US Northern Command TSDM-27 Source: NWC Faculty

1. US Northern CommandTSDM-27Source: NWC Faculty “…provide for the common defense…” -- The Constitution

2. 1. The AOR • Refining the AOR: Last UCP gave USVI, PR, Cuba, and Bahamas to SC. The Arctic to NC. • Next UCP (and after): Mexico to SC? Greenland to NC (home rule)? Caribbean to NC? Stay tuned…

4. Origins • Established 10/1/02 after 9/11 • Should we include the U.S. in a GCC? In the past, Canada was in EUCOM and Mexico declined to engage within the AOR concept with SC.

5. North America Aerospace Defense Command: NORAD • NOT part of NORTHCOM but NORTHCOM is dual-hatted as its Commander; a Canadian 3-star is Deputy. • The U.S.’ only binational Command

6. NORAD Endstates • Successful defense of Canada and the U.S. from aerospace threats. • Timely, accurate maritime warning of threats to North America (per 2005 NORAD agreement) • NORAD is an international cooperation model in defense planning, training, information management, and technological innovation.

7. NORTHCOM Endstates • Anticipate, detect, prevent or defeat external threats and aggression. • Timely, effective defense support to civil authorities. • Unity of effort with interagency and international partners.

8. “ Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies.” -- President Kennedy The Partners: Canada

9. Thinking About Canada • National identity formation was slower than the US’ or Mexico’s. In some ways, it is still a frontier and immigrant nation. • US-Canada relations have a rocky past; dense network of agreements; formal and informal links. • NORAD was a hard sell in Canada, but is now very popular. • Joining the OAS in 1990 indicated shift south. • Canada’s strategic review shifts emphasis from “peacekeeping” and moral suasion to recognizing that Canada was ineffective; hard power counts. • Afghanistan combat experience has been reshaping its pol-mil side. • New Canada Command is a natural partner for NORTHCOM. Canada Command’s AOR includes Mexico and the U.S.; engagement is expanding in pol-mil and mil-mil. • US’ number 1 trading partner and provider of crude oil and refined products, natural gas, electricity and uranium. • A truck crosses Detroit-Windsor bridge once every two seconds.

10. Mexico “ Poor Mexico. So far from God and so close to the United States.” -- President Porfirio Diaz

11. Thinking About Mexico • Foreign interference is constant in Mexican history – including from Europe • Unlike US and Canada, Mexican intellectuals influenced by French Revolution; socio-political divisions are more ideological. • Also part of Latin America and has leadership role there. • Increasingly looks outward to expand engagement; Mexican Navy supplied assistance to Haiti and to Indonesia; Army and Navy assisted in Katrina in the US. • Mil-mil ties are improving, but sensitive; Constitution does not permit military to go abroad without its Congress’ OK. One of the issues Mexico is addressing. • Our number two export destination and number three supplier of crude oil.

12. “The challenge for Mexico is to find a national consensus on security that articulates national priorities and defines in better terms the nation’s relationship with the U.S. and Canada.” -- Prof. A. Rodriguez-Sumano’s article • How would you do this?

13. Hemisphere Initiatives: NAFTA • NAFTA: 1994: world’s largest free trade area. Includes world’s 1st, 8th, and 9th largest economies. • Trilateral trade doubled: - 1993=$293B; 2004=$713, now almost $1T annually among us. - 65M cars, 7M trucks, 1.5M RR cars cross the two borders annually. - Canadian government says 19K jobs in RI depend on trade with Canada. • Butnot everyone is a winner in any of the three member countries.

14. NAFTA does NOT: • Do development: should Canada and the US do more to help Mexico catch up, as the EU did with Spain? • Plan for success: are we losing opportunities? • Address migration: the movement of capital, goods and labor are the components of growth – is one missing? • Address energy sector: Constitutional issue in Mexico • Provide regulatory structures; issues are resolved on an ad hoc basis. • Do security issues

15. US trade with Mexico (left) and Canada (right). • Note the decline in trade at 9/11. • Is there something here needing protection? • What’s our deficit with them?

16. Hemispheric Initiatives: Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) • A process among the three countries to increase security and prosperity through greater cooperation. • Each can raise blocks to greater security and prosperity to working groups that reports to the three leaders; e.g. emergency preparedness. • There are no agreements. • Progress moves along bilateral, dual-bilateral, or trilateral lines, depending on the issue. • No military component although militaries support several working groups, e.g. Mexican Navy is responsible for port security.

17. Canada and Mexico are interested in Prosperity and smooth border operations; the US focus is on Security. • Website: www.spp.gov

18. Hemispheric Initiatives: Merida Initiative • US and Mexico counter-drug cooperative initiative; includes program for Central American, Dominican Republic, and Haiti. • Focus beyond law enforcement to institutional strengthening and reforms; US to work on demand reduction and small arms smuggling to Mexico. • Includes: detection and communication equipment, helos, surveillance planes, case management software, and witness protection program planning. In Mexico, some tasks are done by the military so there is an TSC element. • Is there a role for Canada?

19. Northcom’s Security Environment -- Nation state capability will expand. -- CBRNE availability will expand. -- Terrorism tactics will gain in lethality, unpredictability, organization, and financing. -- Cyber and kinetic/non-kinetic attacks on space assets. -- Globalization can support disease, WMD, technology access, extremism. --Lines blurring between combatant and non-combatants. Do you agree?

20. What affects all three countries? • Counter-drug and Counter-terrorism • Organized crime/gangs • Trafficking in persons • Border security • Pandemics • Environment • Threats to communication and energy infrastructure • Threats to shipping • Threats to tourism • Vulnerability of regional air and maritime commons • Disaster preparedness and response • Peer or near-peer?

21. Sick birds will not stop for passports and visas!

22. NORTHCOM’s TSC Mission, Vision, Endstates • Mission: As directed by SecDef, conduct security cooperation with Canada and Mexico to build partnership capacity to defeat transnational threats and prevent new threats from emerging. • Vision: Establish a comprehensive continental security architecture where the US, Canada, and Mexico work as close partners in deterring, preventing, and if necessary, defeating mutual threats. • Endstate: A mutually beneficial continental defense architecture that effectively protects the homeland.

23. Major Engagements With Mexico • Specialized training • DV visits • Senior Executive Dialogue • Foreign Liaison Officer • Exercise observation • C2 Architecture study • WMD-Civil Support Team development • Security Assistance Programs IMET, FMS… • Maritime Planning Conference • Pandemic Influenza Planning • General Security of Military Information Sharing Agreement • Acquisition Cross Service Agreement (ACSA)

24. Major Engagements With Canada • 2/08: US-Canada Civil Assistance Plan to facilitate mil-mil disaster assistance: latest agreement in a dense network of ties. • OEF/NATO cooperation • Liaison and staff exchanges • Permanent Joint Board on Defense (PJBD) • Improved intelligence-sharing • R&D cooperation • Defense sales • Active service-to service cooperation

25. The Arctic • The Geography • The Actors • Issues: diplomatic and legal – UN Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), security, indigenous people, environment, resources and shipping

26. Depends…diplomatically useful not to define it and useful to include the choke-point access routes/SLOCs; US law includes Bering; on the other hand, navigation needs clarity.

27. Antarctica: What’s the Difference? • Antarctica is a continent surrounded by ocean and the Arctic is an ocean surrounded by continents. • Antarctic Treaty System does not “assert, support, or deny” a territorial claim and prohibits non-scientific military activities: issues are frozen • For the Arctic, standing rules on acquiring territorial seas are in effect: issues are dynamic • Polar bears v. Penguins

28. The Actors • Circumpolar Countries: US, Russia, Denmark (Greenland), Norway, and Canada: border the Arctic. • The Arctic Council: The above plus Iceland, Finland, Sweden with territorial claims. • Indigenous communities: 229 of the 562 US federal tribes are in Alaska plus others; for the US, the State of Alaska. • Commercial: shipping, fisheries, extractive, tourism industries • International Organizations/Fora: UN, Nordic Council, Council of Baltic States, Barents Euro-Arctic Council, UNCLOS components • NGO’s on a wide variety of issues • What about the rest of the world? Japan and Singapore need the shipping route; China has an icebreaker…

29. Emerged in ‘96 out of the ‘91 Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy process. Designed to promote policy cooperation, environmental protection, and sustainable development for indigenous communities who have “participant” status. A “forum”: not an international organization or legal person - there is no treaty or compulsion or dues; consensus governs decisions; structure is minimum and includes standing working groups. “Observer” status is possible; interested in other states and NGOs, but wary of animal-rights organizations. Actor: The Arctic Council

30. Actor: Indigenous People • Respect for oral history and traditional belief. • Non-confrontational engagement. • Subsistence farming and hunting. • 1 gal of milk=$10. • “The elders have forgotten how to hunt.” • Arctic Council gov’ts strive for least disruptive sustainable development; Russians restrict contact with counterparts. • Legally, ice is water even if people and animals are on it.

31. Issues: The Environment • Melt of permanent, thick, multi-year ice; little less in winter and lot less in summer. Melt accelerating. • Prevailing winds push out ice; warm water ‘tunnels’ under; more open water absorbs more solar heat. Is there a “tipping point”? • Sea and land animals patterns change • Ice free? Best case – 2030; worst case – 2013. Insufficient data to predict rate. • But “ice free” is not free of ice: threat from undersea, floating, or quick-forming ice; dynamic ice is dangerous. • Effect is clear; cause is not. Nations will act as if prognosis were fact to avoid losing out. • Winners and losers?

32. Legal Issues: UN Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) of 1982 • After the UN Charter, the most important int’l agreement. • Covers: sovereignty, safety, air/sea mobility, resource development, environment, rights of coastal nations, freedom of navigation for military/commercial, and dispute resolution. • Ways to get more ‘sovereign’ water: deeply indented shoreline; islands; ‘historic’ authority that others recognize; establish an extension of continental shelf. • EEZ+: 10 years after ratification to explore/file claims with Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. Must create ‘facts on the ground’: Russia (‘09), Canada (’13), Denmark (’14) are busy. Russian flag planting had no standing, but Russia is doing the right thing: research. With 1000 miles of Arctic coast, US would do well. • NW Passage: Canada claims it’s internal, historic waters prior to LOS; US (plus) confirm Canadian sovereignty but maintain it is an international straight (like Dardanelles) with right of passage. • US not a member; SFRC voted out but no floor vote. US complies with UNCLOS but cannot file claims or serve on commissions. Narrow opposition centers on general fear of sovereignty loss and regulations regarding undersea mining.

34. Diplomatic • Not the wild west. Everyone is chasing national interests, but no fighting – yet. • US interests: homeland defense and security , environment/science, energy and resources, fisheries, SAR. • Arctic policy review; shift from science to include security; standing Interagency Arctic Issues Group meets regularly. • Boundaries: Russian agreement waiting for Duma action since ’90; Canadian boundary needs addressing. No negotiations with Canada planned over NW Passage; U.S. (and most others) hold that it is Canadian territorial waters, but that is also an international strait connecting international bodies of water.

35. Resources • Experts calculate that 22% of the undiscovered, recoverable resources are there: 13% of the oil, 30% of the gas, and 20% natural gas liquids. – US Geological Survey, July 2008. • Alaska always had extractive economy: Red Dog mine: world’s largest zinc deposit next to expected huge coal deposits. • Technical challenges: access to four-season water, ice, limited undersea robotics, environmental concerns, no tolerance for error. • Fish: changing species, closed fishing areas, poaching.

36. Shipping • New SLOCs; shave miles/days; ideal for non-canal ships; industry is building more ice-capable ships • Few Arctic-experienced mariners • Poor charts; shifting navigational aids • Poor communications in high latitudes • Lack infrastructure; few ports or refueling sites • Uncertain regulatory structure and insurance concerns • Economic incentive to take risks in an unforgiving environment • Cruise ships not ice-capable; thousands of pax who are hours from SAR help • Traffic still mostly destinational, not transit

37. National Security • Russia is biggest energy actor; argues for increased funding and claims NATO threat. • US and Russia exchange will likely shape the debate. NATO does not extend to the Arctic – should it? • Large-scale military conflict unlikely, but risk of incidents as sovereignty is asserted. Resolving claims will take years. US has special challenges by being outside UNCLOS. • How do we get “Arctic Domain Awareness” and “eyes on” above the Arctic circle? Threat vectors? • Three COCOMs ‘share’ the Arctic. Do we need an assigned lead? How does a COCOM incorporate the Arctic in planning? Presence, deterrence, influence, response? • USCG: 3 ice-breakers; none in USN. Russia has 18. Canada building some. China has 1. • Russian post-cold war resumption of Bear bombers flights toward the ADIZ (air defense identification zone) visits. NORAD responds. • Who owns what, where? How to expand from science policy focus to include security? • Access/mobility: Freedom of navigation goal could conflict with maritime sea life protection zones goal. • Access to and development of resources • Do we need a new treaty: Some want one with the Arctic powers; some want a much broader one like the Antarctic Treaty System. US policy position is that we’re happy with the tools we have.