NATO Allies Canada, U.S. Look North as Arctic’s Security Challenges Grow

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — Global rivalries are heating up in the cold Arctic as Russia and China boost their presence in the region, causing concern within NATO nations in the alliance’s northern flank.

Adm. Linda Fagan, U.S. Coast Guard commandant, said this past summer saw dramatic changes in the region as ice continues to disappear in the summer months as a result of climate change, opening up new opportunities for rivals.

“Up until this past summer, you would expect one Chinese research vessel in the Arctic. This past summer, there were five. You would see Russia operating. You would see China operating. This summer, they were operating in tandem surface action groups … 60 to 70 miles off the coast of Alaska, the Aleutians,” she said at the Halifax International Security Forum in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

If the Coast Guard had observed that same pattern of behavior off the East or the West Coasts of the United States, it would have the full attention of the government, she added.

Canada’s Minster of Defense Bill Blair said there has been a “huge increase” in China’s presence in the region. What it calls “scientific research” is actually mapping the sea floor to search for strategic minerals, he said at the forum.

While China is not an Arctic nation, that is not the case for Russia, as Espen Barth Eide, Norway’s minister of foreign affairs, pointed out. Russia’s Northern Fleet with its nuclear-armed submarines is based only a few kilometers from Norway’s border. It has some 17 military bases along the Arctic, and while “this is no South China Sea” when it comes to territorial disputes, concerns are growing in the region, he added.

“The Arctic will once again become an area for submarines, for missiles, for surveillance, for sea lines for communications,” he said.
The Arctic connects Asia, Europe and North America, he said.

And along with melting sea ice in summer months, opening up direct routes between the continents, permafrost on land is also melting, he said. Russia has extensive infrastructure in its north, including roads, railroads, airfields and small cities.

They are literally “breaking up” as the permafrost melts, forcing more of this land-based traffic to go by sea, Eide said.

Canada, like Russia, has miles and miles of shoreline on the Arctic but has virtually no infrastructure there.

Blair said that will change. He made a recent fact-finding trip to the region where he thought he would compile a list of weapon systems needed to operate in the nation’s far north.

“I had my own idea of what Arctic security and sovereignty really was about. And I was wrong … it’s about infrastructure. It’s about airport runways. It’s about highways. It’s about fiber-optic communications. It’s about energy plants. It’s about all of the things that make our presence there sustainable and prosperous,” he said.

The Canadian Ministry of Defense’s most recent strategy document, “Our North, Strong and Free: A Renewed Vision for Canada’s Defense,” states that “further investments in our military will enable the Canadian Armed Forces to respond to a rapidly changing climate and its impact on Canada’s Arctic, brazen challenges to global stability and accelerating technological innovation.”

“Climate change is disproportionately affecting our Arctic. It is becoming increasingly accessible, and we are facing new security challenges in the region,” the document said. That is coupled with Russia’s flagrant violation of international law and China’s attempts to reshape the international order to achieve its political goals, it added.

Blair said Canada’s strategy includes an “unprecedented and historic” $38.6 billion investment in the North American Aerospace Defense Command, better known as NORAD, the bilateral U.S.-Canadian security pact primarily designed to protect the two nations from Russian nuclear attacks.

“We are now undertaking a significant new investment in NORAD modernization, which is going to give us better situational awareness in the Arctic, over-the-horizon, over-the-polar radars, new installations, and I think it’s moving us through the absolute necessity of a greater integrated air and missile defense network across all NATO allies to protect us in the northern flank,” he said.

That will include early warning aircraft, ground-based air defenses to defend critical infrastructure from a diverse array of incoming airborne attacks, including drones, missiles and artillery, long-range air- and sea-launched missiles and long-range missile capabilities for the Canadian army, the document said.

Fagan said: “We’ve got an opportunity — particularly in the U.S. and Canada — to do the building. … But as you consider what types of deep water access, what kinds of maritime domain awareness, communications, technology and logistics and resupply we might need to create the opportunity for year-round presence in the Arctic, that is all work in front of us.”

One bright spot in the region panelists noted was the ascension of Finland and Sweden into NATO’s ranks as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“It’s really great that Sweden and Finland have joined, because that means that NATO is now even more also an Arctic alliance, and we need to think about it as such,” Eide said, noting that seven of the eight countries that border the Arctic are now NATO members.

Blair said: “The advent of Finland and Sweden I think is a bit of a game changer for us. The fact that they have now joined NATO, it gives us an enormous opportunity for better collaboration, better cooperation, working stronger together. They have remarkable capabilities that they also bring to the table. And so, I think we’re very much stronger,” he said.

Fagan noted that the U.S. Coast Guard — by ship numbers — would be the third largest navy in NATO.

It is part of the Department of Homeland Security, not the Defense Department, yet operates the nation’s surface fleet in the Arctic, while the Navy’s purview in the region is the submarine force.

In summer months, the Coast Guard has sent its National Security Cutters to the Arctic, but when the ice freezes over, it must rely on one medium and one large icebreaker. The service is behind, she admitted.

Norway geographically is best positioned to keep an eye on Russia in the Arctic, Eide said. It has observed how its neighbor dispatched most of its Arctic army to Ukraine, emptying the region out of land forces.

However, Russia’s navy is still very active, Blair noted.

“We’re seeing ... Russia, very typically, sailing through the region. They have not demonstrated respect for the international rules-based order in respect for other countries’ sovereignty and economic interests,” he said.

Aside from NATO, there is the Arctic Council, an eight-member organization that includes the seven NATO nations bordering the region, plus Russia. It has 38 nations and organizations with observer status, including China.

There has been talk of booting Russia out of the council over its actions in Ukraine, but Eide said Norway, which is the current chair, does not support that. The Arctic Council is still useful, he said.

The other seven nations can meet informally to discuss security matters, he said. “We don’t need a new organization, but we need to have structured cooperation.”

There has also been talk of Canada taking the lead in NATO when it comes to Arctic security. The current thinking in the organization has been to parse out military specialties to member nations, and Canada could make patrolling the region its main contribution to the alliance.

Canada has also come under criticism for not reaching the NATO goal of having its members spend 2 percent of GDP on defense expenditures. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the last NATO Summit in Washington, D.C., vowed to make it to the benchmark by 2032. Transforming itself into the alliance’s go-to military for Arctic security could help it reach the 2 percent mark.

Iris Ferguson, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Arctic and global resilience, said Russia sees the Arctic as its crown jewel, and allowing China to come in and conduct joint operations is a relatively recent development.

Russia is allowing and condoning Chinese “joint patrols with the coast guard, signing [memorandums of understanding] with one another, conducting joint bomber patrols with one another that give the PRC access to remote places in the Arctic, to give them experience and exposure. From a military perspective, that’s new and unique,” she said during a Center for Strategic and International Studies webcast in early December.

Matthew Funaiole, vice president of the iDeas Lab, Andreas C. Dracopoulos chair in innovation and senior fellow of the China Power Project at CSIS, said China has looked to Russia as a gateway to the Arctic for several years.

“China wants to have a world-class military by the middle of the century, and that means being able to operate your navy pretty much anywhere, right? You want to have a blue-water navy, and the polar region is one of the regions where they want to be able to have a military presence,” he said during the CSIS webcast.

“They’re still very much trying to figure that out,” he added.

As China, Canada and the United States all look to build up infrastructure in the region to match Russia, Ferguson noted that this is no easy task. It takes about four times as long and about four times as much money to build infrastructure in the region.

Blair said: “I don’t want to always approach this from a fear-based standpoint. I think there’s huge opportunity for us to actually create prosperity.”

There is a connection between security and prosperity, he said.

“We’ve got to make this investment, and I think there are strong and compelling reasons to do it, and I think we are presented with an opportunity — because of the collective defense commitment and our alliances — we have a huge opportunity to get this right,” he said. ND

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