A colleague here at FPA brought to my attention last week proposed legislation in the US congress regarding Afghanistan-Pakistan duty-free areas that looks like it may have promise.  The legislation, spearheaded by Rep. Chris Van Hollen, would open up segments of Afghan-Pakistan territory to be free trade or duty-free zones.  In other words, certain products could be made in these respective zones and then be sold to the United States with zero tariffs, hopefully giving them a strategic advantage.  The upside to this move for the people and business of those Afghan-Pakistan territories is rather obvious, as this business would hopefully create new jobs and wealth for those involved.

However this legislation may face delay or opposition from US labor unions and must pass the a Democrat-controlled House and Senate.  In this regard, Hollen, a Democrat, has received support from some fellow Democrats and Republicans, which have promised to help sponsor the bill and get it through Congress.  There is also the logistical aspect of figuring out where the duty-free zones should be chosen and just how big they should be.  Having these zones in too conflict ridden territories may curb the expected benefits, but also having them too big may create a backlash from American labor unions.  In addition, choosing the acceptable goods to be duty-free, some likely to be textiles, will also be cumbersome and domestically sensitive.  Hopefully these Congressmen, with the support of the Obama administration, can work out a deal that can satisfy all sides.  Economic struggles are not the only reason for the conflict and pains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, but it certainly is a central aspect.

There are a series of UNFCCC meetings this year leading up to the Copenhagen Conference of the Parties - the 15^th COP.  As you know, Copenhagen is where the post-Kyoto agreement is going to be finalized.  The first of the five planned negotiating sessions leading up to the COP wrapped up in Bonn last week.  (There is also the “Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate” that President Obama is convening in Washington at the end of April.)

The UNFCCC reported that “Progress was made on technology transfer, and agreement reached on the need to boost funding for adaptation. UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said “…more clarity was still needed on industrialized country commitments to produce the scale of finance required for both mitigation and adaptation. He added that real negotiations based on negotiating texts would take place at the next meeting in June.”

Here is a succinct version of de Boer’s press statement.

Terrorists are carrying out attacks inside Pakistan with incredible ease and stunning accuracy. Taliban are seizing more and more territory everyday. The sense of security and protection in the country is long gone. Everyone in Pakistan is nervous, and nobody knows how and when, if ever, life will become stable or normal.  Not only are Pakistanis tense, but this erosion of law & order in Pakistan is also making its neighbors extremely uncomfortable. Obviously, if the current trend of violence in Pakistan continued, countries around Pakistan might join hands to protect their territory from the on-going carnage in Pakistan.

This is no doubt that the problems that Pakistan is facing today are extremely complex. It is also true that responsible people in the current and in the previous administration have done everything in their power to confront the threat of terrorism, religious militancy and convince Pakistanis that terrorists are enemies of Pakistan, but judging from the current level of bloodbath in the country, it is clear that governments have failed. As a result of this failure, regretfully there is no place in Pakistan that is safe or out of reach for vicious thugs using religion to carry out massacre.

The security situation in Pakistan is just awful.

It is never safe to shift the blame because this pattern of finding excuses actually destroys the ability to be honest and realistic about the ground realities and we are witnessing this play out in Pakistan today. There are people, and they are not in minority, who believe that if only America leaves Pakistan alone, everything will get better. There are political parties, pundits, analysts, writers, journalists, and of course, religious scholars making the case that Taliban are not bad people, we just don’t know anything about them. And when we get a chance to witness any evidence of Taliban’s unimaginable brutality, especially if the evidence is in the shape of a video, we hear that the evidence is fake and more absurdly, the evidence is turned into a conspiracy against Taliban by the Americans. Even more amusingly, the so-called analysts, untrained and biased anchors join the chorus that Taliban did nothing wrong and there is an international plot to demonize Taliban, who, according to these people are sim
ple people. 

This denial and appalling logic is actually the root cause of Pakistan’s problems.

Interestingly, so far, no one has asked what Asma Jehangir pointed out on T.V. According to Ms. Jehangir, If the system that Taliban are proposing is so safe, so ideal, and so just, then, why aren’t we seeing caravans of buses, truck, trains, cars and jeeps etc moving from rest of the country to Swat or FATA where Taliban are in complete control and their form of Sharia is in place? This question should be put to the supporters of Taliban and they must answer, openly and unequivocally so that the ordinary Pakistan get a chance to understand the complexity of the problem. 

The reality is that that unless Pakistanis agree that Taliban are not the answer to any problem, nothing will change. Otherwise, Pakistanis will continue to see suicide bombing across the country. If the most urgent issue of terrorism is not decisively addressed right away, Pakistanis will continue to see their schools turn into fortresses, Pakistani women being targeted by misguided people convinced that they are working to ‘restore woman’s honor.’ If the nation did not wake up, Pakistanis will drown with their eyes and ears open!

 
Bilal Qureshi

In a somewhat rare state-sponsored rally, over 8,000 students gathered in Beijing’s Olympic Park last Saturday to show their commitment to environmental protection. The event launched the newest phase of the “Green Long March,” an ongoing effort to bring youth together and initiate a grassroots-esque environmental conservation movement nationwide.

Working with the Communist Youth League’s All China Youth Federation, US-based NGO Future Generations has gathered college-aged volunteers for the past two years to take part in educational campaigns throughout China, both to learn more in the field about China’s current state of environmental degradation and protection, and to teach others what they know. According to the Green Long March website, student activists have covered issues ranging from water quality, green agricultural practices, and the polluting effects of plastic.

At last week’s rally, GLM student leaders and well known environmentalists, such as Beijing-based WWF Director of Global Climate Change Solutions, Yang Fuqiang, spoke about the larger goals for China’s environmentalist movement, as well as what the GLM hopes to achieve in the near future.

In 2009, GLM hopes to mobilize more youth and communities to reduce their carbon footprint; conduct local training programs of student GLM volunteers on key energy issues; and strengthen information sharing between universities.

The rally was part of a 4-day conference and training, held on the campus of Beijing Forestry University, a co-organizer of the GLM. The bulk of the students’ 2009 field activities will take place this summer.

News of the rally especially resonated with me. That’s because I recently had the chance to see the first public New York screening of The Road Ahead: China’s First Green Long March, an award-winning film that chronicles the start of the journey of some 2,000 hope-filled, passionate youth endeavoring to “[ignite] a movement” in China. …..click here to read more

ISLAMABAD: Differences over India’s enhanced role in Afghanistan led to the drift in strategic relations between Pakistan and the United States that caught public eye after prickly Foreign Minister Qureshi pointed towards a trust deficit between the two allies and asked the senior partner for a fair treatment based on mutual trust and respect.

Background interviews revealed that strains in the relations were much more serious than met the eye and as the insiders put it the testing moment for the strategic cooperation has arrived and critical decisions by both the allies are due now.

‘The ties are in a very delicate stage and there are very few options left for both the allies – either to concede some ground to the other or to enter an all out confrontation,’ a diplomatic source opined adding things may worsen in days ahead because the Americans are known to be bad listeners and have an inclination for ‘bulldozing’ the matters.

The differences started after President Obama unveiled his strategy for the region, which among other things envisioned the setting up of a Contact Group on Pakistan and Afghanistan which involved India. Subsequently, it became clearer with the passage of time that the Obama administration was looking towards a greater role for India in Afghanistan.

Ambassador Holbrooke articulated the US thinking by calling India the ‘absolutely critical leader of the region.’ The new US policy was a major shocker for Islamabad that had yet to recover from the surprise U-turn by President Obama, who had during his election campaign promised a resolution of the Kashmir issue, but later went back on his promise.

Suspicions in Pakistan compounded with the introduction of the Peace Act of 2009 in the US House of Representatives, that attached stringent conditionalities to the proposed $1.5 billion annual assistance, which required Islamabad not to support any person or group involved in activities meant to hurt India and to allow US investigators access to people suspected of involvement in nuclear proliferation.  

Pakistan believes that the conditionalities were out of sync with mutual desire for long term strategic relationship.

Foreign Office Spokesman Abdul Basit termed the proposed conditionalities as unhelpful.

Alongside all this there was a stepped up vilification campaign against Pakistan’s premier intelligence outfit – Inter Services Intelligence accusing it of supporting Taliban. There was a perception in Islamabad that the US was subscribing to India’s position on the security situation in South Asia.

Fears that US was planning to expand drone attacks, already a sensitive issue in Pakistan, into Balochistan did not help the cause. Some sources say the US and Pakistan had reached a broad understanding in principle on ending the drone attacks in Pakistan’s territory, but Islamabad was taken aback after finding no mention of it in the revised policy.

The change in terminology being used for Pakistan and particularly the choice of the Af-Pak phrase, clubbing Pakistan and Afghanistan together, manifested the US thinking, which considered Pakistan as part of the problem.

Basit says there is no comparison between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the two needed to be looked at separately for a tenable solution.

These developments were completely unacceptable to the military establishment in Pakistan, which then convinced the government to stand up to it although President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani were the first ones to have welcomed the new Obama strategy.

Islamabad was of the view that the shift in the US foreign policy towards Pakistan was demoralizing and promoted distrust.

‘The American tilt towards India despite knowing Pakistan’s concerns about it and having evidence of Indian role in promoting instability in different parts of Pakistan was not in good taste,’ a source said.

The matter was taken up in the meetings with US Special Envoy Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and Chairman US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen during their visit to Islamabad last week, where they were categorically asked about what they had done for curbing the Indian destabilizing role in Pakistan.

Admiral Mullen and Ambassador Holbrooke were further told that the shift of strategic focus from the Eastern borders to the Western borders was not possible until tensions with India were resolved and the core issue of Kashmir was addressed.

Analysts say the surprise reaction in Islamabad is being processed in Washington by their strategic planners for whom it was a revelation that things had gone awry. Pakistan has expressed the intentions to take up the issues again at the trilateral Pakistan-Afghanistan-US meeting in Washington on May 6-7.

However, it is expected that there could be a high level diplomatic or military contact between the two countries even ahead of the Washington meeting, to resolve the differences.

The seven US congressional delegations visiting Pakistan over the next three weeks for discussions on aid legislation could also talk about the thorny issues straining Pak-US ties.

Analysts believe that Pakistan would first have to put its own house in order before entering serious negotiations with the US. ‘They need to furnish acceptable proofs of Indian involvement in Pakistan; develop a credible counter-insurgency strategy; and more importantly get all of their state institutions on the same page.’

Dawn (Pakistan)

The world is swimming in oil. This coming less than one year after record high oil prices and when the world was running very low in spare capacity (the difference between what can be produced and the amount demanded and the linchpin to lower prices). US inventories are at record levels. Tankers are sitting off the coast of England, waiting for the price to rise so they can get more for their cargo. Companies are holding off on investments because of limited cash and the difficulty for borrowing in current tight credit markets. And this past week the International Energy Agency (IEA) released its April Oil Market Report which predicted that consumption this year will remain at depressed levels (83.4 million barrels per day) not seen since 2004. In addition, the IEA’s head oil analyst David Fyfe commented that

any green shoots are signaling recovery developing next year rather than this year

However, investors are looking for signs, any signs of economic growth . Short-term oil prices appear positively correlated with equities. Oil prices have jumped recently with gains in equity markets on the assumption that stock market gains indicate that economic activity is set to resume, increasing demand for oil. But few, including the IEA, predict prices will rise drastically this year due to depressed economic activity, but volatility will likely remain.

True to his reputation Richard Holbrooke is proving to be an insightful interlocutor.  Other diplomats and commanders might have said it in passing but he is the first one to categorically say that India is part of the ‘AfPak’ problem, or puzzle, and also holds the key to its solution.

Terrorism, both in Pakistan and Afghanistan, has its roots in religious extremism and authoritarian tradition. Pakistan, for the better part of its existence, has been ruled by dictators, Afghanistan almost always.

The tribal part of their societies, where the writ even of authoritarian governments doesn’t hold, provides the foot soldiers for jihad. The fast-proliferating madressahs indoctrinate them to kill and get killed for the glory of Islam. It is easy to say that terrorists have no religion. But a suicide bomber loudly glorifies Allah before exploding himself in the midst of a mosque congregation or an unwary crowd in a marketplace.

And the men publicly whipping a young, allegedly adulterous, woman draw strength both from our laws and tribal traditions. India, no doubt, has its own share of religious fanatics and tribal insurgents but it is also the world’s biggest democracy. Holbrooke has been perceptive in pointing out that India’s participation in the search for a solution is necessary because its national security interest is as much at stake as is that of Pakistan and Afghanistan in the face of a common challenge and common enemy.

India’s secularism, notwithstanding its scourges in the person of Narendra Modi and Varun Gandhi, will surely help fight the forces that defy the ideological coaxing of Islamic or authoritarian dispensations. Being of help in neutralising terrorists would not only be in keeping with India’s democratic culture but also with the cordial relations it has historically enjoyed with successive regimes in Afghanistan and does even now.

On the other hand, seething or open hostility has all along marked Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan. A common religion and common tribes straddling the long but unmarked frontier have been a source of friction rather than friendliness. Such was the beginning: Afghanistan was the only country to have opposed Pakistan’s admission to the UN and still lays claim to the loyalty of its tribes and access to its ports.

On its part, Pakistan mostly holds India responsible, and not without justification, for its strained relations with Afghanistan. That is a legacy of the partition of the subcontinent which one can see fading away as the Kashmir problem gets out of the way.

Many an accusation lies at the door of Gen Musharraf but credit must be given to him for blazing a new path to the resolution of the Kashmir dispute that cuts through the rigid stands of ‘nothing but a plebiscite’ and the ‘state is an inseparable part of India’.

Musharraf’s formula for a semi-sovereign Kashmir in which the inhabitants of the two parts of the state have the right of free movement and trade across the Line of Control was all but endorsed by a large voter turnout in a free poll. And Omar Abdullah’s aspiration for azadi also signifies a similar status. The hurdle to the resumption of dialogue leading to a settlement is the Indian allegation, not unfounded, that the terrorist attack on Mumbai was planned in Pakistan.

If India and Pakistan agree with Mr Holbrooke that the threat and enemy are common to both, Mumbai can be put behind. The onus now lies chiefly on Pakistan to show that the probe is expeditious and shields no man or agency.

Pakistan’s stake in a satisfactory conclusion to the Mumbai episode is much bigger than India’s. Besides bringing a settlement of Kashmir in sight, India might feel persuaded to encourage the Karzai government to lend support to Pakistan in checking the movement of terrorists across the hazy frontier instead of accusing it of sheltering them.

But, above all, Pakistan will be drawn into the democratic ethos of South Asia where besides India, Sri Lanka has resolutely stuck to the democratic course despite a long-ranging insurgency; Nepal has overthrown a hereditary kingship; Bangladesh has staged a forceful return to democracy, so have the Maldives — and the king of tranquil Bhutan insists on transferring many of his powers to an elected council ignoring the protestations of fealty by his subjects.

Pakistan was intended to be a nation-state, not a religious one and much less a bastion of Islam. In the words of its founder and philosopher (he had no peer, nor forerunner) the state was ‘always to be guided by the principles of justice and fair play — and I am sure that with your support and cooperation, I can look forward to Pakistan becoming one of the greatest nations of the world’.

That ideal has long been lost in the abstractions of Liaquat Ali Khan’s Objectives Resolution, Ayub’s basic democracies, Bhutto’s delimitation of the bounds of Islam and Ziaul Haq’s Hudood laws. The violent extremism issuing forth from all these actions has instead made it, in the world view, a ‘centre of world terror’.

Present-day ideologues must explain how Pakistan could be an Islamic state if it were originally meant to have a Muslim population only marginally more than other faiths.

That was to be the Pakistan for which Jinnah had struggled. It was the last-minute hard choice of ‘take it or leave it’ that resulted in the partition of Bengal, Punjab and Assam making Pakistan an overwhelmingly Muslim state. Jinnah took it with a heavy heart for he knew he had not long to live.

That is regretful. What our political leaders, and religious divines too, fail to realise is that in a taboo-ridden society, as Pakistan is, the law of Sharia would be interpreted and enforced by the likes of Sufi Mohammad, Baitullah Mehsud and Mullah Omar and not elected legislative councils.

Even the divines of politics like Qazi Hussain Ahmad or haranguers on TV like Ghamidi are irrelevant. People must thank their lucky stars that a few dogged senators in 1998 blocked Nawaz Sharif’s 15th amendment bill which was to make Sharia Pakistan’s supreme law.

Had that happened the whole country would have been a vast Swat with its angry floggers but without its decent folk. Islamic values can flourish only in a secular environment. The proof of it is to be found in the mayhem and hypocrisy of the era of mere rituals that was inaugurated by Ziaul Haq.

Dawn (Pakistan)

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan seems like a Molotov cocktail waiting for a match. Its ruling elite bickers over politics, while out on the streets Taliban insurgents step up their suicide attacks. Its military plays the role of national conciliator even as it worries about Muslim revolutionaries in its own ranks. Meanwhile, the United States, Pakistan’s historic friend and benefactor, is symbolized in the popular mind by unmanned drones that cruise over the western frontier assassinating Taliban militants by remote control.

Which is why two top Obama administration emissaries, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and Adm. Mike Mullen, paid an urgent visit here this week to explain the administration’s new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy. During a brief tour, they gathered evidence about Pakistan’s crisis and explored ways to help the country move back toward stability.

A hint of Pakistan’s troubles came soon after Holbrooke and Mullen arrived here Monday night. Anne Patterson, the highly regarded U.S. ambassador, had assembled some of the nation’s political elite to welcome the visiting Americans. During a question-and-answer session, a shouting match erupted between a prominent backer of President Asif Ali Zardari and a supporter of dissident Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry. The dispute, reported later in the Pakistani press, was a snapshot of a country so busy quarreling that it is failing to solve its problems.

The next morning brought fresh evidence of the dangers facing Pakistan. Holbrooke and Mullen met a group of young tribal leaders who had traveled, at great personal risk, from Waziristan and other frontier areas. Some were dressed in the colorful turbans of the frontier; others in Western clothes. If Taliban leaders back home knew they were meeting with Obama’s special envoy and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they could be killed.

“We are all Taliban,” one young man said — meaning that people in his region support the cause, if not the terrorist tactics. He explained that the insurgency is spreading in Pakistan, not because of proselytizing by leaders such as Baitullah Mehsud but because of popular anger. For every militant killed by a U.S. Predator drone, he says, 10 more will join the insurgent cause.

“You can’t come see the people because they hate you,” he warned. Listening to them speaking through a translator, you realize that “drone attack” has become a vernacular phrase in Urdu.

In truth, I heard more clarity from the young tribesmen than from the elite at the embassy reception. The young men advised that America should channel its aid through the tribal chiefs, known as maliks, rather than the corrupt Pakistani government. It should help train the Frontier Corps, a rough-hewn tribal constabulary, rather than rely on Pakistani army troops who are seen as outsiders. To curb the militant Islamic madrassas, the United States should help improve the abysmal public schools in the region.

Later that day, Zardari met us at his office overlooking the city. He was convincing when he discussed the legacy of his late wife, Benazir Bhutto, who was killed in December 2007 by what he called the “cancer” of Muslim terrorism. But on some major security and intelligence issues, he claimed no knowledge or sought to shift blame to others, and the overall impression was of an accidental president who still has an uncertain grasp on power.

Zardari did offer an intriguing proposal for what to do about the Predator drones. “We would appreciate it if the technology was transferred,” he said, so that the Predators could become “our hammer against the [terrorist] menace. Then we could justify it.” U.S. officials said later that Zardari’s comment could offer a step forward.

As so often in pro-American countries on the brink, part of the problem here is the gap between what officials say in private and what they can admit openly. Pakistani leaders know the Predator attacks help combat the Taliban in remote Waziristan, but they don’t want to seem like American lackeys. So they protest in public the very strategy they have privately endorsed. One way or another, that gap has to be closed.

If there’s a positive sign in all this chaos, it’s that the Pakistani army isn’t intervening to clean up the mess. Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, the army chief of staff, has been telling the feuding politicians to get their act together. But he seems to understand that the route to stability isn’t through another army coup, but by making this unruly democracy work before it’s too late.

The writer is co-host of PostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues. His e-mail address is davidignatius@washpost.com.

By David Ignatius - The Washington Post

“Leave me for the moment — you can beat me again later,” a 17-year-old girl begs between sobs in a video airing on Pakistan’s private television networks and circulating on the Internet. But the local Taliban commander continues to flog her without mercy as a group of village men watch in silence.

These images were described in a recent New York Times dispatch, which noted that the alleged transgressions of the girl could not be definitively established. The range of possible violations of the Taliban’s version of Islamic law — from stepping outside her house without a male escort to having an illicit affair — is appallingly vast.

The video, apparently shot on a cellphone and given to a human rights activist, is not surprising in itself. The brutal subjugation of poor, uneducated women in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan is widely if incompletely known in the West. But the brief, blurry images are revealing.

The recent U.S. strategic review, as well as learned tomes and countless op-ed columns, depict the struggle in the desolate Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier as being rooted in fierce nationalism, the region’s ancient warrior culture, the failures of nation-building and the rebirth of jihadist terrorism.

But this video reminds us of another driving force too often neglected or minimized in the analysis and commentary: the desire of Pakistani and Afghan men to be left in peace to deal with their womenfolk as they see fit. There may be no more important recruiting tool for the Taliban and other Islamic extremist organizations.

This is why the video should be required viewing for U.S. officials who are urging President Obama to seek accommodation with the Taliban to help secure a graduated U.S. exit from Afghanistan and confidently boasting that 70 percent of the Taliban are “reconcilable.”

The Pakistan video is unlikely to change their minds. They have good arguments about pursuing achievable U.S. goals in a time frame that is acceptable to the American public. But it will force them to look at the consequences of that kind of realism.

Moreover, the scene shot in the Swat Valley — a region the Pakistani government turned over to the Taliban in February rather than continue fighting there — offers its own cultural commentary on Obama’s attempts to reach out to the Muslim world. In his speech last week in Turkey, he declared that the United States is not “at war with Islam.”

The president is right — as far as he goes. The struggle against al-Qaeda and its associates is not a war of religions with a monolithic Christianity fighting a unified Islam. But it is a religious war in significance and origin. Fanatical Islamic sects have framed their battle in holy terms and seek to destroy their faith’s mainstream values. It is not a war on Islam but a war within Islam. Who wins has enormous consequences for the world.

That was the missing element in Obama’s otherwise admirable speech, which was delivered in one of the most tolerant, sophisticated Muslim countries on Earth. The savage misogyny and feudal fury of the Swat Valley are alien to modern, urban Turkey — as they are to Indonesia, where Obama spent part of his childhood. The countries and personal experiences he focuses on are Islamic, certainly. But they are not Islam as a whole.

All religions are absorbing the shocks of globalization. But none has felt more besieged than Islam as the flow of people, goods and instant communications across borders perturb or limit its deep reach into gender relations and family structures. And none has produced as violent a backlash from some of its adherents.

It is difficult for policymakers and generals to account for such cultural factors in strategic reviews. We all rush past the obvious — until a video from Swat makes it unavoidable.

The realists are right about this: The United States and its NATO partners cannot “win” the war inside Islam. Perhaps all they can accomplish is to buy time for mainstream Islamic forces in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere to organize an effective response to the existential threat in their midst. That will be a costly, and essentially thankless, task for the United States. But it may yet be the least disastrous course to follow.

“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religious-specific, values,” Barack Obama said in a 2006 speech that warned Americans against religious intolerance. It’s a pity he didn’t include that thought in his Ankara outreach.

By Jim Hoagland - The Washington Post

Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon. © CBC

This week, Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon gave a speech on Canadian Arctic policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He outlined Canada’s interests in the Arctic, which include social and economic development for Northerners, energy exploitation, international collaboration with other Arctic states, defense and security, climate change, and the opening-up of transportation routes. Much of his speech focused on the government’s effort to protect Canadian sovereignty in the High North.

Perhaps most unexpectedly, he stated:

There is surprisingly little disagreement over land and sea claims in the Arctic region. Five coastal states bordering on the Arctic Ocean — Canada, Denmark, Norway, the Russian Federation, and the U.S. —exercise sovereignty and jurisdiction over much of the region, and very little of that jurisdiction is disputed.

And those areas that are disputed are well managed.

However, this observation comes just weeks after Cannon asserted that Canada “will not be bullied” by Russia when it comes to defending its sovereignty in the Arctic. Canada and Russia are still disputing the right to fly unannounced outside the other’s borders, as last week’s Cannon-Lavrov discussion revealed.

Furthermore, the issue of the Northwest Passage is still very much in dispute between the US and Canada. The only agreement reached by the two countries on the transit passage is to disagree. Even though Cannon said that the Canadian Ice Service “believes the various internal waterways known as the Northwest Passage will not likely be a reliable commercial shipping route for decades owing to extreme ice variability,” in any case, the area has the potential to eventually turn into a major bilateral dispute, since the U.S. sees the Northwest Passage as international waters. Cannon confirmed that since the government views the passage as falling within its own jurisdiction, Canada “will continue to regulate shipping through the passage.”

The Canadian foreign minister also stated that due to the success of the 2008 Illulisat Declaration, which reaffirmed the five Arctic states’ commitment to the current legal frameworks governing the Arctic - most notably the U.N. Law of the Sea - “the five states see no need to develop a new comprehensive international legal regime to govern the “Arctic Ocean.”

Yet on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lauded the Antarctic Treaty System as “a blueprint for the kind of international cooperation that will be needed more and more to address the challenges of the 21^st century, and it is an example of smart power at its best.” Although she did not explicitly call for new, comprehensive agreements to govern the Arctic, and instead focused on proceeding with U.S. ratification of the Law of the Sea, it seemed as if she might be considering an eventual treaty.

In addition, Cannon discussed Canada’s military strategy to defend its Arctic sovereignty, speaking about the progress being made on the priorities Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveiled in August 2007. The three initiatives are:

• The establishment of a Canadian Forces Arctic Training Centre in Resolute Bay
• The expansion, currently underway, of the size and capabilities of the Canadian Rangers
• The development of a deep-water Arctic docking and refuelling facility in Nanisivik

Canada is also constructing a new icebreaker scheduled to come on line in the next decade. Both Canada and Russia are developing their military capabilities in the High North, just as the Nordic countries are engaging in joint military exercises. The move towards militarization in the Arctic is palpable even though the intentions may be purely defensive.

You can watch the video of Cannon’s speech here, while his full remarks can be found here.