Anchorage Security and Defense Conference 2024!

 

It was an excellent opportunity to attend the Anchorage Security and Defense Conference (ASDC) held in Anchorage, Alaska, USA, from November 19-21. The inaugural ASDC was the first of its kind in Alaska, following the lines of the “Arctic Encounter” conference held each spring, with a promise to continue each fall from 2025 onward. This year’s ASDC conference theme was “‘Decisive 2020’ in the context of the Allied North.” The conference brought together nearly two hundred delegates, including high-level government officials, diplomats, defense personnel, the Coast Guards, academics and practitioners, and Indigenous peoples' representatives, to discuss challenges, potential solutions, and strategic choices. The focus areas were the Arctic, the North Atlantic, and the North Pacific – regions becoming increasingly critical to defense and security.

Topics covered climate change and its impacts, critical infrastructure and resilience, emerging new technologies, the growing use of artificial intelligence, and their transformative impact on regional development. The conference adopted a systematic and coherent approach to message delivery. In addition to the opening session and keynote presentations, the three-day conference held a set of specific panels, as well as breakout sessions. The first panel discussed the overall cooperative approach to defense in the North, where representatives from Canada, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and the United States gave an overview of the security challenges in the North, focusing on the Arctic. They highlighted the need for increased preparedness, especially in light of the severe implications of Russian behavior in the Arctic and the North Atlantic.

Emphasis was placed on increasing challenges to NATO’s capabilities in the regions. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and in response, the expansion of the Alliance to include Finland and Sweden, NATO needs to develop its defense strategy taking into account the prevailing situation in the region, including more joint exercises, for example, in Arctic-specific conditions, such as long winters, harsh climatic conditions, long distances with inadequate infrastructure, etc. Emphasis was also placed on strengthening Sino-Russian relations in the Arctic and coordination between Allies to address threats arising from geopolitical changes, such as the threat of a Russia-China-North Korea alliance, not just in the Arctic but in the North Pacific and the Indo-Pacific, too.

Several more specific panels followed, such as the energy and technology of the transforming Arctic, specific challenges arising from the “axis of the adversary,” new NATO members and the challenges they face, the Indo-Pacific partnership, resilience, critical infrastructure security, and its solutions, and strategic issues on the horizon, etc. In addition, several breakout sessions outlined the need to promote understanding around specific topics, both thematic and region-specific, such as the role of education and awareness; women, peace and security; specific aspects of Nordic security; the North American Arctic in the security and defense ecosystem; the National Guard partnership; and climate security perspectives, etc.

Overall, the conference offered an exciting platform for scholars, strategists, diplomats, policymakers, and practitioners to learn about essential challenges that have not been addressed from a new horizon of security and defense perspective, particularly in the Arctic, beyond traditional warfare scenarios. For example, critical infrastructure resilience from a capability perspective and possible cyber security threats capable of disrupting essential and critical societal functions, including supply chain and communication networks, were widely discussed. Especially in the Arctic context, the lack of sophisticated communication and transportation networks, weather and climate conditions, and any disruption in the energy supply system, on which every other critical societal function is dependent, for example, will cause a total mass until and unless the effective preparedness and response mechanisms are in place. Therefore, the primary need for secure, sustainable, and resilient infrastructure must be strengthened and systematized, including cyber-physical and communication networks. Full preparedness to respond to threats emanating from critical infrastructure disruption will require a disciplined and strategic approach that the seven Arctic NATO members must address to shape their Arctic defense strategy, given that the Arctic is likely to shape or heavily influence global security at the end.

- Kamrul Hossain