German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has invited NATO partner Canada to enter into a joint partnership with Norway to protect infrastructure in the far north.
“Let us initiate a trilateral strategic maritime partnership with a focus on securing sea lines of communication through the northern Atlantic and Arctic,” Pistorius said on Friday in the Canadian capital Ottawa at a meeting with his counterpart Bill Blair. The initiative could be the umbrella for joint activities.
Blair said that the Canadian Arctic was exposed to new and growing threats. Canada has noticed that Russia and China are positioning themselves there, he said.
“With climate change, much of the region is becoming far more accessible,” Blair said. “We might have been able to rely on ice to help defend the continent, but climate change is challenging that assumption … We know that we need to be stronger and more persistently present in the region.”
The Canadian government adopted new defence policy guidelines in April. In it, the NATO member says that the most urgent task is to ensure the protection of its own sovereignty in the Arctic, where Russia has the strongest overall military presence of all states.
The considerations are based on the assumption that in the event of a military conflict with Russia in Europe, there will also be a trial of strength in the strategically important Arctic.
Climate change and challenges posed by autocratic systems – such as China – are also security policy challenges to which answers are being prepared. Canada wants to acquire additional reconnaissance capabilities and be better equipped on land and at sea.
