Pentagon Spox Asked About Arctic Strategy: How Confident Is US That Allies Will 'Come Through?'

3 months ago

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Arctic and Global Resilience Iris Ferguson was asked about the involvement of Arctic allies in the Department of Defense's arctic strategy.

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Transcript

00:00Okay, thank you.

00:01Let's go to Chris Gordon in the room.

00:05NORAD has mentioned a lot in the strategy

00:07and here for obvious reasons.

00:09How much is this strategy dependent

00:12on Canadian investment, such as an aircraft,

00:14which has sometimes been lacking,

00:16evidently, on their side?

00:19And for example, the strategy mentions

00:20some 250 Allied aircraft that are coming

00:23by the 2030s that could operate in the Arctic.

00:25How confident are you that Allies

00:28are going to come through there?

00:30Yeah, our Canadian partners are integral,

00:33as are all of our Arctic Allies,

00:35to the success of this strategy.

00:37Our Arctic Allies and partners are so unique

00:40in that they have such a high concentration

00:42of capability and geopolitical alignment with us.

00:46I would argue that there's probably no greater

00:48concentration of like-minded partners

00:50anywhere else in the world,

00:51in addition to their high levels of capability.

00:53So we lean heavily on them.

00:55Canada is an incredibly important partner,

00:58not only for the defense of NORAD,

00:59but for also other developing capabilities

01:03for defense of North America.

01:05We partner with them often in exercises,

01:08including in recent Arctic Edge,

01:10and of course, in NORTHCOM's exercises.

01:12I am tracking their announcement to buy F-35s.

01:16They are included in that figure

01:18of 250 advanced generation aircraft.

01:22That's another incredible statistic,

01:23just to show the alignment of our Allies and partners,

01:26the majority of our Arctic Allies will have F-35s

01:29to include Canada.

01:31You know, we take their word in terms of their investment,

01:34and we look forward to partnering with them going forward.

01:37Let's go back out to the phones.

01:38We'll go to Brad Dress from The Hill.

01:41Hi, yeah, thanks for doing this.

01:43So in the strategy, you talk about investing

01:45in drones and aircraft for the Arctic.

01:48Are you referring to like new types of technology

01:51that have yet to be created that you're gonna develop,

01:53or you're talking about like improving

01:55what you have now for Arctic missions?

01:59Yeah, thanks.

02:00I think it's a really important question,

02:02and the Deputy Secretary hit a little bit on this question

02:04in terms of unmanned aircraft.

02:06I mean, it's a really tricky place to operate

02:10with ground operations and with manned platforms.

02:12So where we can lean into remote platforms,

02:17it can make a lot of sense.

02:18However, it's really tricky to operate remote platforms

02:21due to weather and due to connectivity issues.

02:24And so that's where we're trying to lean

02:25is looking at how we can test and do some R&D

02:29around ensuring these platforms can operate.

02:33I think we're looking to work with our allies and partners

02:35to determine the art of the possible

02:36in terms of what platforms, is it existing or is it new?

02:41Just to briefly fill out as well on the AI question,

02:45I think that that's also really important.

02:47It's trying to look at how we can use our machine learning

02:52to better interpret a really complicated landscape

02:54where we don't necessarily have as much data as we wish.

02:58One of a couple of examples where we've done that

03:01to effect recently is looking at Coast Guard imagery,

03:06some 12,000 images to detect maritime targets

03:09with our Coast Guard partners.

03:10We've also worked at looking at acoustic energies

03:13to employ on our submarines and on our P-8 aircraft.

03:17So we're committed to trying to leverage

03:19the best technology available

03:22and are also, of course, trying to do so

03:24in a manner that's both responsible and lawful.

03:27Yes, sir, in the back.

03:29Real quick, if a future presidential administration

03:32were to close the National Oceanic

03:34and Atmospheric Administration,

03:36how would that affect DOD's ability

03:39to operate in the Arctic and this strategy?

03:42Yeah, I'd have to defer questions on agencies

03:46to that agency itself.

03:47We do lean on NOAA pretty heavily right now

03:50with our Arctic weather forecasting.

03:51We work very closely with our Air Force weather community,

03:54but also our Naval weather community works closely

03:57with NOAA to detect weather forecasting

04:00and for ice forecasting.

04:01The program that Deputy Secretary Hicks mentioned

04:05that the Navy is investing in

04:06to look at different ice pack concentrations,

04:09especially at nighttime,

04:10which has actually been a challenge for our forecasters,

04:14that is a NOAA program that we're partnering with them on,

04:16but I would have to defer to NOAA on that.

04:18Is it fair to say there's a lot of dependency on NOAA

04:21for the continuation of current programs?

04:22I think it's fair to say that our approach to the Arctic

04:25is a whole-of-government effort

04:26and there's a lot of dependency across the board

04:28on various agencies to make sure we do it right.

Pentagon Spox Asked About Arctic Strategy: How Confident Is US That Allies Will 'Come Through?'

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