Author Archive

Cooperation, Stability, and Security in the Arctic? Strategies for Moving Forward

Posted on: January 31st, 2024 by Ernie Regehr

This was the theme of a one-day conference at Massey College, University of Toronto (November 30, 2023). Dr. Elizabeth Riddell-Dixon, Professor Emerita at Western University and Senior Fellow of Massey College, opened the conference with the question: “how can we engage Russia in the shared pursuit of pan-Arctic security, stability, and cooperation, while still holding it to account for its egregious violation of international law in invading Ukraine?”

The security panel, chaired by Ernie Regehr, explored prospects and possibilities for “military cooperation in a Divided Arctic.” The Chair’s introduction follows:

 It is safe to say that seven of the Arctic states are in broad agreement that there cannot be business-as-usual with Russia in the north as long as its assault on Ukraine continues. At the same time, there is recognition that a posture of strict non-engagement can also have troubling ramifications—especially given that Russia makes up half or more of the Arctic’s geography, demography, economy, and, of course, military infrastructure.

One global objective for which the potential consequences of non-engagement loom large is the urgent need to more effectively address the climate crisis, noting especially the rapid environmental and climate changes being experienced in the Arctic. That sense of urgency led a scholar with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs to write in the 2022 Arctic Yearbook that “we need Russia’s partnership for saving the future” (1). While offering that controversial assessment, he still insisted that Russia’s explicit violations of the UN Charter and international law mean “there cannot be a return to business as usual,” but he was driven to ask whether the planet has the time to wait for a future and more compatible Russia.

Provocative military operations on both sides of the Arctic divide certainly risk further heightening regional tensions – for example, the Pentagon’s demonstration on Norway’s Arctic Andoya Island that it could launch an air-to-surface cruise missile from a C-130 transport aircraft (2), and Russia’s test launch of a Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile from within Norway’s EEZ (3). The American commander of the test launch from the C-130 explained, “we are intentionally trying to be provocative without being escalatory” (4), and it can be assumed that the Russian Tsirkon launch involved a similar rationale—without either side offering any explanation of how deliberate provocation could avoid increasing tension.

Intensified military operations pose serious risks of military close calls, misunderstandings, and the classic security dilemma that sees security enhancement measures on one side produce reciprocal escalations on the other, leaving both less secure. The specific consequences may be unpredictable, but the overall results are inevitable. Such risks necessarily prompt questions of whether security and stability can be served when all security discussions or engagement with Russia in the Arctic are deferred until after the war on Ukraine has ended.

Governor General Mary Simon raised essentially that question by challenging all Arctic states “to figure out how you can continue working together when a terrible war is going on [which is] contradictory to the rules-based international order” (5).

The commander of the US Coast Guard in Alaska has suggested that some level of engagement is prudent. He put it like this: “You have to be able to speak to your neighbor, your next-door neighbor. You don’t have to be best friends with them, but you’ve got to be able to speak with them for shared interests across what is the natural physical border directly with Russia here in Alaska” (6).

Read the full Conference Report here.

Notes

(1) Michael Paul, “Russia’s war and the prospects for Arctic States’ cooperation,” Arctic Yearbook 2022. https://arcticyearbook.com/images/yearbook/2022/Commentaries/2C_AY2022_Paul.pdf.

(2) John Vandiver, “‘Unconventional’ delivery of US airpower in Arctic tailored to serve notice to Russia,” Stars and Stripes, 09 November 2022. https://www.stripes.com/branches/air_force/2022-11-09/red-dragon-missile-norway-russia-7986361.html

(3) Thomas Nilsen, “Russia’s new hypersonic Tsirkon missile was fired from Norwegian sector of Barents Sea,” The Barents Observer, 23 February 2022. https://thebarentsobserver.com.

(4) John Vandiver, 09 November 2022.

(5) “Climate change, Indigenous issues transcend boundaries with Russia says Governor General,” APTN National News, Canadian Press, 28 February 2023. https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/climate-change-indigenous-issues-transcend-boundaries-with-russia-says-governor-general.

(6) Yereth Rosen, “Despite Russia’s post-invasion isolation, some narrow openings for Arctic cooperation remain,” Arctic Today, 05 April 2023. https://www.arctictoday.com/despite-russias-post-invasion-isolation-some-narrow-openings-for-arctic-cooperation-remain.

 

Good Governance and Arctic Security

Posted on: January 16th, 2024 by Ernie Regehr

Emerging security challenges in the Arctic require policies that squarely face changing conditions, strategic and environmental, but preserving the basic stability that still exists in the region must be a clear priority. Relying too heavily on military responses risks exacerbating rather than easing Arctic tensions, and it ignores the post-Cold War reality that vulnerability to military threats is linked as much to political as to military weakness. In other words, good governance at home – political stability, national unity, and ongoing public trust in the institutions of governance and accountability – and regional diplomacy should be at the core of Arctic security strategies.  Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

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Inevitable or Inadmissible? Threatening Nuclear Weapons Use

Posted on: November 10th, 2023 by Ernie Regehr

Of the world’s nine states with nuclear weapons, two – Russia and Israel – are now fighting high intensity wars. Another three of the nuclear nine – the United States, the United Kingdom, and France – are deeply invested in both wars, supplying weapons and expecting to influence outcomes. The other four nuclear powers – China, India, North Korea, and Pakistan – are building up their arsenals, hoping to gain strategic advantage in their respective zones of chronic tension. Continue reading at CIPS Blog (University of Ottawa, Centre for International Policy Studies)…

US Strategic Ballistic Missile Defence: Why Canada won’t join it

Posted on: July 12th, 2023 by Ernie Regehr

Two Parliamentary Committees have recently recommended that Canada “reconsider” it’s 2005 decision against joining the US homeland Ballistic Missile Defence system. The Pentagon acknowledges the system has no capacity against Russian and Chinese ballistic missiles, and its operational design means it also has no capability against cruise and hypersonic missiles. With continental security concerns shifting to the latter, Canada is unlikely to seek direct involvement in strictly ballistic missile defence.

Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

Towards Silencing the Guns in Ukraine

Posted on: June 30th, 2023 by Ernie Regehr

A discussion paper prepared for the Canadian Pugwash Group project on a Peace Table for Ukraine and Russia.

Though their land is torn by horrific war, what many Ukrainians fear is an early ceasefire. As deep as the desire to silence the guns may run, it is hard to get past the understandable suspicion that a ceasefire now would launch a settlement process that would reward aggression and ignore the full sovereign rights and interests of Ukraine. In a process driven primarily by the need to end the fighting, the ceasefire skeptics fear, it would be tempting to simply convert current military front lines into de facto boundaries – enshrining injustice rather than restoring peace.

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Strategic Nuclear Patrols and an Arctic Military Code of Conduct

Posted on: May 24th, 2023 by Ernie Regehr

While rising northern tensions clearly challenge notions of the Arctic as a durable zone of peace, current tensions are rooted in fears of a European conflict spilling northward, not in conflict endemic to the Arctic. Two decades of high north military expansion have certainly added to the region’s strategic uncertainty, but even more consequential are the currently increasing levels and pace of competing strategic patrols in the Arctic and North Atlantic, especially those that undermine basic nuclear deterrence. Strategic patrols impacting geopolitical stability need to be guided by normative operational rules. Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

From War Preparation to War Prevention: Submission to DND defence policy update

Posted on: May 15th, 2023 by Ernie Regehr

The Department of National Defence (DND) is updating its 2017 defence policy statement, “Strong, Secure, Engaged” (SSE),  pointing to a changed “geopolitical landscape” in which threats from that time “have intensified and accelerated…at an unprecedented rate.”  Among those rising threats, the Defence Department includes “rapidly accelerating climate change, more sophisticated cyber threats, Russia and China’s increasing military modernization, and Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine.” DND invited submissions to address a series of questions posed on its online “feedback” mechanism. The following submission of April 27 responds (with some additional edits) to selected questions. Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

Doubling Down on a Retentionist Nuclear Posture: NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept

Posted on: July 29th, 2022 by Ernie Regehr

Nuanced changes to the nuclear weapons elements of NATO’s new Strategic Concept do not alter its substance. Once again, the alliance propagates the dangerous myth that nuclear weapons are the “supreme” source of security, doubles down on the threat of nuclear weapons use in response to conventional attack, continues to insist that alliance security depends on stationing US tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. The overall nuclear posture remains stubbornly retentionist. It entrenches policies that bolster already daunting barriers to progress in nuclear arms control and disarmament and deepens strategic instability into the bargain. Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

Arctic Security Cooperation – Still Needed, but is it Still Possible?

Posted on: June 22nd, 2022 by Ernie Regehr

Russia’s brazenly illegal war on Ukraine certainly means business as usual is not a serious option for relations with Russia, including in the Arctic. But the effort to repel aggression in Europe should not be the occasion to escalate tensions and reject cooperation or engagement in a hitherto stable region. Given that pan-Arctic cooperation is a professed and genuinely practiced Arctic value, shutting down dialogue forums ought not to be the go-to Arctic response to conflict and gross violations of norms and laws outside, or inside, the region. Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.