First of all, I have to say that I am not an expert on Russia, but I'd like to support your remarks with two further observations.
The United States and Canada have both in the last year had smaller defence budgets for various reasons which are unique to each country. For example, we had sequestration here, which caused a reduction in military spending, while Russia increased its military spending by 18%. I said 18%.
The second thing I would say, which is congruent, I think, with your remarks, is that the Arctic is at a tipping point. We may not like this. I certainly don't. I worry a great deal about global warming, but global warming is happening at an enormously fast pace. The tipping point I'm talking about is that ExxonMobil and Rosneft, before they concluded their drilling operations, discovered the first major well with commercial deposits of oil estimated to be three-quarter billion barrels. This, in my way of thinking, is going to lead to an oil rush. With this oil rush will come much greater traffic in and out of the Arctic, not so much transiting the Arctic but in and out, all of which will require monitoring. The kind of deployments that you have described are deployments which Russia is taking very seriously because it has a long, open coastline in these areas. What in fact these deployments actually mean for the rest of us is something we have to take very seriously.
To conclude, I do not believe that we, that is Canada and the United States, or the Europeans, are taking the Arctic seriously in defence terms in the way that all of these developments suggest we should.