Canada May Need to Lean on the US as Military Threats in the Arctic Rise

The Canadian and American flags could be seen billowing at a distance in the all-white Arctic landscape — the Maple Leaf visibly lower than the Stars and Stripes.

The asymmetry had a simple explanation. Flags across Canada, including this one in the hamlet of Cambridge Bay in the Canadian High Arctic, were flying at half-staff to mourn the recent mass killing at a school in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia.

But its symbolism, however unintended, was a reminder of Canada’s increasingly uncomfortable situation in its Arctic region: Unable to defend it by itself, Canada remains dependent on the United States, whose president has repeatedly threatened to annex it, and who has also set his eyes on Canada’s Arctic neighbor, Greenland.

It wasn’t always like that.

Between the two flags, a large green signboard indicated that it was the site of a North Warning System radar station belonging to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, the North American air defense system led jointly by the United States and Canada. A large white dome housing a radar could be seen at a distance behind the flags — the same kind of white domes that dot some of the remotest corners of Canada’s Arctic as part of the defense system.

For the past seven decades, NORAD has kept watch over the Canadian Arctic for potential threats coming from the Soviet Union and then Russia. During the Cold War, three chains of radars ran east to west inside Canada to detect Soviet bombers: the Distant Early Warning Line in Canada’s High Arctic and, farther south, the Mid-Canada Line and the Pinetree Line. After the end of the Cold War, the system was upgraded to the North Warning System.

NORAD is a binational military organization, but the United States has always been the bigger partner. It built and financed much of the defense system, contributing the bulk of NORAD’s budget. While NORAD’s commander is an American general, a Canadian serves as the deputy commander.

Today, experts believe that the North Warning System would be incapable of detecting new Russian hypersonic missiles that fly at low altitudes. Canada is building a so-called Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar system that can spot threats at far greater distances, as part of NORAD’s modernization.

Russia continues to build up its military capacity in the Arctic, and China is pushing into the region as a self-described “near-Arctic” nation. Canada may have no choice but to get even closer to the United States, even as Prime Minister Carney puts forward economic and military policies to make Canada less dependent on its southern neighbor.

President Trump has pressed Canada to join a “Golden Dome” defense shield to shoot down advanced intercontinental missiles coming over the Arctic — making it completely clear who would be the junior partner. Joining would cost Canada $61 billion, he said, or nothing if Canada became the 51st state.