Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Good afternoon everyone. I am pleased to be with you today.
I want to begin by thanking the clerk of this committee for having noticed two days ago that I was going to be in Ottawa today and therefore available to testify in person. It makes all the difference to see you face to face.
Thank you for the work that you've done, especially through the tough years of the pandemic.
I was able to hear the testimony of the witnesses on the previous panel and I want to both agree and disagree with them.
I want to agree that Russia is a significant security threat to Canada, including in the Arctic, and has been since the 1950s. Through long-range bombers carrying nuclear warheads through to the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and through today to the development of cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles, Russia is a threat to North American security—absolutely.
Given the behaviour of the Putin regime, that threat is greater now than it has been at any point since 1962. We live in dangerous times in terms of the Russian threat to North America. That's where I agree with one of the previous panellists, and before I move on to other issues, I will talk a bit about how we can help to deal with that threat or manage that threat.
In terms of managing the threat from Russia, which is now through the ICBMs, cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles, Russia is far too advanced with its technology for us to have the capacity to shoot those things down, nor indeed is the United States capable of shooting them down. The reason we have our radar surveillance in the Arctic is to preserve the ability of our American friends and neighbours to launch in the event of a Russian first strike. This is the preservation of mutually assured destruction.
The North Warning System is about that. It's not about protecting us in the sense of attacking the incoming Russian missiles; it's protecting us by providing us with the assurance that Russia will be destroyed if they launch at North America. We need to upgrade the North Warning System to provide continued surveillance and assistance to our American allies. That includes over-the-horizon radar, absolutely. We need to preserve the mutually assured destruction that has protected us since the 1960s in terms of the nuclear deterrent. Those radar stations in the north are our biggest contribution to North American security.
In terms of the other dimensions of Arctic security, most of the action right now is in the European Arctic. It's in the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea. The preponderance of Russia's military strength, its non-army military strength—naval, air force, ICBMs—is in northwestern Russia in the Russian Arctic, predominantly on the Kola Peninsula. Their access to the world's oceans is through the Greenland-Iceland-U.K. gap, and NATO naval forces and air forces are very active in dealing with Russian activity in that area. In just the last few days, they conducted major exercises with their nuclear forces, including missiles on land, submarine-based missiles and nuclear bomber capacity. They tested that just a few days ago.
I had the opportunity to spend some time with the commander of the U.S. Second Fleet in September 2019, and he told me that already then, in September of 2019, the level of Russian submarine activity was comparable to what he saw as the commander of a U.S. attack submarine in the latter part of the Cold War. There is activity there. Canada has a role to play. Our frigates have a role to play with other NATO naval forces in that theatre. Our long-range surveillance aircraft have a role to play in that theatre and do play a role.
Turning to the Canadian Arctic, Russia is not going to invade the Canadian Arctic. Think about it: Practically speaking, Russia is already losing a war against the Ukrainian military. Russia already owns half of the Arctic, incontestably. Russia doesn't need any North American Arctic, and Russia would lose very badly, faced with the combined response capability of NATO, including the United States, so an invasion, in terms of attempting to conquer territory, is just not on their cards. I agree with Professor Roussel here.