Despite a growing U.S. preoccupation with Chinese icebreakers or even submarines as real or potential capabilities designed to challenge Canada’s Arctic sovereignty or launch attacks against the Arctic states,1 it is important to remember that China’s ability to project conventional military power into the Canadian Arctic remains minimal. It is likely to remain so, given the limited strategic gains that it would realize by doing so compared to commensurate energies dedicated to other parts of the world, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region.2
Apart from the speculation that China’s naval expansion will support its ambition to become a “polar great power” (a concept that experts say is more nuanced that it might appear),3 Our North, Strong and Free describes various Chinese threats that are not primarily military: “dual-purpose research vessels and surveillance platforms collecting data about the Canadian North that is, by Chinese law, made available to China’s military”; and its “expanding … investments, infrastructure and industrial scientific influence throughout the Arctic region" (although this statement seems to overinflate the success of China's attempts to make these kinds of inroads in Arctic states other than Russia).4 Accordingly, domain awareness is essential to ensure that foreign actors are not engaged in illegal behaviour in the Canadian North, which requires a Whole-of-Society effort to identify suspicious activities and pass along relevant information to the appropriate people at the speed of relevance.
The CAF’s Pan-Domain Force Employment Concept, released in November 2023, provides a clear articulation of how adversaries are challenging Canada and its allies in the maritime, land, air, space, and cyber domains, as well in the information environment. While Canada’s military is “currently configured to counter overt military actions in the traditional domains of land, sea, and air by recognizable force elements of an adversary’s armed forces,” many of the hostile activities that threaten us today fall below the threshold of armed conflict. This requires a new approach to defence and security that more fully integrates various instruments of national power to uphold Canadian national interests in an era of ongoing competition, contestation, confrontation, and conflict. The language is worth repeating in detail:
The hostile intentions and actions of our adversaries show that they consider themselves to be at war with the West. We must accept this reality and respond accordingly. We must at all times be postured both to deter war and, in alignment with our partners in government, to compete below the threshold.
Second, our adversaries are challenging us in the cyber and space domains as well as in the land, maritime, and air domains. They use information to sow confusion, mask their intentions, oppose our actions, and gain advantage over us. We must meet these challenges across domains and in the information environment.
Third, military power alone is insufficient to deter and defeat the aggressive actions and behaviours of our adversaries. The military instrument must coordinate more closely with other instruments of national power. (Emphasis in original.)5
In Canada and North America more generally, adversaries seek to “threaten our governance, our national unity, and our critical infrastructure,” and may “attempt to impede our decision-making, cause inaction, or undermine our relations with allies.” The effects of climate change are “aggravating these challenges.”6
Thus, even if the conventional military threat environment in the territories is low, a holistic pan-domain approach must also acknowledge and address “actions not traditionally considered to be military in nature.” The Pan-Domain Force Employment Concept astutely notes that:
Sound policy providing for suitable authorities, responsibilities, and accountabilities (ARAs) will be crucial to enabling such flexibility. In many cases the CAF will not have a lead role in the actions taken by the Government of Canada. In these cases, the CAF must be prepared to support the actions of other instruments of national power and draw from its broad experience base to advise on government responses to competition and conflict.
This logic should also apply to the territories, which can play a valuable role in informing assessments that deepen understandings of domestic trends and can help to convey “messages that are deliberate, coherent, and aligned with strategic objectives”7 across military, political, economic, environmental, and societal sectors of security.
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Dr. P. Whitney Lackenbauer is Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in the Study of the Canadian North and Professor in the School for the Study of Canada at Trent University. He was Honorary Lieutenant-Colonel of 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group based in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories from 2014-2020 and was reappointed to this position from 2022-2025. He is also a Fellow with the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary History at the University of Toronto; the Arctic Institute of North America; the Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary; and an adjunct professor with the Brian Mulroney Institute for Government at St. Francis Xavier University and the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and the Center for Arctic Security and Resilience, School of Management, University of Alaska Fairbanks. Whitney specializes in Arctic security, sovereignty and governance issues, modern Canadian military and diplomatic history, and Indigenous-state relations. Whitney has (co-) written or (co-) edited more than sixty books and more than one hundred academic articles and chapters.
1 - Adam Lajeunesse, “China’s Mahanian Arctic Ambitions: Second Thoughts,” Canadian Naval Review 15/2 (2019): 17-22.
2 - Ryan Dean and P. Whitney Lackenbauer, “China’s Arctic Gambit? Contemplating Possible Strategies,” NAADSN Strategic Perspectives, 23 April 2020, https://www.naadsn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/20-apr-23-China-Arctic-Gambit-RD-PWL-1.pdf.
3 - See, for example, Marc Lanteigne, “Arctic Security in Our North Strong and Free: Canada Needs to Get China and Russia Right,” NAADSN Quick Impact (April 2024), https://www.naadsn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/24apr10-Lanteigne-Quick-Impact-Arctic-Security-China-Russia.pdf.
4 - DND, Our North, Strong and Free, 4. See also Bryan Millard and P. Whitney Lackenbauer, “Trojan Dragons? Normalizing China’s Presence in the Arctic,” Canadian Global Affairs Institute Policy Paper (June 2021), https://www.cgai.ca/trojan_dragons_normalizing_chinas_presence_in_the_arctic; P. Whitney Lackenbauer, Adam Lajeunesse, and Ryan Dean, “Why China is Not a Peer Competitor in the Arctic,” Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs 5, no. 5 (2022): 80-97; and Adam Lajeunesse and P. Whitney Lackenbauer, Selling the ‘Near Arctic’ State: China’s Information and Influence Options in the Arctic (Wilson Center/NAADSN, forthcoming June 2024).
5 - DND, Pan-Domain Force Employment Concept (November 2023), 15.
6 - DND, Pan-Domain Force Employment Concept, 16, 13.
7 - DND, Pan-Domain Force Employment Concept, 18.