Kenneth R. Rosen

Is it still as strong as it purports to be?

And would they be willing to risk an outright nuclear conflict or greater conflict over such a small island, set of islands?

I was intrigued by this notion that there are these vulnerabilities to the West.

There is a vulnerability to the European Arctic, to the UK.

It's not that far north.

The Kingdom of Denmark holds sovereignty over the Faroe Islands, which is just north of y'all's beautiful country.

It felt amazing to me that it wasn't part of the discussion.

You can speak to that effect.

When you were in government, the Arctic was a footnote.

Very much so.

I mean, the U.S.

has underdeveloped Alaska as far as its defense capabilities go for decades.

But to set the scene, I was on board this Norwegian icebreaker for two weeks in the Arctic Ocean.

We left from Longyearbyen in Svalbard.

And dark, cold night.

We hadn't reached the sea ice yet.

And I was invited into the commanding officer's berth, his office.

And I sat down and he...

wanted to show me a little bit about what he understood to be the issues in the Arctic.

And he's clicking through presentations to show me the sea ice dwindling.