Time for U.S. and Alaska to ramp up Arctic infrastructure: in a dance to the music of time.

• Author: Gupta, Sourabh
• Position: ARCTIC IDEAS

"Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home."

--Matsuo Basho 18th century Japanese poet

"And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,

And now was dropped into the western bay;

At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue:

Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new."

--John Milton

At long last, the US government appears poised to seize--if at times, fitfully--its Arctic Destiny. Earlier this year, in January, the federal government released its Implementation Plan for the National Strategy for the Arctic Region, following on to its May 2013 release of the National Strategy which articulates the US government's strategic priorities for this vast untapped frontier.

In quick succession, the Department of Defense too issued its Arctic Strategy document in November 2013 and its Arctic Roadmap in February 2014 to realize the strategy over the 2014-2030 timeframe. The Roadmap charts out a series of focused activity areas in the sphere of operations and training, science and technology, environment observation and prediction, sate navigation, and maritime domain awareness, among others, over the next couple of years.

This sense of urgency is welcome. It is also belated. The United States has important--and oftentimes shared-- national interests at stake in the Arctic and, despite the recent burst of high-level attention, still lags its Arctic neighbors on a number of fronts.

Arctic Multilateralism

Six major national interests, organized along three major effort lines, drive the US Arctic policy. These are: national security, environmental protection, resource conservation, accommodation of the interests of indigenous populations, scientific research, and international cooperation. The three major activity lines are advancement of US national security interests, pursuit of environmental protection and resource conservation, and the development of stronger bilateral and multilateral cooperation.

Of the three, multilateral cooperation appears to have made the greatest progress. In May 2008, the states bordering the Arctic Ocean signed the Ilulissat Declaration, which commits the countries to observe the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea as the appropriate legal framework for cooperation in the Arctic. An Arctic Search and Rescue Agreement as well as a Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response Cooperation agreement has also been signed.

Multilateral cooperation notwithstanding, the potential for a variety of inter-state threats and tensions in this vast and lightly policed frontier persists. These include (a) potentially excessive continental shelf claims, and unilateral enforcement measures, by Arctic littoral states that impinge on the resources of their neighbors; (b) the staking of...