June 19, 2009 - No. 122
Militarization of the Arctic
Canada: Battle Line in East-West
Conflict over the Arctic
- Rick Rozoff, Stop NATO, June 3, 2009 -
Referring to newly released documents, though not revealing what
they were, a major Canadian press wire service reported on May 26 that
the government plans to acquire a "family" of aerial drones over the
next decade.[1]
The dispatch was only two paragraphs long and could easily be
overlooked, as one of the two intended purposes for expanding Canada's
reserve of military drones was for "failed or failing states."
Afghanistan is unquestionably one such deployment zone and Ottawa sent
its first Israeli-made Heron
drones there this January for NATO's war in South Asia.
Another likely target for "dull, dirty and dangerous" missions
suited for unmanned aircraft is Somalia, off the coast of which the
frigate HMCS Winnipeg, carrying a Sea King helicopter it's
had occasion to use, is engaged with the Standing NATO Maritime Group 1
(SNMG1) in forced
boarding and other military operations. The use of unmanned aircraft
vehicles (UAVs) in a likely extension of military actions on the Somali
mainland would, unfortunately, not raise many eyebrows.
The last sentence in the brief report, though, says that "Senior
commanders also foresee a growing role for drones in Canada, especially
along the country's coastlines and in the Arctic."
To provide an indication of what Canada's Joint Unmanned
Surveillance Target Acquisition System (JUSTAS) has in mind for future
use in the Arctic, a likely prospect is the "Heron TP, a 4,650-kilogram
drone with the same wingspan as a Boeing 737," which can "can carry a
1,000-kilogram payload
and stay aloft for 36 hours at an altitude of about 15,000 metres" for
"long-range Arctic and maritime patrols."[2]
Project JUSTAS will "cost as much as $750 million and...give the
Canadian military a capability that only a handful of other countries
possess...."[3]
The day after the first news story mentioned above appeared the same
press source summarized comments by Canadian Minister of National
Defence Peter MacKay as affirming "The global economic downturn won't
prevent the Canadian Forces from spending $60 billion on new equipment."
Although Canada's federal deficit is expected to rise to $50 billion
this year from $34 billion in 2008, "MacKay said the government's
long-term defence strategy would grow this year's $19-billion annual
defence budget to $30 billion by 2027. Over that time, that will mean
close to $490 billion in defence
spending, including $60 billion on new equipment."[4]
It's doubtful that many Canadians are aware of either development:
Plans for advanced drones designed not only for surveillance but for
firing missiles to be used in the Arctic and a major increase in the
military budget of a nation that has already doubled its defense
spending over the last decade.
Of those who do know of them, the question should arise of why a
nation of 33 million which borders only one other country, the United
States, its senior partner in NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense
Command), NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and since 2006
increasingly the
Pentagon's Northern Command (NORTHCOM) would need to spend almost half
a trillion dollars for arms in the next eighteen years. And why in
addition to acquiring weapons for wars and other military operations in
Europe, Asia and Africa, Canada would deploy some of its most
state-of-the-art arms to the Arctic
Circle.
A French writer of the 1800s wrote that cannons aren't forged to be
displayed in public parks. And the deployment of missile-wielding
drones to its far north are not, contrary to frequent implications for
domestic consumption by members of the current Stephen Harper
government, meant to defend the
nation's sovereignty in the region; only one state threatens that
sovereignty, the United States, and Ottawa has no desire to defend its
interests against its southern neighbor.
Recent unparalleled Canadian military exercises and build-up in the
Arctic, of which the proposed use of aerial drones is but the latest
example, are aimed exclusively at another nation: Russia.
A document from 2007 posted on a website of the Canadian Parliament
states, "In recent years, Canada has been asserting its nordicite
(nordicity) with a louder voice and greater emphasis than before. Such
renewed focus on the Arctic is largely linked to the anticipated
effects of climate change in
the region, which are expected to be among the greatest effects of any
region on Earth. By making the region more easily accessible, both
threats and opportunities are amplified and multiplied. Canada's claims
over the Arctic are thus likely to emerge as a more central dimension
of our foreign relations. Hence, it
appears timely to highlight the extent of Canada's sovereignty and
jurisdiction over Arctic waters and territory, and to identify issues
that are controversial."[5]
Canada's Arctic claims extend all the way to the North Pole, as do
Russia's and Denmark's, as long as Copenhagen retains ownership of
Greenland.
The basis of the dispute between Canada and Russia is the Lomonosov
Ridge which runs 1,800 kilometers from Russia's New Siberian Islands
through the center of the Arctic Ocean to Canada's Ellesmere Island in
the territory of Nunavut, part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.
Russia maintains
that the Lomonosov Ridge and the related Mendeleyev Elevation are
extensions of its continental shelf. Russia filed a claim to this
effect in December of 2001 with the UN Commission on the Limits of the
Continental Shelf (CLCS), renewing it in late 2007.
The answer to what is at stake with control of this vast stretch of
the Arctic Ocean and that to the earlier question concerning Canada's
military escalation and expansion into the Arctic are both threefold.
Strategic Military Positioning for Nuclear WarNine
days before vacating the White House on January 20th, U.S. President
Bush W. Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 66 on
Arctic Region Policy.[6]
The document states that "The United States is an Arctic nation,
with varied and compelling interests in that region" and "The United
States has broad and fundamental national security interests in the
Arctic region and is prepared to operate either independently or in
conjunction with other states to
safeguard these interests. These interests include such matters as
missile defense and early warning; deployment of sea and air systems
for strategic sealift, strategic deterrence, maritime presence, and
maritime security operations; and ensuring freedom of navigation and
overflight."[7]
U.S. Arctic claims are based solely on its possession of Alaska,
separated from the rest of the continental U.S. by 500 miles of
Canadian territory.
National Security Directive 66 exploits Alaska's position to demand
U.S. rights to base both strategic military forces -- long-range
bombers capable of delivering nuclear weapons and warships and
submarines able to launch warheads -- in the Arctic within easy
striking distance of Russia, both to the
latter's east and over the North Pole.
It also, as indicated above, reserves the right to station so-called
missile defense components in the area. The words missile defense are
not as innocuous as they may appear. In the contemporary context they
refer to plans by the United States and its allies to construct an
international interceptor missile
system connected with satellites and eventually missiles in space to be
able to paralyze other nations' strategic (long-range and nuclear)
military potential and to prevent retaliation by said nations should
they be the victims of a first strike.
U.S. and NATO interceptor missile silos and radar sites in Poland,
the Czech Republic, Norway and Britain to Russia's West -- already in
place and planned -- and an analogous structure in Alaska, Japan and
Australia to the east of both Russia and China aim at the ability to
target and destroy any
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and long-range bombers left
undamaged after a massive military first strike from the U.S. and
allied nations.
The term interceptor missile is deceptive. As America's so-called
missile defense plans prepare for knocking out ICBMs in not only the
boost and terminal but the launch phases, it's a single step from
striking a missile as it's being launched to doing so as it's being
readied for launch and even as it is
still in the silo.
Although in theory both a first strike missile attack and an
interceptor missile response need not involve nuclear warheads, they
are almost certain to if aimed against a nuclear power, which would be
expected to retaliate with nuclear weapons.
The third leg of a nation's nuclear triad, in addition to long-range
bombers and land-based missiles, are ballistic missile submarines
equipped with submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) capable of
carrying nuclear warheads. These could be tracked by space surveillance
and in the future hit
by space-based missiles.
Russia is the only non-Western, non-NATO country with an effective nuclear triad.
Under the above scenario there is one spot on the earth where Russia
could maintain a credible deterrent capability: Under the Arctic polar
ice cap.
A report in 2007 said that "Amid great secrecy, NATO naval forces
are trying to control the Arctic Ocean to continue the military bloc's
expansion to[ward] Russia, the newspaper Military Industry Herald reported....
"Like in the tensest times of the Cold War, troops from the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization are trying to take control of the Arctic
route, said the newspaper....[T]he U.S. Navy, in conjunction with its
British allies, is meeting the challenge of displacing Russian
submarines from the Arctic region."[8]
The U.S. and Britain held Operation Ice Exercise 2007 under the
polar cap and repeated the maneuvers earlier this year with Ice
Exercise 2009.
During the 2007 exercises a U.S. Navy website revealed that "The
submarine force continues to use the Arctic Ocean as an alternate route
for shifting submarines between the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans....Submarines can reach the western Pacific directly by
transiting through international waters of
the Arctic rather than through the Panama Canal."[9]
The subject of employing the Arctic, especially the long-fabled and
now practicable Northwest Passage, for both civilian and military
transit will be examined with the second component in the battle for
the Arctic.
Also in 2007, Barry L. Campbell, head of operations at the U.S. Navy
Arctic Submarine Laboratory, in referring to joint NATO war plans for
the Arctic, said: "'We're a worldwide Navy and the Navy's position is
we should be able to operate in any ocean in the world....When you go
through the Arctic,
no one knows you're there....We expect all our subs to be able to
operate in the Arctic....Our strategic position is to be able to
operate anywhere in the world, and we see the Arctic as part of
that....[I]f we ever did have to fight a battle under there it would be
a joint operation.'"[10]
In a previous article in this series, "NATO's, Pentagon's New Strategic Battleground: The Arctic,"[11]
it was observed that "with U.S. and NATO missile and satellite radar
and interceptor missile facilities around the world and in space, the
only place where Russia could retain a deterrence and/or retaliatory
capacity against a crushing nuclear first strike is under the polar ice
cap....[W]ithout this capability Russia could be rendered completely
defenseless in the event of a first strike nuclear attack."
In 2006 a Russian military press source quoted Navy Commander
Admiral Vladimir Masorin commenting on the requirement for Russian
submarines to maintain a presence under the Arctic polar ice cap:
"[T]raining is needed to help strategic submarines of the Russian Fleet
head for the Arctic ice
region, which is the least vulnerable to an adversary's monitoring, and
prepare for a response to a ballistic missile strike in the event of a
nuclear conflict.
"In order to be able to fulfill this task -- I mean the task of
preserving strategic submarines -- it is necessary to train Russian
submariners to maneuver under the Arctic ice."[12]
Northwest Passage Could Transform Global Civilian, Military Shipping: Canada Confronts Russia
In recent years a direct shipping route from the Atlantic Ocean to
the Pacific in the Northern Hemisphere through the Northwest Passage
has presented the prospect of cutting thousands of kilometers and
several days if not weeks for ships -- civilian and military -- from
the traditional routes through
the Panama and Suez canals and for larger vessels even having to round
the southern tips of Africa and South America.
Arctic melting has reduced the ice in the area to its lowest level
in the thirty three years satellite images have measured it, with the
Northwest Passage entirely open for the first time in recorded history.
U.S. National Security Presidential Directive 66 also includes the
intention to "Preserve the global mobility of United States military
and civilian vessels and aircraft throughout the Arctic region" and to
"Project a sovereign United States maritime presence in the Arctic in
support of essential United
States interests."[13]
Canada claims the Northwest Passage as its exclusive territory but
Washington insists that "The Northwest Passage is a strait used for
international navigation, and the Northern Sea Route includes straits
used for international navigation; the regime of transit passage
applies to passage through those
straits. Preserving the rights and duties relating to navigation and
overflight in the Arctic region supports our ability to exercise these
rights throughout the world, including through strategic straits."[14]
That is, the U.S. bluntly contests Canada's contentions about the
passage, which runs along the north of that nation and no other, being
its national territory and insists on internationalizing it.
Notwithstanding which there is no evidence that any member of the
Canadian government, the ruling Conservative Party, its Liberal Party
opposition or even the New Democratic Party has responded to the U.S.
National Security Directive, the first major American statement on the
issue in fifteen years,
with even a murmur of disapprobation.
Instead all concern and no little hostility has been directed by
Canadian authorities, particularly the federal government, at a nation
that doesn't assert the right to deploy warships with long-range cruise
missiles, nuclear submarines and Aegis class destroyers equipped with
interceptor missiles only miles
off the Canadian mainland in the wider Western extreme of the Passage
and other naval vessels between the mainland and its northern islands:
Russia.
The threats and bluster, insults and provocations staged by top
Canadian officials over the past three and a half months have at times
reached an hysterical pitch, not only rivaling but exceeding the depths
of the Cold War period.
The current campaign was adumbrated last August after the five-day
war between Georgia and Russia when Prime Minister Stephen Harper
"accused Russia of reverting to a 'Soviet-era mentality'"[15] and Defence Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said "When we see a Russian Bear [Tupolev Tu-95] approaching
Canadian air space, we meet them with an F-18"[16] and has not let up since.
After then recently inaugurated U.S. President Barack Obama make his
first trip outside the United States in mid-February to the Canadian
capital of Ottawa, Defence Minister MacKay stated regarding an alleged
interception of a Russian bomber over the Arctic Ocean -- in
international, neutral airspace --
shortly before Obama's arrival:
"They met a Russian aircraft that was approaching Canadian airspace,
and as they have done in previous occasions they sent very clear
signals that are understood, that the aircraft was to turnaround, turn
tail, and head back to their airspace, which it did.
"I'm not going to stand here and accuse the Russians of having
deliberately done this during the presidential visit, but it was a
strong coincidence."[17]
Russia has routinely flown such patrols over the Arctic Ocean, the
Barents and North Sea and off the coast of Alaska since the autumn of
2007. Moreover, depending on where in the Arctic the Russian bomber was
at the time, it may well have been 6,000 kilometers from Ottawa,
thereby posing no
threat or constituting no warning to either Obama or Canada.
Prime Minister Harper echoed MacKay's tirade with:
"I have expressed at various times the deep concern our government
has with increasingly aggressive Russian actions around the globe and
Russian intrusions into our airspace.
"We will defend our airspace, we also have obligations of
continental defence with the United States. We will fulfil those
obligations to defend our continental airspace, and we will defend our
sovereignty and we will respond every time the Russians make any kind
of intrusion on the sovereignty in
Canada's Arctic."[18]
After Russia announced that it planned to have a military force
available to defend its interests in the Arctic by 2020 -- eleven years
from now -- Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon followed the lead
of his predecessor and current Defence Minister MacKay and Prime
Minister Harper and said,
"Let's be perfectly clear here. Canada will not be bullied.
"Sovereignty is part of that (Northern policy). We will not waiver
from that objective. Sovereignty is uppermost for us, so we will not be
swayed from that."[19]
Cannon left it unclear in which manner Russia had questioned his
country's sovereignty, except perhaps by not gratuitously ceding it the
Lomonosov Ridge, though if Cannon had bothered to read U.S. National
Security Directive 66 he would have received a blunt introduction to
the genuine threat to
Canada's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
It will be seen later how Canada has matched the action to the word.
Control of World Energy Resources and NATO's Drive into the ArcticA
U.S. Geological Survey of May of 2008 on the Arctic "estimated the
occurrence of undiscovered oil and gas in 33 geologic provinces thought
to be prospective for petroleum. The sum of the mean estimates for each
province
indicates that 90 billion barrels of oil, 1,669 trillion cubic feet of
natural gas, and 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids may remain
to be found in the Arctic, of which approximately 84 percent is
expected to occur in offshore areas."[20]
"The unexplored Arctic contains about one-fifth of the world's
undiscovered oil and nearly a third of the natural gas yet to be
found....The untapped reserves are beneath the seafloor in
geopolitically controversial areas above the Arctic Circle."[21]
Four days ago Science magazine published a new U.S.
Geological Survey study that "assessed the area north of the Arctic
Circle and concluded that about 30% of the world's undiscovered gas and
13% of the world's undiscovered oil may be found there, mostly offshore
under less than
500 meters of water. Undiscovered natural gas is three times more
abundant than oil in the Arctic and is largely concentrated in Russia."[22]
The full report is only available to subscribers, but the Canadian
Globe and Mail provided this excerpt: "Although substantial amounts as
may be found in Alaska, Canada and Greenland, the undiscovered gas
resource is concentrated in Russian territory, and its development
would reinforce the pre-eminent
strategic position of that country."[23]
In addition to estimating that the Arctic Circle contains 30% of the
world's undiscovered natural gas, the survey increased its figure for
potential oil there from 90 billion barrels last year to as many as 160
billion in this year's report.
A news report summarized the findings on the region's natural gas
potential by saying "The Arctic region may hold enough natural gas to
meet current global demand for 14 years and most of it belongs to
Russia...."[24]
A website report adds this perspective on the importance of the new
estimate: "The new discovery amounts to over 35 years in U.S. foreign
oil imports or 5 years' worth of global oil consumption.
"Canada, Greenland/Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States,
all of which border the Arctic Circle are racing to compete for the
untapped resource.
"The oil reserves could fetch a price of $10.6 trillion dollars at
current oil prices. Most of the reserves are in shallow waters -- less
than 500 meters (about 1/3rd of a mile) -- making extraction relatively
easy."[25]
And a Canadian newspaper offered this terse reminder: "The updated
estimates of the North's promising oil and gas resources comes as
Canada and its polar neighbours aggressively pursue competing claims to
vast areas of continental shelf under the Arctic Ocean."[26]
Where vast, previously unexploited hydrocarbon reserves are
discovered or suspected NATO is never far behind, from the Caspian Sea
to Africa's Gulf Of Guinea to the Arctic Ocean. On January 28-29 of
this year the North Atlantic Treaty Organization held a meeting on the
Arctic in the capital of
Iceland entitled Seminar on Security Prospects in the High North.
It was attended by the bloc's Secretary General Jaap de Hoop
Scheffer, NATO's two top military commanders and the Chairman of the
Military Committee "as well as many other decision-makers and experts
from Allied countries."[27]
Scheffer's address was marked by a fairly uncharacteristic degree of
candor, at least when he said, "[T]he High North is going to require
even more of the Alliance's attention in the coming years.
"As the ice-cap decreases, the possibility increases of extracting the High North's mineral wealth and energy deposits.
"At our Summit in Bucharest last year, we agreed a number of guiding principles for NATO's role in energy security....
"NATO provides a forum where four of the Arctic coastal states
[Canada, Denmark, Norway, the United States] can inform, discuss, and
share, any concerns that they may have. And this leads me directly onto
the next issue, which is military activity in the region.
"Clearly, the High North is a region that is of strategic interest to the Alliance."[28]
Also addressing the meeting was NATO Supreme Allied Commander and
the Pentagon's European Command chief General Bantz John Craddock, who
"opined that NATO could contribute greatly to facilitating cooperation
in areas such as the development and security of shipping routes,
energy security,
surveillance and monitoring, search and rescue, resource exploration
and mining...."[29]
Craddock inherited his dual assignments from Marine General James
Jones, the architect of the new U.S. African Command and current
National Security Adviser, who is certainly overseeing the role of the
U.S. military and NATO in securing control of world energy supplies.
Peaceful Multilateral Development or War in the Arctic?U.S.
and NATO designs on the Arctic for strategic military purposes, for the
potential of the Northwest Passage to redefine international shipping
and naval commerce and for gaining access to and domination over
perhaps the largest untapped
oil and natural gas supplies in the world are hardly disguised.
As with numerous energy transportation projects in the Caspian Sea
Basin, the Caucasus, the Black Sea region and the Balkans, Iraq and
Africa, for the West oil and gas extraction and transit is a
winner-take-all game dictated by the drive to master others and share
with none.
The recent U.S. Geological Survey study suggests that the Arctic
Ocean may contain not only one-third of the world's undiscovered
natural gas but almost two-thirds as much oil as Saudi Arabia, the
world's largest producer, is conventionally estimated to possess: 160
billion barrels to somewhere in
the neighborhood of 260 billion barrels.
That Russia might gain access to the lion's share of both is not
something that the U.S. and its NATO allies will permit. The latter
have fought three wars since 1999 for lesser stakes. Iraq, for example,
has an estimated 115 billion barrels of oil.
Last month Russian President Dmitry Medvedev approved his nation's
National Security Strategy until 2020 document which says that "the
main threat to Russia's national security is the policy pursued by
certain leading states, which is aimed at attaining military
superiority over Russia, in the first
place in strategic nuclear forces.
"The threats to military security are the policy by a number of
leading foreign states, aimed at attaining dominant superiority in the
military sphere, in the first place in strategic nuclear forces, by
developing high-precision, information and other high-tech means of
warfare, strategic armaments with
non-nuclear ordnance, the unilateral formation of the global missile
defense system and militarization of outer space, which is capable of
bringing about a new spiral of the arms race, as well as the
development of nuclear, chemical and biological technologies, the
production of weapons of mass destruction or their
components and delivery vehicles."[30]
The strategy also, in the words of the Times of London,
"identified the intensifying battle for ownership of vast untapped oil
and gas fields around its borders as a source of potential military
conflict within a decade."
"The United States, Norway, Canada and Denmark are challenging
Russia's claim to a section of the Arctic shelf, the size of Western
Europe, which is believed to contain billions of tonnes of oil and gas."[31]
In a foreign ministers session of the Arctic Council in late April
Russia again warned against plans to militarize the Arctic. Its plea
fell on deaf ears in the West.
On May 28 the Norwegian ambassador to NATO took his British, Danish,
German, Estonian and Romanian counterparts on a "High North study trip"
near the Arctic Circle where the Norwegian foreign minister "emphasised
the importance of NATO attention to security issues of the High North."[32]
Three days earlier the same nation's State Secretary, Espen Barth
Eide, addressed the Defence and Security Committee of the NATO
Parliamentary Assembly in Oslo and said, "Russia has shown an increased
willingness to engage in political rhetoric and even use of military
force....NATO has a very
important role to play and Norway has argued the case for a long time.
The Alliance is at the core of the security and defence strategies of
all but one Arctic Ocean state.
"NATO already has a certain presence and plays a role in the High
North today, primarily through the Integrated Air Defence System,
including fighters on alert and AWACS surveillance flights. Some
exercise activity under the NATO flag also takes place in Norway and
Iceland....We would like to
see NATO raise its profile in the High North."[33]
Canada: West's Front Line, Battering Ram and Sacrificial OfferingAs
tensions mount in the Arctic, especially should they develop into a
crisis and the military option be employed, Norway will play its
appointed role as a loyal NATO cohort, as will its neighbors Denmark,
Finland and Sweden,
the last two rapidly becoming NATO states in every manner but formally.
Yet the battle will be joined where three of the four NATO states
with Arctic territorial claims -- the United States, Canada and Denmark
-- base them, in the northernmost part of the Western Hemisphere.
And having by far the largest border with the Arctic and the most
sizeable portion of its territory, Canada is the shock brigade to be
used in any planned provocation and open confrontation.
Nine days ago it was reported that "Canada's mapping of the Arctic
is pushing into territory claimed by Russia in the high-stakes drive by
countries to establish clear title to the polar region and its seabed
riches.
"Survey flights Ottawa conducted in late winter and early spring
went beyond the North Pole and into an area where Russia has staked
claims, a Department of Natural Resources official said Sunday."
The account continued by stating, "If Canada eventually files a
claim that extends past the North Pole, it could find itself in
conflict with Russia.
"Canada and Russia have both committed to a peaceful resolution of
conflicts over claims submitted under the international process, a
pledge [that] will be put to the test if Ottawa and Moscow submit
overlapping stakes.
"Canadian scientists contend that the underwater Lomonosov Ridge is an extension of the North American continental shelf.
"It is estimated that a quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and gas lies under the Arctic."[34]
Canadian military and civilian leaders have been laying the
groundwork for this confrontation since the advent of the Harper
administration.
In August of 2007 the prime minister "announced plans to build a new
army training centre in the Far North at Resolute Bay [east end of the
Northwest Passage] and to outfit a deep-water port for both military
and civilian use at the northern tip of Baffin Island.
"His trip to the Arctic earlier this month was accompanied by the
biggest military exercise in the region in years, with 600 soldiers,
sailors and air crew participating."[35]
A year later the Harper and Bush governments laid aside a long-standing
dispute in the Arctic's Beaufort Sea "in the name of defending
against Russia's Arctic claims, which clash with those of the U.S.,
Canada, Denmark and Norway."[36]
In the same month Canada conducted what it called the first of
several military sovereignty exercises in the Arctic, a full spectrum
affair including "In addition to the army, navy and air force, several
federal agencies and departments are participating, including the Coast
Guard, RCMP, CSIS, Canada
Border Services Agency, Transport Canada and Health Canada.
"Military officials say this year's exercise involves the most number of departments and agencies ever."[37]
Later in August of 2008 Harper and Defence Secretary MacKay visited
the Northwest Territories to inspect "four CF-18 Canadian military jets
sent to Inuvik in response to what officials said was an unidentified
aircraft that had neared Canadian air space."[38]
Last September the Canadian Defence Ministry launched "Operation
NANOOK 2008, a sovereignty operation in Canada's eastern Arctic. Not
only that, but Harper also voiced support for plans to build a military
port and a military base beyond the Polar Circle."
This at a time when "The United States has joined the race, too, teaming up with Canada to map the unexplored Arctic sea floor."[39]
On September 19th Harper was paraphrased as saying "Canada is
stepping up its military alertness along its northern frontier in
response to Russia's 'testing' of its boundaries and recent Arctic grab.
"We are concerned about not just Russia's claims through the
international process, but Russia's testing of Canadian airspace and
other indications...(of) some desire to work outside of the
international framework. That is obviously why we are taking a range of
measures, including military measures,
to strengthen our sovereignty in the North."[40]
In December of last year defence chief MacKay "singled out possible
naval encroachments from Russia and China, saying, 'We have to be
diligent.'"[41]
This March MacKay "announced...the locations of the two satellite
reception ground stations for the $60 million Polar Epsilon project
designed to provide space-based, day and night surveillance of Canada's
Arctic and its ocean approaches.[42]
In April Canada held Operation Nunalivut 2009, the first of three "sovereignty operations" scheduled in the Arctic this year.
MacKay said of the exercises, "Operation Nunalivut is but one
example of how the Government of Canada actively and routinely
exercises its sovereignty in the North. The Canadian Forces play an
important role in achieving our goals in the North, which is why the
Government of Canada is making
sure they have the tools they need to carry out a full range of tasks
in the Arctic, including surveillance, sovereignty, and
search-and-rescue operations."
Vice-Admiral Dean McFadden, Commander of Canada Command, added:
"In keeping with the Canada First Defence Strategy, we are placing
greater emphasis on our northern operations, including in the High
Arctic. This operation underscores the value of the Canadian Rangers,
our eyes and ears in the North, which at the direction of the
Government are growing to 5,000
in strength."
Brigadier-General David Millar, the Commander of Joint Task Force North, contributed this:
"This operation is a golden opportunity to expand our capabilities
to operate in Canada's Arctic. In addition to air and ground patrols,
this operation calls on a range of supporting military capabilities --
communications, intelligence, mapping, and satellite imaging."[43]
The Commander of Greenland Command, Danish Rear-Admiral Henrik
Kudsk, attended the exercises to "discuss military collaboration in the
North."[44]
To further demonstrate NATO unity in the face of a common enemy,
Russia, "A Canadian research aircraft is expected to fly over 90 North
this month as part of a joint Canada-Denmark mission to strengthen the
countries' claims over the potentially oil-rich Lomonosov Ridge."[45]
In the same month, April, this time in a show of bipartisan unity, a
Liberal Party gathering in Vancouver discussed "a tough Arctic policy
that calls on the government to 'actively and aggressively' enforce
Canada's sovereignty in the North, including expanding its military
role."[46]
A major Canadian daily revealed information on the Canadian
Department of National Defence's Polar Breeze program, referring to it
as a $138 million "military project so cloaked in secrecy the
Department of National Defence at first categorically denied it even
existed.
"Today -- apart from backtracking on their denial -- the military is
refusing to answer any questions on the project that experts believe
has a role to play in protecting Canada's Arctic sovereignty and
security."[47]
The newspaper also said that the project "involves the Canadian
Forces' secretive directorate of space development, computer networks
and geospatial intelligence -- data gathered by satellite" and that it
"could have farther ranging functions including sharing sensitive
military intelligence across the various
branches of the Canadian Forces and with key allies."[48]
In early May the Canadian Senate issued a report demanding that
"Canada should arm its coast guard icebreakers and turn the North's
Rangers into better-trained units that could fight if necessary."[49]
Slightly later in a news report called "After Russian talk of
conflict, Tories say military is prepared," Foreign Affairs Minister
Lawrence Cannon said the "government's defence strategy will help the
military 'take action in exercising Canadian sovereignty in the North,'
and highlighted plans for a fleet
of Arctic patrol ships, a deepwater docking facility at Baffin Island,
an Arctic military training centre and the expansion of the Canadian
Rangers...."[50]
The repeated, incessant references to Russia and to no other nation
while Canada boosts military cooperation with fellow NATO Arctic
claimants leave no room for doubt regarding which nation Canadian
military expansion in its north is aimed against. Recent deployments
and new and upgraded installations
cannot be used to fight a conventional conflict with any modern
military adversary. But they are indicative of an intensifying campaign
to portray Russia as a threat -- as the threat -- to Canada.
Piotr Dutkiewicz, director of Carleton University's Institute of
European and Russian Studies, is quoted in a Canadian online
publication recently as worrying that "There is a very strange rhetoric
that is coming in recent months as to portray Russia as a potential
enemy...."[51]
The rhetoric is backed up by action and it isn't strange but perfectly understandable.
Canada is primed for a role much like that of Georgia in the South
Caucasus has been for the past several years, as a comparatively small
(in terms of population) nation close to Russia which will be employed
to play a part on behalf of far more powerful actors. And should Russia
respond in any way
to attempted Canadian efforts to "stand tall" against it, from
scrambling jets to shooting down a bomber -- bravado can always go awry
-- the U.S. and NATO will be compelled to offer support and assistance,
including military action, under the provisions of NATO's Article 5. In
fact that may be exactly what Washington
and Brussels have planned.
Rather than continuing to lend Georgia diplomatic and military
support, it would behoove Canadians to borrow a lesson from last
August's war in the Caucasus: A war can be launched on an aggressor's
terms but end on someone else's.
Notes
1. CanWest News Service. May 26, 2009
2. Canwest News Service, December 11, 2008
3. Ibid
4. Canwest News Service, May 27, 2009
5. Library of Parliament, December 7, 2007
6. National Security Presidential Directive 66 on Arctic Region Policy
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-66.htm
7. Ibid
8. Prensa Latina, March 29, 2007
9. Navy NewsStand, March 20, 2007
10. Navy NewsStand, March 29, 2007
11. Stop NATO, February 2, 2009, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/37104
12. Interfax-Military, September 26, 2006
13. National Security Presidential Directive, January 9, 2009
14. Ibid
15. Canwest News Service, August 19, 2008
16. Canwest News Service, September 12, 2008
17. CBC, February 27, 2009
18. Ibid
19. Vancouver Sun, March 27, 2009
20. U.S. Geological Survey, May, 2008, http://geology.com/usgs/arctic-oil-and-gas-report.shtml
21. Live Science, July 24, 2008
22. Science, May 29, 2009, http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/324/5931/1175]
23. Globe and Mail, May 28, 2009
24. Bloomberg, May 29, 2009
25. Daily Tech, June, 1, 2009
26. Globe and Mail, May 28, 2009
27. NATO International, January 29, 2009
28. Ibid
29. NATO International, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, January 29, 2009
30. Itar-Tass, May 13, 2009
31. The Times, May 14, 2009
32. Barents Observer, May 28, 2009
33. Defense Professionals, May 25, 2009
34. Globe and Mail, May 24, 2009
35. Canadian Press, August 19, 2007
36. Financial Times, August 18, 2008
37. Canwest News Service, August 19, 2008
38. Reuters, August 28, 2008
39. RosBusinessConsulting, September 18, 2008
40. Agence France-Presse, September 19, 2008
41. Canwest News Service, December 15, 2008
42. Daily Gleaner (New Brunswick), April 22, 2009
43. Department of National Defence, Canada Command, April 2, 2009
44. Ibid
45. Canwest News Service, April 5, 2009
46. Edmonton Sun, April 13, 2009
47. Globe and Mail, April 27, 2009
48. Ibid
49. Canadian Press, May 7, 2009
50. Canwest News Service, May 15, 2009
51. Embassy, April 29, 2009
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