I have to say, it's a tragedy that you think that the U.S. somehow equates with Russia and China. We are allies and partners. I understand why you feel that way. I do. It's not that, but I think it's taking a step back and trying to position ourselves once again as strategic partners and allies at NORAD and at NATO. We share values.
My concern is that we, the United States and Canada, fail to appreciate that many of our policies that we've jointly done together vis-à-vis the annexation of Crimea and Ukraine have had the unintended consequences of pushing Russia closer to China, as Russia has had to have an alternative financing mechanism, which is why you see the Chinese investment patterns on the Yamal Peninsula in some of the infrastructure and pipelines. We're going to see, potentially, a nexus of Russian and Chinese interaction, and that is not in the west's interest. That is not in NATO's interest and that is not in the U.S. and Canada's interest.
That is my concern. We need to be very vigilant about what their growing presence in the Arctic means. We have lost a generation here in the United States that understands why our missile defence architecture is in the Arctic, why we have Thule Air Force Base in Greenland, our most northern air force base, and why we have and have worked so long and hard with NORAD, and our coast guards work together.
It is to protect North America. We need to return to that shared vision, but our policies vis-à-vis Russia and the sanctions policy are pushing Russia and China closer together, and the U.S. administration's policies on trade and other things are also helping Russia and China work together. We have to break that apart and return to a shared vision.