Continental Defence Research Articles

The conformation of a transnational discursive community: anti-communist intellectuals in Latin America during the Cold War

In this paper, we present the study of a transnational discursive community: the Inter-American Confederation of Continental Defence. This became the institutional meeting point for Latin American anti-communist intellectuals who, during the Cold War, articulated a conservative and counterrevolutionary nucleus of power. In the framework of the Cold War, this discursive community placed communism outside of humanity, and only contemplated its extermination. Thus, we analyse the discursive materiality that gradually colonized the state structures and gave rise to a systematic persecution against the communists and all those who, from the spheres of power, were typified as a threat. We structure the text in a chronological account that allows us to know the evolution of the Inter-American Confederation of Continental Defence, from its origins to its last continental congress. We use a wide documentary corpus (correspondence, minutes, bulletins, manuscripts, notes and speeches) compiled in Argentina, Mexico, Spain and the USA. Keywords: anti-comunist; discursive community; intellectuality; Latin America

Sovereignty and Command in Canada-US Continental Air Defence, 1940–57 by Richard Goette

Sovereignty and Command in Canada-US Continental Air Defence, 1940–57 by Richard Goette

The grammars of the system: Thomas Pynchon at Boeing

ABSTRACTThe present essay sketches, on the basis of new archival research, the general contours of Pynchon’s contributions to the Bomarc Service News, asking, especially, how his work for that publication might have intersected with his literary work in the sixties. Looking at Pynchon’s prose quantitatively helps us to see the author’s grammatical tendencies, an economy of prose, so to speak, that allowed him to function within the Boeing-USAF communications system while maintaining an original style that his contemporaries at Boeing remember well. Pynchon’s work for Boeing evidences in greater frequency than his peers’ several grammatical features we might consider to be hallmarks of prose fiction – most notably the use of personal pronouns and active verbs. One of Pynchon’s contributions to the Bomarc Service News, in other words, was a narrative voice that inculcated confidence and engagement in readers amidst the complex and exacting work of maintaining a continental defence system. This synthesis of personnel and technological apparatuses was key to Boeing’s innovation in large-scale systems integration, but it also factored importantly Pynchon’s narrative development, and in closing I look briefly at how the grammatical economies of V. (1963) and Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) might have been influenced by Pynchon’s work for Boeing.

The key to the Canada–United States relationship: homeland and continental defence in American strategic culture

Since the Second World War, Canada and the United States have worked together to defend North America. However, notwithstanding Canadian concerns about this military cooperation, the United States' main effort has been overseas because American strategic culture is offensively oriented. Thus, American air and missile programs have received little attention, as American policy makers have chosen to deal with security threats such as the Soviet Union by supporting overseas alliances such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and by developing strong strategic nuclear forces. This strategy has been continued after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, and will not likely change in the future. By understanding the influence that this offensively oriented strategic culture has on American policy makers, Canadian ministers, civilian officials, military officers and academics can develop foreign and defence policies that can better serve the Canadian national interest.

Coping with fallout: The influence of radioactive fallout on Canadian decision-making on the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line

During the 1950s, Canada and the United States worked together to develop a North American air defence system. While the military cooperation generally worked well, some difficulties did occur. These problems in the relationship were almost always the result of concerns from within the Canadian government and the Department of External Affairs that the air defence measures posed political problems and were a threat to Canada’s sovereignty. In the fall of 1954, opposition to further improvements to the continental air defence system emerged from a different source: General Charles Foulkes, the chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. He believed that radioactive fallout from ground bursts of thermonuclear weapons in a war with the Soviet Union would pose insurmountable problems for the air defence effort. Thus, the countries needed to conduct a joint reappraisal of the air defence problem. This article will explore Foulkes’ position and examine what lessons can be drawn from this experience.

Revisiting Joseph Jockel's No Boundaries Upstairs

This article reviews Joseph Jockel's classic study of bilateral Canadian–American defence arrangements during the early Cold War: No Boundaries Upstairs. It considers the political context in which Jockel wrote and highlights the bilateral experiences that contributed to his unique perspective. It also reviews Jockel's account and analysis of the evolution of Canadian–American continental defence cooperation from 1945 to 1958. Finally, this article describes the longevity of Jockel's analysis as well as how historians and political scientists continue to build on his research.

NORAD does not need saving

In the current Canadian discussion of missile defence, it is often claimed that the future of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is under threat and that it will be saved only if Canada opts in. The command does not need saving, however. Any such claim draws attention away from the real North American defence challenges that Canadians need to face in a debate about continental strategic defence: whether or not Canada needs to be protected by a missile defence system (a point that a Senate committee strongly emphasized in 2014) and what Ottawa needs to do about its own air defences that fall under NORAD.

Premier partners: Canada, the United States and Arctic security

Both Canada and United States have developed extensive Arctic security policy frameworks that affirm the rising geopolitical profile of the region, reveal their assumptions and priorities, and indicate an evolution in how regional security is understood. Our analysis of strategic documents produced by both countries since 2006 reveals that the two countries’ evolving strategies and overarching national security objectives are well aligned, highlighting the advancement of security interests, pursuit of responsible stewardship, and strengthened international cooperation. Both countries stand to benefit from leveraging investments that enhance existing relationships, given their long history of cooperation and shared interests in continental defence and Arctic security.

V2 to Bomarc: Reading Gravity’s Rainbow in Context

In this article I argue that while Thomas Pynchon’s 1973 novel, Gravity’s Rainbow , is set primarily between 1944-1946 in Europe, it also simultaneously addresses itself to its own authorial context—that of the “Long Sixties” in America. In particular I consider details of Pynchon’s employment at the Bomarc Service News in the years 1960-1962—the Bomarc being a surface-to-air interceptor missile manufactured by the Boeing Aircraft Company for the United States Air Force. Given that the V-2 rocket is the preeminent symbol of control in Gravity’s Rainbow , I argue that we ought to consider Gravity’s Rainbow in relation to the Bomarc, a technological descendent of the V-2, and a key defensive weapon in the Air Force’s Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE), a centralised system for continental air defence, and the preeminent computerised command and control system of its time. The Bomarc was for these reasons a crucial component of a technical system of control that provided the primary material support for what Paul Edwards has described as the “closed-world discourse” of Cold War America. In light of this history I proceed to read the novel in terms of the operative presence of this discourse in the American public domain—in articles, newsreels and other media—demonstrating the manner in which the ‘Rocket-State’ of Gravity’s Rainbow reconstitutes the human subject as a cyborg, thereby problematising the liberal humanist conception of the subject as discrete, autonomous and autopoetic. I supplement this contextual reading of the novel with formalist considerations for the manner in which the reader of the novel is implicated in Gravity’s Rainbow’s own operations of closure and control, and argue that the reader of the novel is also, regardless of context, subjected to and by the act of reading the novel considered in cybernetic terms. I conclude the essay by reading the novel’s closing moments against the grain of my own argument, and attempt to articulate a place of exception to the regime of control performed by the novel in relation its context and its reader.

“A Very Careful Balance:” The 1961 Triangular Agreement and the Conduct of Canadian–American Relations

This analysis examines the negotiation of a critical 1961 defence production agreement between Canada and the United States. Through this triangular transaction, the United States transferred American F-101 interceptors to Canadian ownership and paid $150 million to procure F-104 fighters in Canada. In return, Canada contributed $50 million to the F-104 project and assumed the significant costs of operating stations in the Pinetree radar line. Complex diplomatic discussions led to the conclusion of this deal. On the Canadian side, economic stagnation and the controversial cancellation of the Avro Arrow interceptor forced Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's government to seek an arrangement that would revive Canada's troubled aircraft industry whilst minimising nationalist opposition to the acquisition of American-built interceptors. The successive American administrations of Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, on the other hand, were guided by the military imperative of transferring F-101 aircraft to allow Canada to fulfil its continental air defence commitments and the political consideration of using the triangular arrangement as a cure-all for the many irritants plaguing the Canadian–American relationship. Ultimately, the successful conclusion of the agreement demonstrates the complexity of bilateral relations during the Cold War and provides a compelling case study of the inter-relation of political, military, and economic factors influencing the conduct of foreign affairs between close allies.

Dependent America?: how Canada and Mexico construct US power

Introduction: Is America Dependent? Part I: Growing the United States' Economy 1. Making the US Economy Bigger and More Competitive 2. Supporting and Impeding US Energy Security 3. Constructing the US Labour Market Part II: Building US Security 4. Continental Defence: Extending the United States' Military Perimeter 5. Building US Homeland Security against the Terrorist Threat 6 Constructing and Constraining US Narcotics Security Part III: Constructing and Constraining the Reach of US Power 7. Supporting the Governance Base for US International Economic Power 8 Thwarting the United States in International Criminal Law 9. Offsetting the US Embargo of Revolutionary Cuba Conclusion: Peripheral Visions

Strategically superfluous, unacceptably overpriced: The case against Canada's F-35A Lightning II acquisition

Defence Minister Peter MacKay's July 2010 decision to procure the developmentally lagging F-35 was reportedly driven by aerospace industrial development hopes at the political level, and aspirations in the senior ranks of the Canadian military that Lockheed Martin (LM) would indeed deliver a fiscally viable aircraft. Such hopes are unlikely to be fulfilled. The aircraft is strategically inappropriate for Canada, and comes with too great opportunity costs. The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) design entailed too many complex advances at one time. Any F-35 aircraft purchased are likely to be a source of chronic problems and expensive maintenance. The single-engine F-35 is, in comparison with upgraded fourth-generation competitors, not well suited for its primary Canadian strategic role in continental air defence. Further, the JSF would be militarily redundant in overseas allied missions. Less costly, operationally proven platforms such as the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, the F-15C ‘Golden Eagle’ or the Eurofighter Typhoon equipped with the latest Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radars and advanced missiles are preferable. JSF acquisition by Ottawa would result in too few aircraft with less capability in the continental air defence role. Only an open competition is likely to produce an optimal selection able to meet Canada's highest defence priority.

Five Lessons from the History of North American Aerospace Defence

Since the onset of the War, the United States and Canada have been cooperating in what has since come to be called the of North America. This has entailed detecting, and in some instances being able to intercept, aircraft (above all Soviet bombers and cruise missiles), intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and satellites. In 1957, Washington and Ottawa agreed to the creation of the North American Air Defence Command (NORAD), headquartered at Colorado Springs, Colorado with a US commander-in-chief, a Canadian deputy commander, and a staff drawn from the militaries of both countries. NORAD was given operational control over the air defences of both countries. The binational organization was renamed the North American Aerospace Defence Command in 1981. Despite this name change, and although NORAD has remained at the heart of continental defence cooperation, its operational control over air defence was never extended to aU of aerospace defence. Most notably, it has never encompassed baUistic missile defence.Canadians have often made assumptions about what they have to do for continental defence to keep the Americans satisfied, how the Americans have to defend Canada, or how the Americans have to rely on Canadian territory and airspace, and have often been understandably confused about who actuaUy does what in North American aerospace defence, and how decisions are made. To address these issues, here are five lessons that can been drawn from the history of continental defence.GEOGRAPHY DREW CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES MILITARILY CLOSER TOGETHER UNTIL 1957; SINCE THEN, EXCEPT FOR A BRIEF UPTICK IN THE 1980S, THE GEOGRAPHIC BONDS HAVE LOOSENEDNo sooner had the Second World War ended, public servants in Ottawa began pointing out to their political masters that bombers would largely have to pass through Canadian skies to attack the US. Washington could therefore be expected to take an avid interest in defence cooperation with Canada. Canada would be the ham in the sandwich or the of the atomic age. In the 1950s, those expectations were born out. The two countries cooperatively put in place a vast air defence system. Newspapers published maps showing the way it would work. Soviet bombers would first be detected by the American-built and -operated distant early warning (DEW) line in the high Arctic, which would provide plenty of time for the air defence and for the bombers of the US strategic air command to get aloft. The southward movements of the Soviet aircraft would be confirmed by the mid-Canada Une that Ottawa itself had paid for and put in, using Canadian technology. When they reached the vicinity of the Pinetree radars in southern Canada, most of whose stations were operated by Americans, they would be attacked by Canadian and US interceptors and surface-to-air missiles.While there was a lot of cooperation between the two air forces, missing until 1957 was one commander who could take control over all the vast air defence forces that the two countries had been in place and use them as part of a continent- spanning air defence battle. That gap was filled when the two air forces were able to convince the two governments to create NORAD.Shortly before NORAD stood up, the Soviets tested their first intercontinental baUistic missile. It changed the geography of continental defence; the Americans did not need Canada to be able to respond to the missile threat. Unlike aircraft that needed to pass through Canadian airspace, Soviet ballistic missiles would travel beyond the atmosphere and then sharply downward to their US targets. To detect them, the US needed radar sites looking out over the top of the world towards Russia. Alaska, Greenland, and the United Kingdom provided better locations than Canada. To these three sites the Washington later added detectors on satellites and at sites in the continental United States. To any Canadians walking around with that ham sandwich or Cold War Belgium model in their heads - which still applied to air defence - the geographic impact of missile detection must have come as a surprise. …

Nils Ørvik's “Defence against Help”

Four catchphrases encapsulate the history of Canadian policy since 1945. When accounting for Canada's involvement in military alliances and operations, scholars often borrow Lieutenant-General E.L.M Burns's image of Ottawa's aim to secure seat at the table, while R.B. Byers's description of the commitment-capability gap aptly depicts the tendency of Canada's ambitions to surpass the means allocated to the armed forces.1 In a similar vein, Joel J. Sokolsk/s quip that politicians ask much is just enough? when contemplating their military options is increasingly used to understand the Canadian government's attitude towards spending and multinational operations.2 In analyzing the Canada-United States relationship, meanwhile, the idea of defence against is regularly employed to shed light on Ottawa's approach to North American security.First coined in 1973 by the Norwegian-born scholar Nils 0rvik who taught for many years at Queen's University in Kingston, the phrase 'defence against help' arguably captures how successive Canadian governments have confronted the challenges associated with securing the North American landmass alongside the world's preeminent military power. References to 0IVi]^s concept have multiplied in the past decade as Ottawa has struggled to prove that Canada is a reliable continental security partner in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks against the United States. Recently, for instance, two scholars declared boldly that defence against explains the history of Canada-US security relations.3The appeal of 0RdJk^s concept among Canadian observers is unremarkable. Defence against neatly summarizes many of the continental security dilemmas that Canada has faced since the late 1930s. is noteworthy, however, is that 0rvik did not think that Canada followed a defence-against-help approach to continental security. Quite the contrary; when 0rvik wrote about Canada and against help, he was telling Canadian governments what they ought to do in matters of continental defence, not evaluating what they were already doing. Specifically, with respect to Canada, 0rvik was prescribing a strategy, not describing one.What is equally noteworthy, though, is that analysts who apply against help in a descriptive fashion rarely acknowledge the disconnect between their work and 0RdI^s. For the most part, references to 0rvik tend to ignore his perspective emphasis. This is not to suggest that the descriptive use of the idea is wrong or that a return to 0IYiI^s prescriptive argument is in order. Yet it does show that the prescriptive origins of a widely employed Canadian policy catchphrase have been ignored, or at least overlooked.The following discussion of 0RdJk^s defence-against-help strategy serves to remind readers of the prescriptive origins of this idea, while acknowledging the appeal of using the notion to describe Canada-US security relations. The article begins with a discussion of how 0rvik came to recommend a defenceagainst-help strategy for Canada. Next, the impact of 0TViIcZs prescriptions and the descriptive uses of his work are explored. The article concludes with a brief summary of 0IViIc1S intellectual legacy.IMPORTED HELPOrvik put forth his defence-against-help strategy as one solution to the following national security dilemma: What does a country do when it becomes obvious that its forces are unable to resist successfully an attack by the superior forces of a neighbouring state?4 According to contemporary theories, small states that found themselves in such a predicament could follow one of three strategies: they could either greatly increase their military strength (self-help); rely on the armed forces of another state for their (borrowed help); or maintain a purely symbolic military (helplessness). When he surveyed the behaviour of small powers, 0rvik found that many did adopt one of these options. …

Defence dilemmas: Continental defence cooperation, from Bomarc to BMD

(2009). Defence dilemmas: Continental defence cooperation, from Bomarc to BMD. Canadian Foreign Policy Journal: Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 40-59.

Canada, Strategic Defence, and Strategic Stability

Canada has contributed to North American strategic defence, and been an ar- dent proponent of strategic stability, since the early Cold War. Though seem- ingly compatible, Canada's involvement in continental strategic defence and advocacy of strategic stability has been nagged by an underlying contradiction. As part of its contribution to the strategic defence of the continent, Canada has tacitly endorsed and facilitated the United States' offensively oriented nuclear strategies. Canada's support of strategic stability, however, has aimed to dis- courage offensive nuclear doctrines and the arms races they have tended to fuel. Given this contradiction, Ottawa might have decided to harmonize its policies, either by abandoning strategic defence roles that have supported of- fensive American nuclear doctrines, or by ceasing to be an advocate of strate- gic stability and strategie arms control. But this has not been the path chosen by successive Canadian government since the mid-1960s. Instead, Canadian governments have opted to accept the contradiction and pursue a two-track approach: for more than four decades, Canada has contributed to continental strategic defences that have aided offensively oriented nuclear strategies, while simultaneously vaunting the value of strategic stability and strategic arms control.Following this two-track approach has served Canadian governments well. It allowed Ottawa to protect Canada and Canadians by emphasizing the futility of nuclear war and arms races. Yet it further permitted the Canadian military to assist the United States in defending North America and in maintaining a credible nuclear weapons posture, one capable of prevailing over common adversaries during a conflict. Since each of these policies and outcomes served the Canadian national interest, Ottawa was determined to avoid developments that exposed the contradictory nature of the two tracks, or that pushed Canada to choose between its commitment to strategic defence and its advocacy of strategic stability. Canadian governments have managed to conceal this contradiction and avoid making such a choice for most of the past four decades. However, there has been one technological development, ballistic missile defence, that has routinely threatened to expose the contradiction and force Ottawa to give precedence to strategic defence over strategic stability, or vice versa. Nonetheless, in spite of the pressure exerted by BMD, Canadian governments preserved the two- track approach; the missile defence issue has not compelled Ottawa to downgrade either its existing commitments to strategic defence or its support of strategic stability and arms control. A question that remains is whether future Canadian governments will be able to preserve this dual approach when the missile defence issue arises again, which is likely to happen within the next few years.This article examines the history and future of Canada's involvement in the strategic defence of North America and advocacy of strategic stability. It begins with an overview of Canada's strategic defence and stability policies during the Cold War and post- Cold War eras, with a particular focus on the politics surrounding Canadian participation in BMD. Next, it analyzes how the government's decision to decline a formal role in BMD in 2005 represented a reapplication of the two-track approach. It concludes with a discussion of the strategic defence and stability options a future Canadian government is likely to face.BALANCING STRATEGIC DEFENCE AND STRATEGIC STABILITY, 1945-2000Canada's involvement with the strategic defence of North America began in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Convinced that the Soviet Union would soon develop atomic weapons and long-range bombers capable of striking North America, Canada and the United States began planning a joint air defence of the continent in 1946. This planning accelerated in 1949, when the Soviet Union detonated an atomic device and fielded its first intercontinental bomber. …

Overcoming the Creswell–Foster divide in Australian strategy: the challenge for twenty-first century policy-makers

This article examines the continuing influence of the contending twentieth century schools of Creswellian continental defence and Fosterite expeditionary defence in Australian strategy. A context for analysis is developed through an examination of the contemporary globalised security environment which is marked by bifurcation into state-centric and multi-centric threats. The demands of this new security environment have led to the evolution of twenty-first century manifestations of the Creswell–Foster divide in the form of the defender-regionalist and the reformer-globalist schools of strategy. The article analyses how differences between these two schools, especially over the value of geography, have been exacerbated by the new dynamics of globalised security. In the future, however, overcoming the contemporary Creswell–Foster divide between the defender-regionalists and the reformer-globalists in Australian strategy is unlikely to occur in the exclusive arena of defence policy. Rather, what is required is the creation of an overarching national security strategy beginning with the establishment of an Australian Commission on Twenty-First Century National Security. Such a Commission could be modelled on the US Hart–Rudman Commission of 1999–2001 and be suitably adapted to Australian conditions. An Australian commission should be charged with producing a long-term report on holistic and ‘best practice’ security policy options for upholding and protecting Australia's vital national interests in the first quarter of the twenty-first century.

The Changing of the Guard

When President George W. Bush visited Canada in late 2004, he declined an invitation to address parliament and chose instead to give the major speech of his trip in Halifax before an audience of Atlantic Canadians, including provincial premiers, several mayors, and local officials. Two weeks later, outgoing secretary of homeland security Tom Ridge met with his counterpart, deputy prime minister and minister of public safety and emergency preparedness Anne McLellan in Detroit, where the two met with local stakeholders to discuss border management issues.At roughly the same time, the province of Alberta sent an official representative to Washington, joining Quebec as the second province with its own representation there. In the fall of 2004, Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs expanded its representation in the United States with seven new consulates and offices, raising Ottawa's profile in the southeastern and southwestern United States, in particular.These new initiatives and departures from past practice in the management of the US-Canada relationship reflect a larger transformation underway. The traditional pattern of Canadian relations with the United States is being altered by three powerful dynamics. First, a generational shift has replaced US public officials with memories of the formative period of Canada-US relations after the second World War with a new cohort of younger officials. second, there has been a decentralization of the US management of the relationship, now extended to include state and local governments and being echoed in Canada. Third, these two changes are introducing US-style elite competition into the Canadian political culture. This competition has significant implications for Canadian domestic politics as well as for North American diplomacy.The general tendency in recent years has been to attribute the noticeable changes in US-Canada relations to the after-effects of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on n September 2001. While these events have had an important influence on policymakers in the United States in particular, they have only served to transfigure, rather than trigger, the rise of new actors in bilateral relations whose emergence was the inevitable result of deepening North American integration and the passage of time.GENERATIONAL CHANGEThe current US diplomatic relationship with Canada has relatively recent origins. The two governments exchanged diplomatic representatives for the first time in 1926, and Great Britain granted Canada the right to have an independent foreign policy with the statute of Westminster in 1931. Previously, the United States considered Canadian issues in the context of Anglo-American relations. Early Canadian diplomacy toward the United States was cautious, bearing the hallmarks of Ottawa's relationship with London during the colonial period, a heavy emphasis on cultural kinship and goodwill, and an earnest desire to institutionalize a Canadian voice or role in key policy decisions taken by the larger power.The Great Depression and the Second World War fostered a close collaboration between the governments in Ottawa and Washington as each attempted to cope with the effects of these large, transnational challenges. The New Deal in the United States was echoed years later in a set of social benefit programs instituted in Canada, ushering in an era of large public interventions in the economy in both countries. Canada's entry into the second World War led to close contacts with Washington regarding continental defence and military production even before US entry into the conflict in 1941.In the postwar period, both the US and the Canadian governments expanded in size and scope. The ranks of each country's respective civil services swelled with returning veterans who had traveled abroad for the first time in military service, and among all the foreigners they encountered, they had often found the Canadians to be the most similar to themselves. …

Preparing for Armageddon: Jic 1 (Final) and the Soviet Attack on Canada

From 1945 to 1947 Canada shifted from a dependency on Great Britain for wartime operational intelligence to a junior partnership with the United States in the production of strategic threat assessments of the Soviet Union. Working through the Military Cooperation Committee the primary objective of Canadian and American officials was to update the wartime Defence Plan (ABC-22), with a Basic Security Plan for the post-war defence of North America. Each country was to produce a detailed 'Implementation' based on an intelligence 'Appreciation' of the threats facing North America in the 'air-atomic age'. Towards this end, the Canadian Joint Intelligence Committee prepared JIC 1 (Final), a report on when, where, and in what capacity the Soviet Union would strike Canada in the event of the next major war. The basic problem facing the Canadian Joint Intelligence Committee was to incorporate American sources in the assessment of Soviet capabilities without simply producing a carbon copy version of the assessment of their continental ally. Moreover, the Canadians were particularly concerned that they produce a 'made in Canada' assessment of Soviet intentions. The report was completed and approved by Canadian and American defence officials in 1947 and updated versions became the basis for continental defence planning until the signing of the 1957 Norad agreement.

Canadian Security In the High Arctic: a Strategic Analysis In Three Parts- Part 3 - Military Considerations

Dr. Critchley's paper is available in three parts; Part 1, the "Fourth Boundary Problem," Part 2, "The Energy Shortage," and Part 3, "Military Considerations." III. Military Considerations Canadian security policy is strongly related to our participation in the NATOand NORAD alliances. NATO is seen as the defence against the Warsaw Pact threatto Western Europe. NORAD, The Canada-U.S. agreement originally formed toprovide for continental defence against the Soviet Union'sstrategic bomber threat to the United States, is now regarded as a subsidiarypart of the NATO arrangement. Several recent developments in militarytechnology, and reactions to these developments on the part of the Soviet Unionand NATO members, may cause parts of the arctic region to become a new focus ofmilitary activity and of NATO and NORAD concern. NATO-related developments willbe analyzed first. Currently, the use of the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas by military vessels isconfined to nuclear-powered submarines. Evidence in the public domain indicatesthat such usage appears to be in the form of occasional experimental-trainingexercises(1)· The attention of strategic analysts and naval planners is concentrated not onthe Arctic, but on the North Atlantic. The reason for concentration on the North Atlantic is the build-up of the Soviet Northern Fleet, which is based in Murmansk and other ports on the Kola Peniusula. As of mid -1981, that fleetincluded approximately 82 major surface combat ships, 135 attackand cruise-missile submarines and 45 ballistic-missile-carryingsubmarines(2). Three types of nuclear-powered submarines are assigned to this and other fleetsof the Soviet navy: attack submarines and cruise-missile submarines(designated as SSNs and SSGNs respectively) have the mission ofattacking an adversary's surface shipping and submarines at sea;ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs), armed with long-range missiles withnuclear warheads, have major military installations, industrial complexes andurban centres as probable targets in the event of a nuclear war. The veryexistence of SSBNs, along with other strategic nuclear weapons, is thought toprevent such a war from occurring. Of particular concern to NATO is the Soviet Union's assignment of a large Proportion of SSNs, SSGNs and most of their Yankee-class and Delta-class SSBNsto the Northern Fleet. More specifically, the Northern Fleet has 65% of the Soviet navy's SSBNs and 52% of all other types of Sovietsubmarines(3). The build-up of the Northern Fleet in relation to the Baltic, Black and Pacific fleets appears to relate to the existence ofchoke-points (narrow water channels or straits) which govern the exits of thelatter three fleets from their home ports and the absence of such a choke-pointfor the Northern Fleet. Submarines and surface vessels can make way from their Barents Sea ports to the Atlantic without having to pass through any narrowstraits. Although only a small portion of that fleet deploys into the North Atlantic at any given time(4), this and other evidence has led mostanalysts to conclude that the fleet's primary tasks are strategic and tactical(anti-shipping) offensive missions in the North and Central Atlantic. The NATO response to these developments and analysis has been acontinuing effort to construct a "choke-point" at the GIUK gap.