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Arctic Security

“Should Canada boost its military presence in the Arctic?”

Posted on: September 28th, 2021 by Ernie Regehr

The debate is part of the magazine’s “Face to Face” feature. To view the full debate, visit Legion Magazine through this link:

“Should Canada boost its military presence in the Arctic?”

Canada and the Limits to Missile Defence

Posted on: July 29th, 2021 by Ernie Regehr

Speculation about Canada joining the North American component of the Pentagon’s ballistic missile defence (BMD) system of systems makes periodic appearances in Canadian defence discourse – though direct participation has never gained broad political support. Now, with a more “progressive” Democrat back in the White House and NORAD modernization moving up the continental defence agenda, the Canada-and-BMD question could be cued for another round of attention. The context undeniably includes a persistent threat to North America from strategic range, nuclear-armed, missiles, but the American “homeland” missile defence system, due to technical and strategic constraints, offers no defence against the overwhelming majority of missiles aimed at North America. Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

Beyond the Cooperation-Conflict Conundrum: Proceedings of an Arctic Security Webinar Series

Posted on: May 22nd, 2021 by Ernie Regehr

This volume publishes the proceedings from a series of virtual sessions co-organized by the Canadian Pugwash Group, the Rideau Institute, the North American and Arctic Defence and Security Network (NAADSN), and Trent University in February 2021. Available in PDF at NAADSN.

Panel Themes:

Reconceptualizing Arctic Security
Whitney Lackenbauer and Ernie Regehr

Reshaping the Face of the Canadian and Circumpolar Arctic
Wilfrid Greaves and Douglas Causey

A Changing Arctic: Northern Perspectives
Bridget Larocque and John Mitchell

A Changing Arctic: Political and Legal Considerations
Elizabeth Riddell-Dixon and Aldo Chircop

Resurgent Great Power Competition: What does it Mean for Arctic Security and Stability?
Andrea Charron and Nancy Teeple

Conclusions and Recommendations for Canadian Action
Whitney Lackenbauer and Peggy Mason

Moderators: Rob Huebert, P. Whitney Lackenbauer, Peggy Mason, Paul Meyer,
Heather Nicol, and Ernie Regehr

 

“Soft Security Responses to Hard Power Competition”

Posted on: April 6th, 2021 by Ernie Regehr

ON THIN ICE? Perspectives on Arctic Security, edited by Duncan Depledge and P. Whitney Lackenbauer, is a new collection of essays on Arctic Security published by the North American and Arctic Defence and Security Network (NAADSN).

The editors of this volume describe it as addressing the Arctic’s rules-based order that “advances the Arctic states’ national interests but their global ones as well,” including possibilities for, among other things, shaping responses to climate change. At the same time, while Arctic cooperation is to be celebrated, defence and security cooperation is facing the challenges “of resurgent major power competition internationally.”

All these dynamics are explored in this volume. Editors Duncan Depledge and Whitney Lackenbauer do not expect it “to settle the debate about whether the Arctic will still be peaceful in the years and decades ahead,” but in these pages you will find “a range of expert perspectives on Arctic security” and on “the key actors, dynamics, issues, and challenges to which politicians, civil servants, and military planners should be attentive as they make their own enquiries into Arctic defence and security affairs.”

Ernie Regehr’s contribution on “Soft Security Responses to Hard Power Competition” is included as Chapter 6.  The full publication can be accessed at the link below.

“ON THIN ICE? Perspectives on Arctic Security”

Combat “Spillover” – into and out of the Arctic

Posted on: March 12th, 2021 by Ernie Regehr

The likelihood that internal Arctic disputes would rise to crisis levels in danger of escalating to armed combat in any foreseeable future is by all accounts remote. The worries about armed combat in the arctic centre instead on the possibility that war between Russia and NATO away from the Arctic, somewhere in Europe, would spill into the Arctic. In an East/West war in Europe, combat could spill both into and out of the Arctic by virtue of each side seeking advantage by attacking the other’s war-making capacity away from the immediate theater of operations.

Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

Russia’s Arctic Defense Posture 

Posted on: January 18th, 2021 by Ernie Regehr

The Arctic and World Order is a Johns Hopkins University project which editors Kristina Spohr and Daniel S. Hamilton describe as an exploration of the “…political, legal, social, economic, geostrategic and environmental challenges confronting the Arctic in the face of global warming and a shifting world order….”

Here is the link for my contribution:

Chapter 8 – “Military Infrastructure and Strategic Capabilities: Russia’s Arctic Defense Posture” by Ernie Regehr

The links for free download of the complete book or purchase of hard copy below. 

The Arctic and World Order

Kristina Spohr and Daniel S. Hamilton, Editors
Jason C. Moyer, Associate Editor

List of Chapters:

Foreword

Introduction – From Last Frontier to First Frontier: The Arctic and World Order by Kristina Spohr and Daniel S. Hamilton

Chapter 1 – Shifting Ground: Competing Policy Narratives and the Future of the Arctic by Oran R. Young

Chapter 2 – Conservation in the Arctic by Henry P. Huntington

Chapter 3 – Greenland, the Arctic, and the Issue of Representation: What is the Arctic? Who Has a Say? by Inuuteq Holm Olsen

Chapter 4 – A Tipping Point for Arctic Regimes: Climate Change, Paradiplomacy, and a New World Order by Victoria Herrmann

Chapter 5 – Russia and the Development of Arctic Energy Resources in the Context of Domestic Policy and International Markets by Arild Moe

Chapter 6 – Governance and Economic Challenges for the Global Shipping Enterprise in a Seasonally Ice-Covered Arctic Ocean by Lawson Brigham

Chapter 7 – Climate Change and the Opening of the Transpolar Sea Route: Logistics, Governance, and Wider Geo-economic, Societal and Environmental Impacts by Mia M. Bennett, Scott R. Stephenson, Kang Yang, Michael T. Bravo, and Bert De Jonghe

Chapter 8 – Military Infrastructure and Strategic Capabilities: Russia’s Arctic Defense Posture by Ernie Regehr

Chapter 9 – Freedom of the Seas in the Arctic Region by J. Ashley Roach

Chapter 10 – Constant and Changing Components of the Arctic Regime by Alexander N. Vylegzhanin

Chapter 11 – The U.S.-Canada Northwest Passage Disagreement: Why Agreeing to Disagree Is More Important Than Ever by Suzanne Lalonde

Chapter 12 – Power, Order, International Law, and the Future of the Arctic by Nengye Liu

Chapter 13 – The ‘Regime’ Nature of the Arctic: Implications for World Order by Lassi Heininen

Chapter 14 – Arctic Exceptionalisms by P. Whitney Lackenbauer and Ryan Dean

Chapter 15 – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Three Levels of Arctic Geopolitics by Andreas Østhagen

Chapter 16 – Inside, Outside, Upside Down? Non-Arctic States in Emerging Arctic Security Discourses by Marc Lanteigne

About the Authors

 

The Pandemic and DND’s Public Service Mandate

Posted on: December 7th, 2020 by Ernie Regehr

Public awareness of Canadian Armed Forces’ (CAF) aid to civilian governments and agencies has once again come to the fore in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Military assistance to civil authorities is routine in Canada and variously includes emergency help in law enforcement, humanitarian relief, natural disaster recovery, and search and rescue. From the earliest days of the present pandemic, critically important CAF resources have been mobilized. An emerging question is whether these core civilian support roles, for which there is increasing demand, should be elevated for priority attention in military planning, training, and procurement, or whether they should continue to be treated as spin-offs from the primary combat-readiness focus of the Armed Forces. Continue Reading… at The Simons Foundation.

Time to mobilize the briefcases against Arctic ASW ops

Posted on: June 8th, 2020 by Ernie Regehr

One of the more troubling manifestations of re-emerging big power competition in the Arctic is the apparent determination of both the US and Russia to demonstrate their willingness to mount destabilizing anti-submarine warfare operations in the Barents Sea and the North Atlantic.

Continue reading at The Simons Foundation Canada.

The North Warning System (NWS) and “what we cannot defeat”

Posted on: March 14th, 2020 by Ernie Regehr

When a Canadian Armed Forces official recently told an Ottawa security conference that “we cannot deter what we cannot defeat, and we cannot defeat what we cannot detect,” his audience may well have heard it as the credible proclamation of a prudent and resolute defence posture. In truth, the statement seems to run counter to decades of defence policy and practice. It ignores the inconvenient reality that there is no defence against a nuclear attack, even though current and planned early warning systems ensure that such an attack would be reliably detected. Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

Pan-Arctic Military Cooperation: still the most reliable (and likely?) option

Posted on: January 9th, 2020 by Ernie Regehr

It is now seemingly routine for pundits and security professionals to warn of an impending militarized scramble for dominance over the lands, seas, and resources of the Arctic, with Russia enjoying a formidable advantage – all evidenced by the undeniable expansion of military facilities throughout the region. But it’s not clear that the official West is buying it. The Americans have ratcheted up the rhetoric, but little else has changed. The 2019 NATO summit ignored the Arctic, and individual states like Canada and Norway are sticking with a more nuanced and restrained posture on Arctic security. Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.