The Whiskey Wars are Over
Canada needs serious action on Arctic Security
“The only thing harder than planning for a war is planning for the last war."
Military members and veterans will likely recognize this old chestnut from military strategist Sir Basil Liddell Hart. It encapsulates perfectly the challenge facing the profession of arms. How do you properly plan for the conflicts of the future when all of your knowledge is rooted in the last war? I remember being confronted by the harsh reality of this quote as a first year cadet at the Royal Military College. It was 1991 and the Soviet Union was collapsing in what Francis Fukuyama famously termed the ‘end of history’. The peacetime dividend would lead Canada and many of our allies to slash defence budgets, close bases and allow our operational military capabilities to atrophy. By my graduation four years later, our former cold war adversary had gone from Cold War adversary to friend and eighth nation in the newly expanded G-8.
For the next decade Canadians did not give much thought to national defence until terror attacks of 9/11 shocked the world and reminded us about the need for a well equipped military. The country rallied behind the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) during their 12-year mission to Afghanistan and successive Liberal and Conservative governments gave the CAF the equipment they needed for that war in a country far from our shores. Throughout this period, however, very little attention was paid to the national defence of Canada. Following the end of the Cold War, successive Canadian governments refused to take the action to shore up our homeland defences and allowed our participation in the critical NORAD alliance to weaken. Our Arctic region was particularly ignored at a time when the Arctic ambitions of Russia and China slowly began to ramp up.
Ironically, the only challenge to the territorial sovereignty of Canada during these many years (leaving aside the continental shelf) was in the Arctic and it involved a small island called Hans Island. Fortunately, this territorial ‘dispute’ was with Denmark, one of our closest NATO allies, and it consisted of a tit-for-tat exchange of alcohol. The territorial dispute actually began in 1973, but became known as the ‘Whiskey War’ after Canadian soldiers planted a flag and left a bottle of Canadian whiskey for the Danes in 1984. The Danish Minister responsible for Greenland visited Hans Island next and returned a volley by planting their flag and a leaving a bottle of Danish schnapps. This light-hearted difference of opinion on the ownership of a small island in the Arctic seemed to be the extent of our seriousness in the north. Unfortunately for Canadians, the ‘Whiskey War’ had become our ‘last war’ and made it difficult for elected officials and senior public servants to properly contemplate the risks Canada was facing in the Arctic region.
Canadian complacency came to a crashing halt in February 2022 with the full invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The reality of geopolitics had finally hit home and the Trudeau government was forced to act to make up for lost time in the north. Within just four months of the invasion, Canada and Denmark had resolved the Hans Island dispute. There was no time for amusing disputes between friends with a war raging in Europe. A few days after the Hans Island settlement, the Trudeau government announced a $4.9 Billion investment in the North Warning System to modernize NORAD and reaffirm our commitment to this critical alliance. And just a few weeks after that, the Prime Minister has his boots on the ground in the Arctic with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in tow.. Not only was it the first visit by a NATO Secretary General to the Canadian Arctic, but it was sadly the first time Prime Minister Trudeau had travelled to the region to observe the annual CAF sovereignty exercise known as Operation Nanook . Russian aggression had forced the Trudeau government to finally confront the fact that we were laggards in NORAD and vulnerable to adversaries in the Arctic. This led to a year of swift military planning and stronger rhetoric with respect to Canadian sovereignty in the north.
The Road to the DPU
The Arctic pivot that began following the invasion of Ukraine continued with the recent release of the government’s Defence Policy Update (DPU) entitled Our North: Strong and Free. Not only did it contain a commitment to spend more on Arctic defence, the DPU chose the Arctic as a theme in an effort to begin to convince Canadians it was in our national interest to do so. I have long been an advocate of this type of approach, so I was very happy to see this development. A government should make the case to its citizens as to why we must invest in our national defence and why it is irresponsible to not live up to our commitments multilateral security alliances like NORAD and NATO. The world is changing and the our national complacency must change with it. I think Canadians will understand this.
Canadians must understand that we cannot rely on the protection of three oceans and security blanket of distance anymore. We also cannot take our critical security alliance with the United States for granted, but need to nurture the relationship and not be seen as a free rider in Washington. And, in the event our American friends become isolationist and less reliable, we must be equipped stand on our own for our domestic security and to exert our national interest abroad. Using Arctic sovereignty as the starting point to engage more Canadians in a wider discussion of geopolitics and national defence was the most important element of the DPU. The security and responsible development of our Artic in partnership with Inuit, Indigenous peoples and northerners is a benefit for all Canadians, no matter where they live. From the rich cultures of the Inuit to the history of the Klondike gold rush and the prose of Robert Service, the north is part of our Canadian identity and we must dedicate ourselves to protecting and preserving it.
Our North: Strong and Free is the embodiment of calls for investment in the north made by many voices over the course of the last decade. Territorial and Inuit leaders have been raising these issues and highlighting the challenge of building critical infrastructure in the Artic for decades. Important thought leaders and researchers at think tanks like Arctic 360 and the Arctic Research Foundation have been bringing together thought leaders and producing research to help the government set priorities for investment. In fact, at this year’s Arctic 360 conference in Toronto, Jim Balsillie made the case for the need for a modern Arctic Strategy and outlined shared the Arctic Research Foundation’s to kick of the national debate.
Parliamentarians have also been urging the government to act for many years. In 2019, the Foreign Affairs Committee released a unanimous report on Arctic sovereignty and the need for action given changing geopolitics and the harsh impact of climate change in the north. This report called for funding for the North Warning System and a range of other investments. Last year, the National Defence Committees of both the House of Commons and the Senate completed detailed studies on these issues and released reports calling for urgent action. The DPU appears to capture this all-party, all levels of government consensus on the Artic that makes serious progress possible. I hope that it will continue when there is a change of government to the Conservatives next year.
Achievement must match Ambition
‘We the North’ must become more than just a rally cry for the Toronto Raptors in the playoffs. We must turn this national conversation on the Arctic into a tangible plan of action on issues ranging from economic and social infrastructure to climate change resilience and defence preparedness. The DPU uses far too much aspirational language talking about ‘exploring’ more than ‘doing’, but the alignment that appears to be in place on Arctic security following the Russian invasion of Ukraine means that we must move swiftly to develop critical capabilities in the region. I believe that swift progress requires a focus on three key capabilities.
First, we need submarines to patrol the north and exert our sovereignty. In our Arctic sovereignty study from 2019, we heard from members of the Canadian Rangers who had family members who had witnessed surfaced submarines in our internal waterways. Many other nations are operating in these waters because we are not and this must change. We must also ensure that we learn the hard lessons from the last submarine purchase when Canada bartered for used Upholder class submarines from the United Kingdom. This deal should never have been made and our Victoria class has never been effectively operational despite the Navy’s best efforts.
We must also be realistic with ourselves and plan for a submarine that is affordable, deployable and possible. This means we must buy an off-the-shelf (or near off-the-shelf) diesel submarine that has, or can have, Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) capability for Arctic operations. Canada should actually strive to become a global leader on AIP technology because we have the technical abilities and have more coastline than any other country. An effective diesel submarine with AIP will give the Royal Canadian Navy operational capability in and around iced conditions and show our allies and adversaries that we will no longer cede the Northwest Passage to others.
Second, we need to modernize the Canadian Rangers and bring the Army Reserves back to the northern territories. The Rangers are one of the most innovative elements in the Canadian Armed Forces blending military training and operations with traditional knowledge from Inuit in the Arctic. We need to expand their operations and increase their patrols as our ‘boots on the ground’ expression of sovereignty and surveillance. We should also look to innovate with the Rangers to expand their operations to include drone operations for security, environmental and even wildlife monitoring purposes. This would allow the next generation of Inuit youth to develop the skills to operate and maintain these aircraft and play a direct role in the security of their traditional lands and waters.
Third, the government should finally become a 100% partner in NORAD and participate in Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD). We scrambled to make our investment in the North Warning System in the months after the invasion of Ukraine and this is the next logical step to bring Canada into full partnership in all aspects of hemispheric defence. NORAD is the central element of our homeland defence and it should never be taken for granted.
In compelling committee testimony years ago our military leaders acknowledged that the United States policy on BMD is to “is not to defend Canada” as we are not part of that element of the NORAD alliance. While I am quite certain that the Americans would shoot down an errant or intentional missile fired at our country, hope is not a strategy when the stakes are that high. We need to grow up and be a dependable partner in our own security.
These three steps would rapidly build up our abilities in the Arctic and force our friends and foes alike to take notice. I will continue to advocate for these issues must like I did during my decade in politics. I am very happy to see this national consensus forming on Arctic sovereignty, but we must take the DPU ambition and turn it into concrete action to ensure that our north truly is strong and free.
Erin, is it too late for a comeback? We need some adulthood at the helm. Navs Rule!
Great post Erin. I have no experience on the Rangers, but you nailed it on submarines and BMD.