Canada’s New Arctic Imperative
We live in the era of global warming. As climates change, vast areas of the Arctic will open to human expansion. This is where the cities of the future will be built. The region’s waterways are poised to become major arteries of commerce as ice formations clear and sea-lanes open. All of this poses complex new questions for Canada’s national security planners as well as opportunities for Canada to assume a broader role on the world stage, provided these challenges are met with foresight and resolve.
Arctic security, although not often in the news, has been an issue of ongoing concern since the Cold War to nations with an interest in the region. While Canada’s security commitments have fluctuated throughout various governments, Britain, France, Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden have remained firm in maintaining a deterrent presence, participating in yearly war games like NATO’s Operation COLD RESOLVE. The cost and complexity of such operational undertakings, along with the recent involvement by the US in these exercises, signals the gravity with which major powers view the Arctic as a strategic arena. While a Canadian publication recently dismissed (in typically solipsistic Canadian fashion) the gravity of the issue, there can be no doubt that other nations are taking the same issue very seriously.
That shipping and resource exploitation are central to the question of the Arctic’s future has been thrown into sharp relief by China’s recent announcement of its intention to build a “polar silk road” as part of an increasingly expansionist global trade strategy. And so the imminent opening of these sea-lanes brings another great power’s influence to bear in the Arctic. But the nation whose security strategy reflects the most comprehensive understanding of the region’s strategic importance is Russia.
Russia has operated militarily in the Arctic with confidence and varying degree of success since Czarist times. But it was under the Soviet regime that Russia deepened its Arctic security footprint most dramatically. Russian military personnel grew hardened to the rigors of operating in the deep cold, and its forces developed unparalleled regional expertise. Establishing nuclear and conventional bases in such inhospitable locations as the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago affirmed Russia’s determination to control and fortify its own territorial claims while being poised to project power into those of others. (Russia routinely does this with close passes to Canadian and US airspace with their aircraft.) And all the while, Russian military capability in the region has continued to grow. This expansion has continued under the post-Soviet governments of the Russian Federation, and has gathered increased momentum under the leadership of Vladimir Putin.
Russia’s refurbishment of its base at Nagurskoye, built during the 1950s and expanded last year to include a runway, troop barracks and fleet of fighter jets, places Russia in the position to project air power from an air hub 500 miles from the North Pole. Russia’s strategy of maximizing air power in the region was a central impetus behind construction of its airbase on Kotelny Island with a runway capable of landing Il-76 Candid heavy cargo planes year-round. But the crown jewel of Russia’s military ambitions in the Arctic remains its Trefoil forward operating base on Franz Josef Land, opened last year. Covering some 14,000 square miles, with facilities to house operational personnel for up to a year-and-a-half, Trefoil is also a proving ground for a new generation of Russian Arctic weapons systems, including the SA-15 Gauntlet, the T-72 main battle tank, and the Pantsir-SA artillery package. Radar and anti-ship missiles have been deployed liberally in the region and on Russian vessels operating in the area. Russia will finish construction on five new Arctic bases in 2018, tilting the military profile of the region strongly — if not decisively — in Moscow’s favor.
While Canadian defense planners remain fervent in their commitment to “sovereignty” as the Holy Grail of Canadian national security interests, they would now do well to overcome Canada’s traditional shyness and expand that focus to encompass regional influence. Russian boots do not have to be on the ground in Canada (or an invasion imminent) in order for Canada’s interests to be threatened. Moscow’s strategy in the region is clear: to project military power at a critical choke-point of world shipping. The opening of these trade lanes are of vast importance to the global economy, and represent an opportunity for Canada to step into the arena to protect its own interests as well as those of its allies and function as an advocate for free trade and freedom of navigation. But in this regard, Ottawa is failing.
The total Canadian military commitment to the Arctic now stands at 120 personnel. Our three bases in the region are equipped with 1980s-era technology and the absence of a major port or search-and-rescue hub speaks volumes about Ottawa’s neglect. Canadian politicians have been too intent on posing for photo opportunities while making ambitious pronouncements about sovereignty to effectively address the broader issues at stake. For decades, Canada has relied upon the NORAD/NATO security architecture (to say nothing of US support) to meet its Arctic commitments. But with political change, failure to reach its own targets for infrastructure development and a geopolitical realignment underway, Canada stands ill-prepared to meet regional challenges. Add to this Canada’s reluctance to participate in recent iterations of COLD RESOLVE and the slow withering of its blue-water fleet and we can clearly see the truth of President Kennedy’s assertion that those who foolishly seek power by riding the back of the tiger end up inside.
Canada has reached a turning point as regards both defense policy and what constitutes its national interest. Ottawa ignores this reality at its peril.
