSOUTHCOM in general and its naval forces in particular must have in order to carry
out those missions, both the direct linked ones and the indirect
linked ones, the ones that we are supporting, the ones for which
we are doing the nontraditional activities?
First, we need situational awareness. If we do not know what is
going on, we are not going to be very well poised to take any kind
of effective or efficient action. We have several initiatives that deal
with situational awareness; some of them involve expansion of
civil military ties. We are exploring the use of automated information systems to feed maritime safety and security information systems, which in turn feed a virtual regional maritime traffic center.
We are also looking at Riverine and Intercoastal Operations (RIO)
designed to enable control of rivers in the littoral region.
We also talk about presence and flexibility. It is one thing to
know something, it is another thing entirely to be able to go ahead
and do something with that knowledge. The two vessels shown in
Figure 3 are examples of how innovation, technology, and energy
efficiency are factors in being able to accomplish that. On the left
side of Figure 3 is a picture of the USS Freedom, the first littoral
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Figure 3. Presence and Flexibility
combat ship. Its maiden voyage was not to some really high-profile
place, it was not dispatched off to the Persian Gulf or someplace
like that; it was dispatched to the Caribbean in support of drug
interdiction missions. It has already succeeded admirably in that
regard; it has already been involved in at least two major seizures.
The vessel shown on the right side of Figure 3 is a little bit
farther from traditional naval design; it is called the Stiletto. It has
a carbon fiber hull and is capable of continuous speeds in excess
of 40 knots. More striking, it can actually turn on a dime and give
you change back and it has a very, very shallow draft. It carries a
multiservice team in the back equipped with a rigid-hull inflatable
that can be deployed and that has been used to help detect, track,
and ultimately support civil law enforcement in prosecuting drug
traffickers. I had the opportunity to sail aboard that ship and it is
quite a ride.
Getting away from this strategic picture to a smaller, more tactical focus, I want to call attention to some of the things that are
within USSOUTHCOM’s direct purview when it comes to energy.
As we have heard, as energy becomes more and more expensive,
we need to reduce the tip-to-tail ratio, we need to be able to do
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things better and cheaper and longer so we can accomplish our
objectives, whether traditional or nontraditional.
Part of that work focuses on work on alternative fuels, and
through various partnerships with academia, in this case with
Florida International University in a project called The Western
Hemisphere Information Exchange, we have been working with
alternative fuels, in particular biodiesel. We are looking at the generation of biodiesel from various sources, including crops and agricultural waste products. We are also trying it out in a wide variety
of platforms.
We have also done some work in testing and fielding various
solar technologies. By and large, it has been tough but promising
work. We have done a range of experiments in Guyana, Honduras,
the Dominican Republic, and Chile that have largely met our
expectations on energy production. Our biggest concern to date
centers on deployability; weight is a problem, reliability is a problem, things breaking is a problem. We also have a wind-powered
co-generation experiment underway in Chile.
We are also looking at rivers as a source of energy. As part of
an experiment in Peru, we went to a very remote military base that
had no utilities whatsoever. In fact, power was so scarce that they
had to fire up a small generator just to recharge batteries. It was
essentially an electricity-free zone. We used micro-hydro-turbine
technology to set up a sustainable capability for the first time in
that region.
Biomass is another alternative fuel in which we are interested.
We have a 250-kW electrical generation system that runs on
waste matter. Although it is certainly not deployable in the sense
that some of these other technologies are, it is viable as a fixedsite installation. It seems that you can produce quite a bit out of
almost nothing.
Let’s turn next to clean water. Another speaker mentioned
when referring to the tip-to-tail ratio in Afghanistan how a tremendous amount of the logistics support required in theater was
for fuel. Although a significant amount of that fuel is required for
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transportation, in many cases an even larger share of the fuel is
needed simply to provide drinkable water.
Although you can probably live without fuel, I guarantee
that you cannot live without water for very long. In the case of
USSOUTHCOM, climate, energy, water, and food play a dual
role. In one sense, they can drive a mission, but they are also very
important considerations in how we respond and how we fulfill
those missions.
In addition, we need to have situational awareness; we need
to have presence, flexibility, a projection capability, and a manner
of carrying out those tasks that is effective and efficient. We need
to have communications with a wide variety of stakeholders, not
just U.S. military, not just our interagency partners within the
U.S. government, but from our 41 partner nations, territories, and
dependencies. We also need to include nongovernmental organizations—other people who are not ordinarily involved in our
decision-making process—in order to make all of this happen.
Information sharing is truly the key enabler, both for our mission
and for our approaches to executing that mission.
After 12 years of living in so-called “temporary quarters” in the
Miami area, USSOUTHCOM will be dedicating its new building at
the end of this year, and we have not neglected energy and environment there either. It is truly a green building; it is being built to
lead silver-level standards. So, even at home, we are thinking about
those things.
Reference
1. Admiral James G. Stavridis, U.S. Navy, Commander, U.S.
Southern Command, Statement Before the House Committee on
Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, 5 Mar 2008.
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5.6 Humanitarian Assistance/
Disaster Relief and Climate
Change in USSOUTHCOM
Captain Al Collins
On behalf of Rear Admiral Guillory, the Naval Forces U.S.
Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) and General Fraser,
USSOUTHCOM Commander, I thank you for this opportunity to
speak. Today I will talk a little bit about who we are and what we
do. A large portion of my presentation will center on the ongoing
operations in Haiti. I will also say a bit about climate change, our
humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) preparedness,
Captain Al Collins enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1972 and advanced
through the rank of Operation Specialist Chief Petty Officer before
becoming a commissioned officer. He achieved his education during
off-duty hours at the University of South Alabama, National University,
and the University of California at San Diego. He holds a master’s degree in national resource strategy from the Industrial College of the
Armed Forces. Sea assignments include Combat Systems Division
Officer, USS Pegasus (PHM 1); Combat Information Center (CIC)
Officer, USS Truxtun (CGN 35); Operations Officer, USS England (CG
16); Commanding Officer, USS Gladiator (MCM 11); Commanding
Officer, USS Ardent (MCM 12); Commanding Officer, USS Fitzgerald
(DDG 62); and Commander, Destroyer Squadron One. Shore assignments include Test Director, Navy Tactical Interoperability Support
Activity; Branch Head, Navy Compensation and Policy Coordination
Division; Flag Secretary and Executive Assistant (EA) to Commander,
Naval Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet; Chief, Network Operations Division,
Operations Directorate (J-3), Joint Staff; student, Industrial College of
the Armed Forces (ICAF); Senior Fellow, Chief of Naval Operations,
Strategic Studies Group; and Chief of Staff, U.S. Fourth Fleet (current
assignment). Personal decorations include the Legion of Merit, the
Joint Meritorious Service Medal, the Navy Meritorious Service Medal
with two gold stars, the Navy Commendation Medal with three gold
stars, the Navy Achievement Medal with three gold stars, and the Navy
Good Conduct Medal with two bronze stars.
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and preparations and some of our near-term threats. As the naval
component to USSOUTHCOM, we have six principal lines of
operation, the first four of which are (1) theater security cooperation, (2) counter illicit trafficking to include counter narcotics,
(3) counter money laundering, and (4) transport (Figure 1).
Our two remaining lines of operation are exercises and Southern
Partnership Station missions. Our exercises include signature events
such as PANAMAX and UNITAS, which will be starting up within
the next couple of months. We have a Southern Partnership Station
mission ongoing right now. The oceanographic survey ship USS
Henson is conducting oceanographic survey activities with Brazil;
a few weeks ago, the Henson was working with Colombia.
Right now the USS Carl Vinson, which played a big part in
the relief effort in Haiti, is sitting off the coast of Chile, having
circumnavigated South America en route to its new homeport of
San Diego. Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Freedom is on its maiden
voyage and is currently in port at Cartagena, Colombia. During its
45-day deployment to USSOUTHCOM, Freedom has been enormously successfully in all of the endeavors so far, especially the
counter-illicit trafficking mission. We hope to get the second LCS,
the USS Independence, to USSOUTHCOM in the near future.
Figure 1. USSOUTHCOM Principal Lines of Operation
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Fourth Fleet, which is about a year and a half old, serves as
the operational arm of the naval component to USSOUTHCOM.
Our principal focus is what we call “Phase Zero Operations.” What
that really means in the short term is that we go out and we build
partnerships. Such partnerships help us immensely in terms of our
ability to respond to HA/DR-type events, as you will see when I
talk about Haiti.
Security challenges are also a concern, of course. Although
we are not talking about militaries massing on somebody else’s
border poised to invade, there are a number of important threats
in theater. These threats are not purely military or conventional,
some are transnational in character, and some are asymmetric.
Addressing these challenges invariably requires interagency
coordination; they cannot be resolved by the military arm alone.
Let me move on to Haiti. Operation Unified Response, as it
was designated, was divided into five phases. Phase one was the
emergency response; phase two, the relief effort; all the way over
to phase five, the restoration effort. A wide array of organizations
were involved in this effort. Figure 2 shows the inherent complexity of that operation.
Figure 2. Operation Unified Response
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At the bottom of Figure 2 you see the Department of Defense
(DoD) response to the initiative. We are currently transitioning
from phase two over to phase three as DoD efforts wind down
and we redeploy assets. As DoD’s effort trends downward, the
activities of other agencies and the government of Haiti pick up.
The Navy, Army, Air Force, Marine, and Coast Guard components involved in the operation were simply providing support to
the combatant commander. The combatant commander stood up
a joint task force to manage this particular operation. Unfortunately,
the deputy commander at USSOUTHCOM was actually in Haiti
visiting the embassy at the time of the earthquake; one of his aides
was killed there.
Within the span of 1 week, our staff at the Navy Forces South
doubled. My staff went from about 150 people to just over 300.
The Navy decided that additional effort and leadership would be
required in this effort, so they sent five flag officers into the theater, including one to our staff to serve as deputy commander. As
it turned out, the Navy was not the first one on the scene. That
honor went to the Coast Guard, whose ships were already in the
area. The Navy quickly ramped up and within 3 days had assets
on scene providing relief.
In phase one, security was by far the largest concern, but
that diminished quickly. After the first few days, we realized that
everybody was in shock and people were not rioting and looting.
So security went pretty low on the totem pole and distribution of
food, water, and other relief supplies became the highest priority.
With the impending arrival of the rainy season, ensuring that the
Haitians have adequate shelter has risen to the top of the priority
list. Unity of effort played a large role as we tried to harmonize the
efforts of our many partner nations.
Listed in Figure 3 are the assets that the maritime component
brought to the effort. As of today, the maritime force has essentially
redeployed. The USS Bataan Amphibious Ready Group will depart
the area toward the end of March. At that point, the only U.S. Navy
surface asset in Haiti will be the USS Grasp, a diving and salvage
ship. I would like to point out a couple of things about Figure 3.
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Figure 3. Maritime Assets Devoted to Effort in Haiti
The amphibious ship Gunston Hall was at sea preparing to go
to Africa as the Africa partnership station when the earthquake
occurred. Personnel and equipment from 19 of our European and
African partner nations were embarked on the ship at the time.
They were diverted to the Port of Prince area, where they operated
for about 3 weeks. All 19 partner nations participated in the relief
effort. The aircraft carrier Carl Vinson was doing routine operations
in Norfolk when the earthquake occurred. Within days, they were
on station providing relief support using their embarked CH-53 and
H-60 helicopters.
The list shown in Figure 4 identifies our partner nations that
provided maritime support to the effort. Support was also provided
by the U.S. Air Force and Army. Although the Navy was not designated as a Combined Maritime Component Command, we served
that function in many respects. Many of the foreign ships that came
in sent liaison officers over to the carrier; we accepted them and
provided them the necessary information to enable coordination
of the relief effort.
The earthquake also severely damaged the two piers in Port
of Prince, the island’s main port. The north pier was completely
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Figure 4. Partner Participation
destroyed and about 30% of the south pier was destroyed. By
and large, port opening is an Army function. However, because
the Navy was the only one on the scene at the time, we were
tagged with that task. As the Joint Task Force (JTF) Port Opening
Commander, Admiral Perez stood up the necessary capabilities. One of the most important of these was the big Navy floatin system called JLOTS, or Joint Logistics over the Shore. JLOTS
does not require a pier. At the beginning of this disaster, Haiti had
the capacity to offload about 230 containers per day. The JLOTS
system alone is capable of transporting 300 containers per day, so
we effectively increased the port’s capacity. As you may recall,
the airport was shut down for several days until the U.S. Air Force
could come in and open it up.
A large portion of the U.S. response effort was provided by
the hospital ship Comfort. This ship has a 1000-bed hospital and
12 operating rooms onboard. As part of the normal rotation, we
deploy the hospital ship to the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility every other year. In the off year we bring in a large-deck
amphibious ship with a pretty substantial medical capability in
its own right. During that normal deployment, we tend to crew
the ship with personnel from nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs) such as Project Hope, Doctors without Borders, and the
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like. For this effort, the Navy decided to crew the ship with all
military practitioners because of the immediate need. Comfort set
sail for Haiti just 4 days after the earthquake and was on station
3 days later. Interestingly, the ship actually started providing surgeries before they arrived in theater. We flew a number of severely
injured patients out to the ship while it was en route. Once the
ship was on station, we started rotating the military medical practitioners out and bringing in personnel from NGOs to provide care.
All in all, we had about 180 people from 9 different NGOs
working on the ship to provide medical care. Although the ship has
a 1000-bed capacity, we were unable to get that many patients on
the ship. Other people, sometimes one, sometimes two or more,
brought virtually all of the injured patients to the ship. We thought
we should let those people stay, too, but they took up beds and
effectively reduced our actual patient capacity by half or more. We
soon realized that we just did not have the capacity to manage that.
So we scaled back and adopted the policy that only one person
could escort an injured person. By doing that, we were able to
accommodate more patients. However, all of the beds eventually
filled up because we did not have anywhere to put the people for
aftercare. All of the hospitals in Haiti had either been destroyed or
so severely damaged that they could not be reopened immediately.
As a result, we simply had to keep our patients on the ship until
they could be released.
Once the hospital ship was full, the throughput stopped until
the NGOs and our military practitioners could get out and open
up the hospitals so that we could move patients to other facilities.
Once we had a place where patients could go, we were able to
bring in additional patients and perform surgeries or other medical
procedures. They actually performed 500 major surgeries within
a 30-day period of time. Overall, they performed just under 1000
operations during the 9 weeks that they were on station. Ten babies
were born on the ship, including one set of twins. I think many
of you probably saw the CNN piece where Dr. Gupta performed
brain surgery on a young Haitian girl.
Figure 5 includes a summary of the overall effort by the maritime component to the disaster. As indicated, sustainment was a
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Figure 5. Summary of Overall Navy Effort in Haiti
very big piece of it also because, as a maritime component when
we go somewhere on ships, we are automatically prepared to sustain ourselves. That is not the case with all the people that flowed
into Haiti. All of their retail stores were virtually destroyed, so you
could not run down to 7-11 and buy your toiletries or a snack or
what have you. As a result, all of the people that the military had
put in Haiti had to eat MREs for the first 30+ days because there
were no restaurants or other places where you could run out and
get a meal. Sustainment was a huge part of the endeavor. We also
had 150 construction engineers, or Seabees, on the ground in Haiti
providing both horizontal and vertical construction capability. We
have construction divers who are rebuilding pylons for the pier
that was destroyed; it should be at 100% capability by the end of
March. And, as I mentioned, many of those forces are currently in
a state of redeployment.
In retrospect, responding to this catastrophe necessitated a very
large effort that included the participation of international partners
and organizations such as the United Nations as well as a number
of U.S. government entities including the State Department, DoD,
and other agencies. As I said, we are now in the process of redeploying, but as the maritime component departs the Army is still
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flowing people in to conduct restoration activities in support of
phases three, four, and five. The United States will have a military
presence in Haiti for some time to come.
On February 27, 2010, a major earthquake took place in Chile.
Our response to that disaster was significantly different because
Chile is a first-world nation in its own right. They are capable of providing their own relief effort, and they told us as much. However,
they did ask us to send a facilities assessment team, which we were
pleased to do. We sent a Navy group down to assess damage to
port facilities and piers and things of that sort. After a week there,
the team provided a report to the Chilean government. Once the
government has reviewed the report, they may end up requesting
specific assistance from the United States. We also sent down a
50-bed hospital within a few days of the earthquake. A summary
of efforts in response to the Chilean earthquake is summarized
in Figure 6.
As for climate change, Figure 7 shows what we see as some
of the potential effects of climate change. Climate change certainly is a huge consideration within our area of responsibility. As
is the case for our brethren around the North Pole, climate change
Figure 6. Summary of Efforts in Chile
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Figure 7. Potential Impacts of Climate Change
impacts us to the south as well. We know that we cannot predict
when disasters such as earthquakes are going to happen, but in
most cases we can determine where such disasters will occur. We
know where the low-lying areas are that are likely to be flooded
when the rains come.
In the case of Haiti, we have a head start before the rainy
season arrives. About 3 weeks ago, Haiti got 3 inches of rain and
11 people perished due to flooding and mudslides. That is probably just an indication of things to come when the rainy season
starts on April 1st and the hurricane season arrives a few months
later. In 2008, there were four consecutive back-to-back tropical
cyclones. As you well know, this region is prone to both tropical
cyclones and earthquakes.