The Canadian Arctic is a vast and strategic region that is set to play a far larger role in Canada’s economic and security future. As competing powers – including Russia, China, and increasingly the United States – advance opposing visions for the Arctic, the risk of confrontation and instability is rising. Canada must therefore be prepared to assert and defend its national security interests in the Arctic like never before.
While the most recent defence policy, Our North, Strong and Free (ONSF), and the Arctic foreign policy are genuine attempts by Ottawa to signal a renewed modus operandi for Arctic geopolitics, both lack an overarching vision to concretely drive Canadian policy decisions on Arctic affairs.
This strategic gap risks creating a mismatch between Canada’s ambitions and capabilities in the North, while also limiting Ottawa’s ability to maneuver in an increasingly complex geopolitical environment.
Although the Prime Minister’s recent announcement highlights the need to “secure the North” via infrastructure investment, more and more examples of “might makes right” are seemingly guiding the policies of friends and foes beyond single investments like these.
It is therefore time for Ottawa to develop and implement an Arctic Security Strategy (ASS) to signal to allies and adversaries of its ability to confidently balance and attain national security interests without yielding to external pressures.
Defining National Interests
Given that the region has historically been relegated to the periphery during moments of peace, only to resurface as a priority in times of crisis like the present, the ASS should enshrine the securitization of the Arctic as a top national priority by declaring sovereignty, autonomy, and security as key pillars.
On sovereignty, Canada must clearly state that it will defend the integrity of its Arctic territory against unilateral incursions across land, air, and maritime domains, both on the surface and below. Autonomy requires preserving Canada’s ability to make decisions grounded in its own values and national interests, guided by the rule of law and liberal internationalism. Security should focus on protecting against state and non-state violence, armed conflict, and grey-zone activities, alongside the safety and interests of local and Indigenous communities.
By outlining clear and consistent objectives specific to the Arctic within the ASS, Canada will distinguish vital interests from secondary objectives to avoid vagueness and incoherence. In doing so, it will build a more realist-oriented tool of statecraft that reinforces Ottawa’s new outlook to be an Arctic power.
Threat Assessment
In defining the environment for the ASS, threats arising in the Canadian Arctic cannot be dismissed as strategically irrelevant simply because harsh climate and weather conditions make military operations difficult. That assumption obscures real vulnerabilities. The continued focus on adversaries “attacking through the North” rather than “attacking in the North” also reflects outdated defence and security narratives that no longer match today’s geopolitical and technological realities.
Instead, Canada should adopt a more nuanced understanding of the Arctic, recognizing that while the region’s harsh environmental conditions constrain and shape the use of military force, they do not remove the potential for strategic competition or conflict.
This perspective must also account for how adversaries may exploit a more accessible Arctic, using low‑intensity, low‑cost, and unconventional activities, alongside conventional means, to gain tactical advantages. Failure to understand these requirements will result in increased response costs and operational hurdles for Canada’s military readiness to respond effectively across the region.
To counter this strategic gap, the ASS should categorize threats like conventional military forces, unconventional tactics exemplified by grey-zone operations and dual-use forces used for covert or sabotage missions, and cyber- and space-based attacks as either immediate dangers, persistent challenges, or emerging risks to better prepare response-capacities to preserve its Arctic interests.
Linking Ambition to Capability
The ASS will also need to link political objectives to military capability, industrial capacity, and both existing and future northern infrastructure. As such, a credible ASS must craft an Arctic defence concept that strengthens Canada’s ability to project and sustain military power in the region. This capability is necessary to deter incursions, counter illicit activities, and protect the territorial and maritime integrity of the Canadian Arctic.
At its core, any defence concept will need to respond to the aforementioned central operational problem in the Arctic. While NORAD provides some share of this requirement, Canada lacks a truly national capacity to advance its own security objectives beyond shared cooperation with our increasingly unfriendly neighbour to the South. This is partial reasoning for why recent announcements draw their funds from the previously allocated NORAD modernization funding.
On force projection, the ASS should stress the need for a niche Canadian Arctic defence concept to widen more capability networks – integrating Canadian warships, submarines, aircraft, air defence systems, ground forces, sensor networks and other deep-sensing platforms – to better manage and respond to the strategic vulnerabilities facing the Canadian Armed Forces to operate in a complex and hybrid environment.
The defence concept will also need to include a focus on better interconnected operational support infrastructure across the Arctic. Here the ASS should prioritize Canadian-based industry partnerships to build and maintain fuel storage, runways, jetties, communications, logistics nodes, and heavy equipment needed to sustain Canadian forces. Recently, some companies have rightly begun to identify this gap and are fortunately taking advantage through the establishment of domestic supply chains. The focus must therefore be on supporting their sovereign growth and strengthening partnerships for the foreseeable future.
Another key aim of Canada’s Arctic defence concept should be to avoid replicating southern bases in the North. Instead, it should emphasize more regional capacity to enable Canadian joint forces to arrive, stage, refuel, communicate, sustain themselves, and, if necessary, fight. To this effect, the ASS must treat Arctic security as an industrial problem as much as a military one.
Building off the Defence Industrial Strategy, the ASS should leverage co-development and long-term partnership agreements to utilize civilian and commercial infrastructure that can serve defence needs in a crisis without relying on traditional public procurement to build every piece of northern infrastructure from the ground up.
The ASS should also double down and reinforce Canada’s diplomatic autonomy by clearly asserting red lines that protect its Arctic interests, including opposing any incursions into its Exclusive Economic Zone under UNCLOS and firmly resolving the Northwest Passage dispute by declaring it a Canadian waterway. It should classify dark fleets, coast guards, and commercial- or research vessels that nefariously undermine Canadian sovereignty as national security threats.
At the same time, strengthening Canada’s Arctic sovereignty abroad must be matched by a commitment to security and resilience at home. As such, the ASS will need to incorporate local security interests by pinpointing and resolving food insecurity, economic opportunity, cultural preservation, healthcare, and education gaps impacting local and Indigenous communities.
To oversee this component of the ASS, Canada will need to go beyond declaration by genuinely moving forward to attain the consent and involvement of local governments and Indigenous bands, nations, and communities, thereby ensuring transparency and longevity of its security efforts. Failure to see community resilience as a national security requirement can leave a narrative gap for adversaries to exploit by compounding domestic divisions on infrastructure gaps, economic marginalization, and governance weaknesses.
Finally, an ASS must establish clearer institutional ownership. The Arctic cannot remain divided between defence policy, foreign policy, northern development, Indigenous reconciliation, and industrial policy without an actual coordinating mechanism capable of setting priorities and forcing alignment.
The ASS should therefore establish a National Arctic Security Council chaired by the Prime Minister. Bringing together the Department of National Defence, Global Affairs Canada, Transport Canada, territorial governments, and Indigenous partners under one forum, the council would coordinate intelligence, manage crises, and ensure unified government decision-making on Arctic security.
Conclusion
Canada has time and again put forward what it wants in the Arctic. Yet, Ottawa has often lacked a coherent way to achieve it. Until we align our tools with our ambitions, we risk continuing to speak in strategic terms while relying on sporadic access and limited capability.
If Canada can finally get serious about establishing a coherent strategy, grounded in access, sustainment, and strategic partnership, it will deliver real success for Canadian Arctic security. Canadians are acutely aware that the Arctic matters, but now require a framework to outline how Ottawa is going to protect and leverage that recognition.
After all, if we do not define our security interests in the region, others will define it for us. An Arctic Security Strategy is therefore not simply desirable – it is necessary.
The views expressed in this op-ed are the author’s/authors’ own and do not necessarily represent those of the Institute or its staff.
Andrew Erskine is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy, a Nonresident Vasey Fellow at the Pacific Forum and a Fellow at the Canadian Maritime Security Network.
Alexander Landry is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy and a graduate from King’s College London’s International Affairs postgraduate program.
