Thank you very much. It is a great pleasure to be able to be with you via video link.
I just want to speak very briefly about growing concerns that we have here in Washington about Russia's military presence in the Arctic. We've seen over the last decade that Russia has placed the Arctic squarely within its military doctrine and its new maritime doctrine. It has established a new Arctic strategic command. It has focused its military modernization efforts on its nuclear submarine deterrent in its northern fleet. It has [Technical difficulty—Editor] across the Russian Arctic. We are detecting where some of these airfields will increasingly have surface-to-air missiles placed on them and where they are focusing their special forces training among these airfields.
We have seen where Russia has certainly been exercising its Arctic capabilities. In March of 2015, we awoke to an unannounced snap military exercise in the Arctic where the Russians demonstrated, at full combat readiness, a complex air, sea and land exercise in the Arctic. This was then followed by recent exercises in 2017, the ZAPAD, or western military district exercise, where we've seen continued exercising in and around the Kola Peninsula. Then, of course, we all finished watching the Vostok exercise, which was the largest Russian military exercise since the 1980s and which also involved Arctic exercising in the western Pacific and the east. Again, there was rapid military mobilization. These were very complex combined operations.
In essence, what we're seeing is a focused effort by the Russian military to think about the Arctic and return it to its strategic imperative that it held during the Cold War. We're seeing a doctrine, a streamlined command structure, new equipment, new forces, and a repeated exercising of those capabilities.
I want to, though, caution that we don't over-sensationalize Russia's military footprint in the Arctic. This is not Russia as it was at the height of the Cold War. I believe what we are seeing is a return to some semblance of a Russian power projection capability that's highly concentrated for the north Atlantic and bastion defence around the Kola Peninsula. It has some [Technical difficulty—Editor] to the east with direct implications for the United States and Alaska as well as for Canada.
What makes it difficult for us to completely understand Russia's growing military footprint in the Arctic is that it sometimes is hard to decide, when Russia announces something new in the Arctic, whether they are reannouncing something they have not been able to achieve because they've fallen very far behind in their procurement timelines or in their announcements.
Sometimes we see Russia's military-industrial complex being used to help develop Russia's very ambitious economic ideas for the northern sea route. For example, the 10 search and rescue centres that Russia will be constructing along the northern sea route will be dual use military use. We will have to discern what is civilian and what is military.
We do have, I think, a very strong sense that this has been a priority for the Russian government for the last decade. It is a prestige project for President Putin. He is often on hand to watch Arctic exercises. He was on hand as they unveiled their first very modern special forces base on Kotelny Island just a few months ago. President Putin is very focused on the Arctic. They see it as their economic future base, and they also see it as a revitalized military opportunity.
We are also concerned about China's growing economic and scientific footprint in the Arctic. This is where Russia and China combined in some ways, very focused on the Yamal Peninsula, and that is for the Yamal LNG megaproject but [Technical difficulty—Editor] as the infrastructure, whether that's in Greenland, in Iceland, in their scientific research centres, railways, undersea cables, whether that's in Finland or in Norway, the port infrastructure and the LNG, we also need to now appreciate that China's growing economic role will also have strategic implications.
U.S. policy-makers are concerned. When China bid on airports in Greenland, what were the strategic implications for the United States for the Thule air force base in Greenland? There is a growing awareness, very much along the lines of our national security strategy and national defence strategy, that we have great power competition with Russia and China across the globe, and we are trying to understand how that manifests itself in the Arctic. It requires much more study and research, not hype. What is going on? What are the trajectories? What are the strategic implications for the United States? What are the strategic implications for Canada?
I will just finish my opening remarks by saying that NATO must have a greater awareness of both Russia's military posture in the Arctic as well as the strategic implications of China's economic role in the Arctic.
Now we are starting Trident Juncture, the largest NATO exercises centred on Norway, the Norwegian Sea and in the north. After this exercise, this is an opportune moment for the North Atlantic Council to receive a briefing, not only on how NATO operated in the north, but again, a detailed briefing on Russia's military footprint.
Now that NATO has decided to revitalize the Atlantic command in Norfolk, we are going to be concentrating on anti-submarine warfare and the GIUK gap, which is the gateway to the Arctic. We are seeing a revitalization of our Cold War muscle memory, but we're doing this in a different way, not a heavy footprint [Technical difficulty--Editor] U.S. navy officials are very concerned about Russia's nuclear deterrent in their submarine forces, which are quite lethal and quite capable.
We need to have this conversation in NATO. We need to revitalize the North Atlantic as a strategic region of importance, and we must also shift our attention to the Bering Strait, the Chukchi Sea and Russia's eastern Arctic, because we are also seeing changes in their posture.
I'd be delighted to answer any additional questions and, again, thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.