The Defence of North America

See The Simons Foundation's page on The Canadian Defence Policy Review for briefing papers by Ernie Regehr, Senior Fellow in Defence Policy and Arctic Security at The Simons Foundation.

The Defence of North America

June 6, 2016

With the prolonged absence of military threats to North America, the prime Canadian security objective is to ensure that they remain so. Meeting that objective is more a diplomatic challenge than it is a defence problem, but defence policies and military forces in North American certainly have a role in preserving this region as a cooperative security community – that is, a community of states that continues to enjoy the reliable expectation that its members will not “resort to war or military attacks to prosecute their disputes.”  That happens also to be the formally affirmed expectation of the five states bordering the Arctic Ocean, where the same principle applies – preserving the Arctic as a region free of military threats and counter threats is the primary security objective. Once again, diplomacy is key, but defence policies and the operations of military forces play a major role.

These welcome circumstances notwithstanding, it remains the case that the world’s pre-eminent military power is a towering presence in North America and the two rival superpowers of the Cold War are a formidable presence in the Arctic. Despite of the absence of military threats, North America and the Arctic are still locations where war preparations proceed unabated and where formidable military arsenals, notably including nuclear weapons that both powers are actively “modernizing,” are on stand-by and have the capacity to instantaneously transform both regions into scenes of combat and devastation.

In such a context, countries like Canada are clearly not masters of their own fate. If diplomacy were to fail, and if Cold War habits returned to restore a full-fledged global military confrontation, no Canadian military preparation, whether modest or ambitious, would have much impact on ours or the world’s fate. But that is a reality not unique to Canada – indeed, it is the condition of most states. Security is all about context and cooperation, and helping to build favorable contexts and regional cooperation is a key point of defence policy. Even super powers are incapable of imposing their will by military means in contexts of entrenched political conflict – witness, Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya. Nor could the most powerful of military powers determine favorable political outcomes from confrontations with other major powers. They, not unlike middle powers such as Canada or much more modest powers, ultimately depend for their security on an international order that is rules based, that respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of States, and that recognizes that security cooperation is essential to well-being and the prevention of chaos. 

The diplomatic challenge is to promote security cooperation in support of such an order, and the primary defence imperative in Canada is to reliably confirm the ongoing absence of military threat. That creates a serious obligation to know what is happening within Canada and in the sea and air approaches to Canadian territory. To that in turn must be added an ability to control – to be able to prevent unauthorized entries into Canadian territory and to enforce the rules and laws of Canada within its area of jurisdiction. Primary responsibility for that rests with civilian law enforcement agencies, which are supported by the Canadian Armed Forces – military aircraft, for example, are regularly scrambled to track and intercept civilian aircraft entering Canadian airspace without a duly filed flight plan.

Knowing what is going on within Canadian jurisdiction is a national security imperative, but it is also an essential contribution to regional security and stability. While monitoring and controlling (i.e., preventing unauthorized intrusions, ensuring enforcement of Canadian laws and regulations) Canadian territory serves Canadian defence and public safety, it also helps to fulfill obligations to our neighbors (southern and northern). It is the responsibility of any sovereign state to provide its neighbors with credible assurances that there are no events or conditions permitted within its own territory that could represent a genuine threat to a neighbor. So, again, that requires a clear and demonstrable capability of knowing what is happening within Canadian territory and the approaches to it and to ensure that there are no blind spots or areas of neglect tolerated within Canadian borders which would undermine the credibility of Canadian assurances that there are no threats to its neighbors within this security community.

Providing such assurances is now primarily a civilian responsibility. In the post-Cold War era, particularly since 9/11, domestic Canadian security efforts have focused much more on public safety concerns, for which civilian departments and agencies have primary responsibility, than on national defence and sovereignty protection concerns. The latter, monitoring potential threats and sovereignty protection, are obviously never off the security agenda, but the relative attention has shifted. Air defence operations, for example, which were once pre-occupied with Soviet bombers, are now overwhelmingly focused on unauthorized civilian aircraft.

Canada and the United States do much of this cooperatively and there is a thoroughly entrenched tradition and infrastructure for bilateral defence cooperation.   Continue reading...