Episode 6: Navigating Arctic Ambitions - Frozen Water & Warming Seas

The Trident

Guests Dr. Lawson Brigham and Dr. Rebecca Pincus join host Col. Dave Brown and co-host Dr. Walter Berbrick to discuss the growing importance of the Arctic Sea as an area of economic resources, Trans-Arctic shipping routes, and a potential zone of international security concerns. This episode will touch upon items relating to the Arctic Council, Arctic development, the impact of the Russia-Ukraine War, and a new era of peace and security in the region. Tune in to hear our participants’ thoughts on threat activity in the High North, along with the need for increased strategic considerations and updated U.S. policy directions.

Articles:

• New Challenges for the Bering Strait, L. Brigham, USNI Proceedings Vol.150/5/1,455, May 2024.
• Polar Points No. 27 | New Era of Arctic Cooperation, L. Brigham & R. Pincus, Wilson Center, 4 Apr. 2024.
• 360° View of Policies Needed to Secure Shipping Chokepoints, M. Kennedy, J. Macaron, Wilson Center, et al. (R. Pincus, co-author), 13 Feb. 2024.
• The IMO Polar Code: Safety and Environmental Protection for Polar Waters, L. Brigham, USNI Proceedings Vol.150/1/1,451, Jan. 2024.
• Agency Challenges and Implications with a US Extended Continental Shelf, L. Brigham, Wilson Center, 19 Dec. 23.
• Polar Institute Director Rebecca Pincus on 'What Is Strategic Competition?', R. Pincus, Wilson Center, 5 Jan. 2024.
• Arctic Militarization and Russian Military Theory, M. Petersen & R. Pincus, Orbis, Volume 65, Issue 3, 2021, Pages 490-512.
• Security and geopolitics in the Arctic: The Increase of Hybrid Threat Activities in the Norwegian High North, G. H. Gjorv, Hybrid CoE, March 2024.
• 400+ Allied, Joint Special Operations Forces Secure the Arctic, M. Carey, DVIDS, 14 Mar. 2024.

Co-Host:

Walter Berbrick, Ph.D. Senior national security executive, strategist, and advisor with two decades of experience leading teams in policy, intelligence, military and academic communities at the highest levels of government. He currently serves as an analyst in the War Gaming Department in the U.S. Naval War College, and was a previous professor at the college. Walter has held national security roles at the State Department and Pentagon and served for 10 years in the U.S. Navy.

Guests:

Lawson W. Brigham, Ph.D. Global Fellow in the Wilson Center's Polar Institute in Washington, DC. He is a researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a Fellow at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy's Center for Arctic Study & Policy. Captain Brigham was a career Coast Guard officer and commanded four cutters including the icebreaker Polar Sea on Arctic & Antarctic expeditions. During 2004-09 he was chair of the Arctic Council's Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment. He is a graduate of the Coast Guard Academy and earned his PhD at Cambridge University. Dr. Brigham is a Council on Foreign Relations member and a former member of the National Academies Polar Research Board.

Rebecca Pincus, Ph.D. Director of the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center, and previously on the faculty at the U.S. Naval War College, where her research focused on Arctic security and geopolitics. Dr. Pincus also worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy, as an Arctic and Climate Strategy Advisor. A Fulbright Fellow in Iceland, conducting research on Arctic states and security, she was previously on the faculty at the Coast Guard Academy and worked on polar policy for the U.S. Coast Guard, at the Center for Arctic Study and Policy. Widely published and a contributing author for the 5th National Climate Assessment, she has also testified before Congress and the U.S.-China Commission on security and defense in the polar regions.