NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday said that security needs to be bolstered along the alliance’s northern flank to counter Russia, as he wrapped up a visit to Canada that included a tour of its Arctic defenses.
“The high north is strategically important for Euro-Atlantic security,” Stoltenberg said at an air base in Cold Lake, Alberta, adding that with Finland and Sweden joining, seven of eight Arctic states will be NATO members.
“The shortest path to North America for Russian missiles and bombers would be over the North Pole,” he said. “This makes NORAD’s role vital for North America and therefore also for NATO.”
Photo: AFP/NATO
NORAD is the North American Aerospace Defense Command, a US-Canadian organization.
The NATO chief and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau toured a Cold War-era early warning radar site, and observed Canadian Arctic military exercises.
Russia’s capabilities in the far north “are a strategic challenge for the whole alliance,” he said, citing a significant Russian military buildup in the region.
This includes the reopening of “hundreds of new and former Soviet era Arctic military sites,” and its use of the high north “as a testbed for the most advanced weapons including hypersonic missiles,” he said.
Stoltenberg also expressed concerns about China’s reach into the Arctic for shipping and resources exploration, with plans to build the world’s largest icebreaker fleet.
“Beijing and Moscow have pledged to intensify practical cooperation in the Arctic. This forms part of the deepening strategic partnership that challenges our values and our interests,” Stoltenberg said.
NATO must respond with an increased presence in the far north and investment in new capabilities, he added.
Climate change poses new “security challenges” that require a fundamental rethink of NATO’s Arctic posture, he said.
“Climate change is making the high north more important because the ice is melting and it’s becoming more accessible both for economic activity and for military activity,” he said.
Trudeau said Canada, which currently falls short on NATO spending targets, will soon be replacing its aging fighter jet fleet and modernizing its continental defenses in partnership with the US.
Ottawa has earmarked billions of dollars for new satellites and undersea sensors in the Arctic, and the replacement of an aging network of radar stations from Alaska to Quebec that Trudeau said will “increase our abilities to detect and indeed deter threats coming across the pole.”
Separately, the US on Friday said it would create a position of Arctic ambassador to step up diplomacy as Russia and China increase their presence in waters opened up by climate change.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is to name an ambassador-at-large to engage with other Arctic nations, indigenous groups and other stakeholders, US Department of State spokesman Vedant Patel said.
“An Arctic region that is peaceful, stable, prosperous and cooperative is of critical strategic importance to the United States and a priority for Secretary Blinken,” Patel said.
Warming has been rising in the Arctic at levels well beyond the rest of the planet, raising the prospect that once impenetrable waterways will open up for commercial and military vessels.
Russia has been stepping up its presence near the North Pole with submarines and warplanes, while China has been building Arctic research stations, widely seen as a prelude to a larger presence.
Blinken, at an Arctic Council meeting last year in Iceland, said that nations in the region have a “responsibility” to ensure “peaceful cooperation.”
The announcement comes as talks on Arctic affairs begin in Greenland.
Seven of the eight nations in the Arctic Council suspended their participation earlier this year because the rotating chairmanship is held by Russia, which has faced Western ostracization over its invasion of Ukraine.
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