In the context of NORAD, we've always looked north and we look at the Arctic as being an avenue of approach as opposed to a base of operation. We operate from the Arctic to do our job, but it's an avenue of approach for us. In the maritime domain, we have this mission, which is maritime warning, in which case we would know about a scenario like you just described, if we have the proper detection and the proper intelligence. We would get the information and therefore advise both governments of a threat in the north. But our role would be limited to that.
In that case, our role is simply to advise of something that will be coming in, but if that ship were undetected, of course, were to end up in the Northwest Passage or in our Arctic and was able to launch a cruise missile, that cruise missile would then become our problem. It's a NORAD problem because it is an air-breathing threat . So that would characterize the way NORAD would be concerned with the north.
Here is another aspect of the north. While our Arctic, our maritime approaches, say, close to 12 nautical miles north of our land mass, may or may not be melting, depending on which side of the argument you find yourself on, you have to look on the other side. The Russian northern maritime lines of communications are melting way faster, and for us that is a concern, because they could position capabilities there. They could put stuff there that could act as a deterrent, and when you have a deterrent that could affect North America, we take notice. Now it starts to affect our freedom of execution, freedom of manoeuvre, and so forth. That's why I say, from a NORAD perspective, our area of interest is global. We look further than our borders, and we really look far north in this case.
I'm not sure I answered the question, but that's the limit of our operation—