Absolutely, and it is a different way of framing the issue.
To begin, Russia's vulnerability stems primarily from what it has in the Arctic. Unlike North America, Russia's economy is very closely tied to assets that are located in the Arctic. This goes back generations, and it's where that Russian insecurity stems from. The fact that it has a lot of very valuable, very vulnerable assets in the north is where that insecurity comes from.
The reason I'm saying North America is not as vulnerable is that simply put, there is no strategic centre of gravity in the North American Arctic. As Dr. Perry mentioned, there are several important targets in the Arctic, but their removal or their destruction would not fundamentally alter the Canadian economy or our ability to make war.
NATO's strength in the Arctic is also very commonly downplayed or underestimated. NATO's submarine fleets, which are the main vehicle for projecting power in the Arctic waters, are significant. They're large. They're technologically advanced. They're well trained. The Americans and the British never stopped going under the Arctic ice during the 1990s and 2000s, so that capability is very real.
NATO's aerospace power projection in the north is also, obviously, very significant, and as Finland and Sweden join the alliance, NATO's capability in the north, to my mind, will significantly outshine Russia's.
Another element we can't ignore is the fact that over the last 20 years, our assessment of Russian capability in the Arctic has been based on paper strength: what the Russians say they have, what we've seen there. As we've seen in Ukraine, so much of that paper strength is just not there. The Russian army and the Russian air force have been nowhere near as effective as we always expected they would be.
I question why we put so much stock in the Russian state narratives, which hold up Russia's Arctic power as this considerable dominating force, when every other element of its military has been shown to be something of a Potemkin village. I would just suggest we keep that in mind when we talk about the Arctic.