2014 ndi – Pre Camp Natural Gas Negative



Download 1.07 Mb.
Page1/19
Date01.02.2018
Size1.07 Mb.
#37897
  1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   ...   19

2014 NDI – Pre Camp Natural Gas Negative

Natural Gas Negative

**Case Debate**

Artic Advantage



Artic Cooperation Now

Military procedure only proves cooperation


VOR 2/1/14 (Voice of Russia, “Military cooperation in Arctic doesn't mean militarisation of region - Russian Ambassador”, http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_02_01/Military-cooperation-in-Arctic-doesnt-mean-militarisation-of-region-Russian-Ambassador-0170/)

The development of the military cooperation among the Arctic countries should not be considered the region's militarisation, Russia's Ambassador at Large and representative at the Arctic Council /AC/ Anton Vasilyev said in an interview with Itar-Tass. He had participated in the Council's meeting on organisation of the Arctic Economic Council. "The demand for further improvement of military cooperation among the Arctic countries is evident," the ambassador said. "What forms it will have will depend on practical agreements." "Take for example Russia, with its 20,000-kilometres' borders along the Arctic Ocean. Formerly, the border was protected fully by the ice and severe climate. Now the climate is milder, the ices are melting. Thus emerges the task of adding our military presence there to secure the country from illegal border crossing, illegal emigration, organised crime and terror. Secondly, we have been developing actively navigation along the Northern Sea Route. We see it our obligation to secure the navigation. We have started extracting oil on the shelf. The economic activities in the Arctic have been growing. However, growing are also man-made catastrophes. We also see higher demand for additions efforts in search and rescue of people in the region. Thus, the first legally binding agreement among the Arctic countries was on search and rescue of people. This is complicated to do without assistance from the military." "As heads of the Air Force headquarters from the Arctic Council's countries had their first meeting in April 2012 at Canada's Goose Bay aviation base, they agreed the first task for cooperation would be missions in search and rescue," the Russian diplomat said. "This is very important. They also agreed then to have meetings of the kind every year. Last year, it was in Ilulissat /Greenland/. This year, another annual meeting is due in Iceland in June." "Higher attention from the AC countries towards the military factor in the Arctic should not be considered as militarisation," the ambassador continued. "It is implementation of national sovereignties of the countries, which share responsible approaches to the region's security. Everything has been done transparently, logically, and is not aimed against any neighbours, is not of a destabilising character and does not cross any 'red lines'.

No Russia Impact

It’s a safe space! no war impact & accidental war between the US and Russia.


Rybachenkov 4/3/13 (Vladimir, Counselor for nuclear affairs at the Russian embassy in Washington, Lecturere at Carnagie-Plowshare, “The Arctic: region of multilateral cooperation or platform for military tension?”, http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_04_03/The-Arctic-region-of-multilateral-cooperation-or-platform-for-military-tension/)

Some western media have recently been highlighting the view that military conflicts in the struggle to secure the Arctic's natural resources are inevitable. Russia is carefully monitoring developments in polar region and considers the general situation in the area to be positive, stable and, on the whole, predictable, based on the assumption that there are no immediate issues that might call for a military solution. This assessment has recently been confirmed in a report by the Stockholm Institute for Peace Research (SIPRI), which refuted recent conjecture about a polar arms race. It is commonly recognised that there are currently three major factors determining the Arctic situation; Firstly, the end to military and political confrontation from the Cold War when the Arctic was almost exclusively seen in the context of flight trajectories for strategic nuclear weapons as well a route for nuclear submarine patrols. Now the threat of a global nuclear war is substantially reduced, with US–Russian arms control treaties being a key element in the gradual movement towards a world without nuclear weapons. Impartial assessment of the arms control process shows that both countries' nuclear potentials have steadily diminished over the last 20 years. The START 1 treaty resulted in the removal of about 40% of the nuclear weapons deployed in Russia and the USA while the 2010 New START treaty provided for their further fourfold reduction. Substantial efforts have also been made by both countries to reduce the likelihood of accidental nuclear launches due to unauthorised actions or misunderstandings: strategic nuclear bombers were taken off full time alert and “Open ocean targeting" was mutually agreed, meaning that in the event of an accidental launch, the missile would be diverted to land in the open ocean. Two other factors were contributing to the opening up of new opportunities in the Arctic: the emergence of new technologies and rapid thawing of the Arctic ice, both rendering natural resources and shipping routes more accessible. It should also be noted that the ice-cap depletion also has a military dimension, namely the gradual increase of US multipurpose nuclear submarines and the deployment of missile defence AEGIS warships in the Northern Seas may be considered by Russia as a threat to its national security. Russia was the first Arctic state to adopt, in 2008, a long term policy report in response to the new realities, it pointed to the Arctic region as a, “strategic resource base for the country" which would require the development of a new social and economic infrastructure as well as an upgrading of military presence in the region to safeguard the Arctic territory. The document however underlined that there was no question of militarising the Arctic and expressed the importance of sub-regional and international cooperation to form a favourable social, cultural and economic space. All other Arctic states have adopted similar strategies with the key common point being a statement that the national interests of each Arctic state can only be met through multilateral cooperation. A “race" for territory, energy and seafood has been curtailed by historical decisions taken at the 2008 Ilulissat (Greenland) meeting when five Arctic coastal states declared that their basic framework for future cooperation, territorial delimitation, resolution of disputes and competing claims would be the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS ).

No Artic Impact


No Arctic conflict by any nation

Fries, 2012 – Tom, Senior Fellow at the Arctic Institute, MBA from Georgetown University, ‘Perspective Correction: How We Misinterpret Arctic Conflict’, http://www.thearcticinstitute.org/2012/04/perspective-correction-how-we.html

War and conflict sell papers -- the prospect of war, current wars, remembrance of wars past. Accordingly, a growing cottage industry devotes itself to writing about the prospect of conflict among the Arctic nations and between those nations and non-Arctic states, which is mostly code for “China.” As a follower of Arctic news, I see this every day, all the time: eight articles last week, five more already this week from the Moscow Times, Scientific American or what-have-you. Sometimes this future conflict is portrayed as a political battle, sometimes military, but the portrayals of the states involved are cartoonish, Cold-War-ish...it’s all good guys and bad guys. I’m convinced that this is nonsense, and I feel vindicated when I see the extent to which these countries' militaries collaborate in the high North. From last week's meeting of all eight Arctic nations' military top brass (excepting only the US; we were represented by General Charles Jacoby, head of NORAD and USNORTHCOM) to Russia-Norway collaboration on search & rescue; from US-Canada joint military exercises to US-Russia shared research in the Barents...no matter where you look, the arc of this relationship bends towards cooperation. But there's a bigger misconception that underlies the predictions of future Arctic conflict that we read every week. This is the (usually) unspoken assumption that the governments of these states are capable of acting quickly, unilaterally and secretly to pursue their interests in the Arctic. False. This idea that some state might manage a political or military smash-and-grab while the rest of us are busy clipping our fingernails or walking the dog is ridiculous. The overwhelming weight of evidence suggests that the governments of the Arctic states are, like most massive organizations, bureaucratic messes. Infighting between federal agencies is rampant all around, as are political shoving matches between federal and state/provincial/regional governments. Money is still scarce, and chatter about military activism isn’t backed up by much: Canada is engaged in a sad debate over the downgrading of the proposed Nanisivik port; the United States’ icebreaker fleet is barely worth mentioning and shows little sign of new life in the near-term future; US Air Force assets are being moved 300+ miles south from Fairbanks to Anchorage; and Russia’s talk about a greater Arctic presence has been greatly inflated for the sake of the recent elections. In a more general sense, we have viciously polarized governments in the US and, to a lesser extent, Canada, as well as numerous “hotter” wars elsewhere that will take the lion’s share of our blood and treasure before the Arctic gets a drop of either. The smaller states might be able to act more nimbly, but Norway and Denmark are successful Scandinavian social-market economies with modestly-sized militaries who aren’t likely to put military adventurism in the Arctic at the top of their to-do lists. They’re also patient decision-makers who are making apparently sincere (if not always successful) efforts to incorporate their resident indigenous communities into national politics. This makes fast, unilateral, secret action unlikely. And then there is Russia. From the outside, it can often seem as though the Russian government rules by fiat. This reasonably leads to the concern that someone might take it into his head to assert Russia’s military might or otherwise extend the country’s sovereignty in the Arctic. But it is fairly clear that Russia’s success is currently, and for the near-term future, dependent on its position within the constellation of global hydrocarbon suppliers. To continue to develop its supply base, Russia needs the assistance of the oil majors of neighboring states, and indeed it is showing signs of warming up to foreign engagement with its Arctic hydrocarbons in significant ways. Its political relationships with its regular customers are also critical to its future success. Russia isn’t likely to wantonly sour those relationships by acting aggressively against all four of its wealthy, well-networked littoral brothers in Europe and North America. It’s not only the handcuffs of many colors worn by the Arctic states that will keep them from getting aggressive, it is also the good precedents that exist for cooperation here. Russia and Norway recently resolved a forty year-old dispute over territory in the Barents. There are regular examples of military cooperation among the four littoral NATO states and between Norway and Russia. Even the US and Russia are finding opportunities to work together. Meanwhile, the need to develop search-and-rescue capabilities is making cross-border cooperation a necessity for all Arctic actors. There are numerous international research and private-sector ventures, even in areas other than hydrocarbons. These will only grow in importance with time. In fact, it would seem that for many of these countries, the Arctic is a welcome relief - a site where international collaboration is comparatively amicable.


Download 1.07 Mb.

Share with your friends:
  1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   ...   19



The database is protected by copyright ©ininet.org 2024
send message
    Main page
economic activities
general situation
national interests
gradual increase
overwhelming weight
russian embassy