US Arctic is ‘woefully unprepared,’ Murkowski says

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski in Copenhagen. (Photo by Marybeth Sandell)

By Marybeth Sandell

Arctic Today

As White House rhetoric escalates about taking Greenland by force or purchase, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski suggests attention should focus more on the existing U.S. Arctic, where “we are woefully unprepared.”

Murkowski spoke with Arctic Today in Copenhagen as she traveled with an expanded bipartisan congressional delegation to reassure Danish and Greenlandic officials and business leaders that they’ll prevent Trump from taking hostile action against the Arctic nation.

Prior to the meeting, Trump said he wouldn’t rule out using military force to take control of Greenland and Secretary of State Rubio continues to assert that the U.S. aims to purchase Greenland. The administration claims it needs to control this territory for security and economic reasons.

Yet many observers argue that security concerns regarding Russia and China can best be addressed by boosting preparedness in its own backyard — the U.S. Arctic in Alaska. Murkowski agrees.

It’s incorrectly taken for granted that we’ve already got all we need, she said. Yet, “look at our icebreaker fleet, and you know that I say that mockingly, because we do not have a fleet. We have one icebreaker, and it’s down in Antarctica,” she said. “Reality is that we still do not have a deep water Arctic port.”

“Yes, I happen to think that we need to be focusing more” on the Alaskan coast, she said. “Russia is right there. Fifty-seven miles from mainland to mainland. We deal with air incursions, sometimes on a weekly basis. Russian bombers just come into our air space to show off a little bit.”

Business risk

The delegation also met with Danish business leaders who invest in the U.S. Murkowski didn’t say which businesses she met specifically, but Danish companies with a large presence include pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, brewer Carlsberg, shipper Maersk, renewable energy maker Vestas, and toymaker Lego.

Partnerships with, and investment from, Danish companies are at risk because of the increased rhetoric of acquiring Greenland, she said.

“People need to understand that there are consequences – economic consequences – to this,” she said. “We fray this alliance with Denmark because of the rhetoric.”

Murkowski said that Congressional concern over deteriorating relations with Greenland, Denmark and NATO is evident in the doubling of the size of the delegation from five to 10 members.

When the delegation returns home, raising awareness about the business risks is just one of the items on their action plan.

The plan also includes telling the story of the people of Greenland, specifically the anxiety and shock Greenlanders are feeling. Murkowski wants to raise awareness of what the people of Greenland are all about.

In the delegation’s closed-doors meetings, two of the young Greenland parliamentarians stressed that the concept of land ownership doesn’t exist in Greenland. The people don’t own the land, they use the land, and they give back to the land, she explained.

“And I was so moved, because it is every bit the same view as the native people in Alaska,” she said. “It’s across the region. It’s the subsistence connection. It is the cultural connection and the identity that you have with your land. And unfortunately, in the West, we have this idea that everything has to be monetized. You have to own something in order to control it. But that concept doesn’t even exist there.”

Dialing down the rhetoric

Another task for the delegation is to “dial down the rhetoric.”

We must be “sensitive to the implications of the words that are being used. Words matter,” she said. “Any mother who’s ever raised sons knows that your words matter, so choose them carefully. And whether you’re the president of the United States, or whether you’re a nominee to be an ambassador, your words matter even more. And so think about the effect. Yeah. Right now, our NATO partners are rattled.”

Trump’s nomination for ambassador to Iceland, former U.S. Rep. Billy Long, told Arctic Today that he apologizes for comments he made Tuesday about making Iceland the 52nd state with himself as governor.

Murkowski meets with every ambassador nominee in the Arctic before voting on the nomination. She has not yet met with Long.

“Things are really tender right now,” she said. “Canadians are not going to think that something like that is funny. And I don’t think the people in Iceland would think that that is funny either.“

Thom Tillis, Senator for North Carolina, joined other delegates in trying to calm anxieties. He told Danes and Greenlanders watching Danish television to not worry. “This too shall pass,” he said. The television commentators hung on those words and discussed them further in the studio, asking each other how much that can be believed.

Arctic focus

The White House is paying attention to the delegation’s visit, and to legislation submitted to block the administration from trying to take any NATO territory by force, Murkowski said.

“That’s a line that we just should not cross. If it were to come to that point, you would have the Congress firmly reject it,” she said, citing recent polling showing Americans have little interest in using military force to control Greenland. Seventy-one percent of all Americans believe taking Greenland by force is a bad idea, and just four percent think it is a good idea, according to a recent Reuters poll.

Greenland has dominated the Arctic conversation, leaving little room to discuss much else in recent months. Yet, when there is space for more, she is ready with her list of things the region needs to get back to discussing. Wildfires exposing the permafrost, greater economic cooperations, getting broadband or fiber access to remote areas, space and satellite observation are top of her mind.

“There’s so much that we can talk about as Arctic nations,” she said. But first the delegation will go home and raise awareness about the sentiment in Greenland. “They’re in fear, she said. “The children are afraid when they go to bed at night about what might happen while they sleep.”

• This article was originally published in Arctic Today and is republished by States Newsroom with permission.