Thank you for the opportunity to be here.
Climate change, newly accessible resources, new maritime routes, unresolved boundary disputes, announcements of new investments in military capabilities to defend sovereign rights—no wonder the Arctic has emerged as a topic of tremendous hype and deep-seated misperceptions over the past decade, spawning persistent debates about whether the region's future is likely to follow a cooperative trend or whether it's fated to spiral into unbridled competition and conflict.
Commentators differ in their assessments about the probability and/or timing of developments, as well as general governance and geopolitical trends. Some, like myself, contend that the Arctic regime is solidly rooted in cooperation. Others, with Dr. Huebert at the forefront, anticipate heightened competition and conflict.
These frameworks are very significant in shaping expectations for the Government of Canada and for the Canadian Armed Forces more specifically. If one expects that the region is on the precipice of conflict then constabulary capabilities are insufficient. On the other hand, official military statements that anticipate no conventional military threats to the region, but instead see an increase in security and safety challenges, point to the need for capabilities suited to a supporting role in a whole-of-government framework; the ideas you heard from General Beare and General Loos a few months ago.
Rather than rushing a spate of new investments in combat capabilities to meet an impending security crisis, as Rob might have us believe, official frameworks provide the Canadian Armed Forces with appropriate and responsible guidance to support other government departments in addressing security concerns and responding to non-military Arctic emergencies.
Although several expensive capital programs remain in project definition or design phases, or have been scaled back in the case of Nanisivik, this does not mean Canada faces a critical combat capability deficit that leaves us vulnerable in an increasingly hostile Arctic world. Delivering on promised investments aligned to the broader national strategy for our Arctic before rationally ramping up to fight some fantastical Arctic combatant, conjured to the scene because of preconceived cold war mentalities and international events unrelated to Arctic disputes, is a prudent and rational course.
My first point relates to international events and risk assessments. It's important for commentators and analysts to contemplate worst-case scenarios. This is the way of identifying potential military risks and vulnerabilities. An excessive fixation on remote potentialities and their misidentification as probabilities can lead to misallocated resources: intellectual resources and material resources. It can lead to unwarranted suspicion and paranoia. That very messaging can lead us into a security dilemma.
Despite all of the considerable ink that's been spilled on boundary disputes, and uncertainty surrounding the delineation of extended continental shelves in the Arctic, official statements by all of the Arctic states are quick to dispel the myth that these issues have strong defence components. They do not. Despite all of the political saber rattling with Russia over the Lomonosov Ridge and the North Pole, which generates punchy headlines in both countries, it's simplistic and erroneous to draw parallels between Russian aggression in the Ukraine and the establishment of the outer limits of its sovereign rights in the Arctic.
The Ukrainian crisis has shown that Arctic politics are not immune to international events. We need to be careful to distinguish between global security threats and Arctic-specific security threats. The Ukraine has broader implications for NATO and for global security, but I think it's erroneous to draw a direct connection between what's happening in the Ukraine and to set up that same intentionality on the part of the Russians when it comes to clarifying the Arctic. There's a real tendency to conflate international threats with Arctic-specific threats.
Of course Russian adventurism has important impacts on Canada and on defence. I want to emphasize that I do not see this as an Arctic issue. The country that has the most to lose through Arctic instability is Russia. They're going to be facing a lot of challenges in the months to come if oil and gas prices stay where they're at.
Despite the hostile diplomatic atmosphere that's been created by the Russian annexation of Crimea there is no indication that it or any other Arctic state intends to move away from the existing international framework when it comes to asserting sovereign rights or substantiating legal claims.
The opportunities associated with Arctic resources also fire up imaginations and lead us to frame sensational narratives of unbridled competition for rights and for Arctic territory, which have little grounding in reality. Despite the wealth of Arctic resources depictions of a race between circumpolar states arming in preparation for a resource-fuelled conflict are fundamentally misinformed.
Exploration activities are not occurring in a legal vacuum, in which states might perceive a need to compete for control and access. Each Arctic coastal state has expressed interest in encouraging responsible resource development within its jurisdiction consistent with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Anything that deviates from it would create instability, thus impeding investment and slowing the pace of development, which goes against the expressed interests of the Arctic states.
Arguably the best way to protect the Arctic in this context is to clarify environmental regulations, things such as drilling requirements and corporate liability laws and benefits to indigenous peoples and so on, not fixation on a military lens.
Of course, all of the talk about resource development is still highly hypothetical. We see constantly shifting scenarios. Just take the price of oil and gas in recent months as a real exclamation point showing how subjective and volatile Arctic development trends are in the face of global market supply and demand.
It's important to also note that the United States has come to very similar conclusions to the ones I'm presenting to you and that Canada has come to. The U.S. Department of Defense's Arctic strategy states that, given the dismal fiscal environment in that country, it's not surprising that U.S. policies are hesitant and non-committal about Arctic investments, because there is a high degree of uncertainty about what developments are going to occur in the region and when. They keep emphasizing that making premature, unnecessary investments, spurred by reactionary thinking, will deflect resources away from more pressing priorities. Their Arctic strategy also warns that:
Being too aggressive in taking steps to address anticipated future security risks may create the conditions of mistrust and miscommunication under which such risks could materialize.
So you have a U.S. Arctic strategy and U.S. Navy Arctic road map that instead adopt a very broad definition of security that alludes to the benefits of burden-sharing across agencies and with international partners. The U.S. Navy road map predicts that the region will remain “a low threat security environment” for “the foreseeable future”. To realize its desired end state of peace and stability, the report stresses the need to invest in the unique and enduring partnership that the U.S. enjoys with Canada.
The reason I bring this up before you as Canadian parliamentarians is that once we get past the very limiting dialogue over sovereignty that tends to trap us in Canada, we actually see that Canadian and American interests and priorities in the Arctic, particularly in the defence and security realms, are very well aligned. We have a long-established partnership, in the form of NORAD, and a whole bunch of other thick bilateral relationships that allow us to jointly manage defence relationships in the region.
Despite pressures in some Canadian circles to nationalize Canadian Arctic defence, as if somehow working with our American allies detracts from our sovereignty, I think this thinking needs to be resisted, because this would mean a tremendous misallocation of defence resources to somehow beef up our independent defensive capabilities in the Arctic to meet that paper tiger sovereignty threat that doesn't exist today and has not really existed since the early days of the Cold War. We can certainly talk in the question period about how this relates to potential capabilities and platforms such as Arctic offshore patrol ships and so on.
Managing issues in a bilateral relationship with the U.S. rather than through a broader NATO framework is also very useful for Canada, because it facilitates agreeing to disagree on the status of the waters of Canada's Arctic archipelago in ways that otherwise might be much more difficult or even impossible to do in a committee of the whole.
Working with allies is key, but Canadian strategic documents also emphasize, as the Americans' do, that there is no conceivable military threat in the near future and that our primary focus should be on security and safety. Certainly strategic frameworks that have been generated by the Canadian military place an explicit emphasis on the security and safety aspects of the operation continuum, things that you heard from General Beare.
What this means or what this entails is a whole-of-government or comprehensive approach, recognizing that it's often other government departments or agencies that have lead responsibilities for security and safety issues. What most commentators in the media and in academia overlook is how much work has actually been done to clarify and streamline relationships between involved departments.
The Department of National Defence is certainly leading from behind but it's playing a supporting role. Things like the Operation Nanook whole-of-government exercises and mechanisms like the Arctic security working group often operate outside the political or public eye, but I would argue these relationships are absolutely essential to allow us to respond effectively and appropriately to the sorts of hazards and threats that we're likely to see in the near future.
In speaking of relationships, I'd be remiss not to mention one of the most uniquely Canadian cornerstones of our Arctic defences, the Canadian Rangers. Full disclosure; I'm the honorary lieutenant colonel of 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group. The Rangers are a good example where having modest capabilities rooted in communities, rooted in relationships with northerners are essential. These relationships are the cornerstone of our behaving appropriately in our north. They represent a long-standing capability that serves as a force multiplier for southern units that have to go up and operate in a very austere and difficult environment. They're also a very critical bridge between the Arctic communities and other elements of the Canadian Forces, and I bring them up because they're a signature initiative of Prime Minister Harper. They've been expanded to 5,000, but we also need to remember that expansion is not just numbers on a sheet. It's ensuring that they have the support in the form of Ranger instructors and headquarters staff to allow them to accomplish their mission.
So as a wrap-up point, political statements are often generated in a heated atmosphere where, sure, we've taken a strident stand against Russian expansionism in Europe. Some of this may point to Rob's thesis that he's going to present, that there's a likelihood of conflict in the Arctic. But I think it's very important that regional priorities and threat assessments used to frame Arctic defence and security frameworks over the last decade in Canada remain sound. Our whole-of-government approach designed to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to non-combat security and safety scenarios should not be hijacked by a retreat to Cold War thinking.
Thank you.