Russia's Interests in the Arctic: A Q&A

When it comes to understanding Russia's interest in the Canadian Arctic, the Canadian Forces' brush with Russian bombers is only the tip of the iceberg.

The Mark: You've written previously in The Mark on how the Canadian government isn't taking Russian provocation in Canada's North seriously. Has yesterday's response by the Air Force indicated a change in attitude?

Robert Amsterdam: To be frank with you, I think we're missing the boat if we're focusing on incursions that have been going on for decades. The interests of Russian energy companies in Canada are actually far more important in terms of the political and business leverage Russia may be interested in exercising. I think the Arctic is part of a long-term plan, or battle if you will, that is an economic battle far more than it is just a military one. I agree with the government's decision to buy these planes but I think we need a much more fulsome view of where Russia is going and what the Canadian response should be.

TM: What possible motive could the Russian bombers have in coming that close to Canadian airspace?

RA: They do this with the U.K. all the time. They do it in Europe. It is a matter of testing defences and projecting power, and they used to do it a lot more seriously when they were part of the Soviet Union. But it doesn't mean they are going to be attacking Inuvik any time soon.

TM: Government critics, including Yukon MP Larry Bagnell, have said that this was a routine manoeuvre on the part of the Russians that has been overhyped up by the Conservatives to instill fear of Russian brinkmanship. Do you agree with that assessment?

RA: No. I think the Canadian public and Mr. Bagnell don't understand what they are dealing with in the Russian leadership. To really understand [that] leadership is to study a guy named Igor Sechin, who, along with many other members of the former KGB (now FSB), has a massive corporate military industrial complex that is dramatically shifting energy pricing and energy issues as close to Canadian borders as Venezuela, and, in fact, there are a lot of designs on energy activities in Canada. So I think the Canadian public is woefully missing what the risks are. To the extent that the Conservatives used this incursion to drum up some concern of where Russia is going, the better. I mean, a friend of mine, a 68 year-old human rights activist in Russia, Lev Ponymarev, was arrested for attempting to engage in a peaceful demonstration in Moscow.

TM: Does this incident justify the $16 billion purchase of F-35 fighter jets, or is it being played up, as some suggest, in an attempt to justify that purchase?

RA: One incident doesn't justify a $16-billion purchase. I think [we need] a fulsome method of addressing the North, of which this is only one small component. I mean, that's fine. But we need a really intelligent, well-thought-out legal strategy in terms of negotiating intelligently with the Russians. The Russians are really on their game – they've made a massive deal with Norway recently, where they've changed some of the goal posts in terms of how they are using Arctic law and the law of the sea. We need to be studying this. We need to be educating the Canadian public about what these risks are. Because the 21st century, to some extent, is going to be an Arctic century. It's one of the events precipitated in no small part by global warming.

TM: What are Russia's interests in the Arctic, and does it come into conflict with the Canadian Arctic strategy?

RA: The numbers are out from the Russian side in terms of what they think is the Russian High Arctic, which is oil and energy deposits that roughly total a third of what they've presently analyzed below the Arctic circle. Russian interests are to grab as much as possible in the area they consider to be the Russian High Arctic in a period of initial uncertainty. A pure geographic extension is seen as a way to safeguard future interests, which are economic (oil and gas), strategic (under-ice nuclear submarines, a presence in the northern flank of NATO), and political (historic rights to the region). They may clash with Canadian interests in so far as they [represent] an unstructured bid for as much as they can get.