The Arctic

[Colin Parkinson]

RFI for the Polar Class Icebreakers dedicated landing craft. I think ordering just two is shortsighted.

Canadian Coast Guard Puts Out New RFI for Polar Icebreaker Landing Craft

Project Update

www.truenorthstrategicreview.ca

 

[Furniture]

RFI for the Polar Class Icebreakers dedicated landing craft. I think ordering just two is shortsighted.

Canadian Coast Guard Puts Out New RFI for Polar Icebreaker Landing Craft

Project Update

www.truenorthstrategicreview.ca

Alternatively, ordering two opens a door to ordering more...

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Alternatively, ordering two opens a door to ordering more...

I like a bit of redundancy, I seen things like a mobile crane dropping a 9 ton buoy in the yard damaging the hull of workboat, imagine that happens a week before the Polar Class needs to depart to the Arctic, what do you do?

 

[Kirkhill]

Inuit-Led Partnership Delivers Icebreaker to Canadian Arctic

Qikiqtaaluk Horizon Arctic Services welcomes the Polar Class 3 icebreaker MSV Nordica to Canada for the Coast Guard's 2026 Arctic season.

canadiandefencereview.com

 

[Kirkhill]

MSV Nordica Heads North With Indigenous Cadets Aboard

A Finnish icebreaker, contracted to provide icebreaking services under a partnership between Horizon Arctic Se...

vocm.com

 

[Kirkhill]

Threats to Canada’s North have ‘shifted significantly,’ foreign minister says - National | Globalnews.ca

The long-serving cabinet minister tells The West Block that Canada and the U.S. remain at the table to discuss Arctic security, sovereignty.

globalnews.ca

 

[childs56]

I like a bit of redundancy, I seen things like a mobile crane dropping a 9 ton buoy in the yard damaging the hull of workboat, imagine that happens a week before the Polar Class needs to depart to the Arctic, what do you do?

You call up a boat rental company and rent their boat. Put it on the big grey plane and fly it to where you need it. Meanwhile fix and or build a new boat.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

You call up a boat rental company and rent their boat. Put it on the big grey plane and fly it to where you need it. Meanwhile fix and or build a new boat.

Not a lot of companies have smaller landing craft with certified lift points for cranes hanging around.

 

[childs56]

Not a lot of companies have smaller landing craft with certified lift points for cranes hanging around.

More then a few Do, I have been on them. More of an issues will be the ice hardened hull. If you see what those craft go through on the coast I don't think the boats would be a problem.
People way above the floor level know better, I hope they open the window and take in the view if they need more options.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Makes good sense ...

Op-Ed: Canada must stop thinking in three oceans​

Ottawa treats its coastlines as separate problems to manage. In fact, they’re one strategic asset waiting to be built

For generations, Canada has treated its maritime geography as three separate strategic theatres. The Atlantic has been viewed through the lens of NATO and transatlantic trade. The Arctic has largely been framed as an issue of sovereignty and northern development. The Pacific, for Canada, has emerged only recently as a theatre for strategic competition under Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy.

However, it is becoming increasingly clear that this compartmentalized approach no longer reflects reality. Instead, Ottawa needs to treat them as a single maritime strategic ecosystem which supports our national prosperity and sovereignty.

Too often when people talk about northern infrastructure, it is entirely about sovereignty and resource extraction. Both are important issues but only tell a portion of the story. The larger strategic opportunity exists in creating a single networked system of ports, transportation corridors, energy infrastructure and digital connectivity. This will enhance our resilience while making us a gateway to Europe, Asia and North America.

This is not just an economic question. It is increasingly a national security imperative.

Op-Ed: Canada must stop thinking in three oceans

Ottawa treats its coastlines as separate problems to manage. They're one strategic asset waiting to be built

www.canadianaffairs.news

 

[Kirkhill]

Why Europe wants to boost its Arctic presence

EU leaders are scrambling to increase the bloc’s presence in the Arctic.

theconversation.com

 

[Kirkhill]

EU seeks secure Arctic link to Asia via Greenland and Canada

Brussels wants to secure digital infrastructure in the Arctic as melting ice and growing geopolitical tensions turn the polar region into a strategic corridor for trade, communications and security. #EuropeNews

www.euronews.com

 

[Kirkhill]

NATO is experimenting with amphibious robots that can cross ice and water in the Arctic

The Western military alliance is exploring how new uncrewed systems can provide forces with situational awareness in the High North.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[daftandbarmy]

This...

The truth about Arctic "strategic competition"​

The region is far less important, and less contested, than commonly claimed.



Despite claims that climate change is transforming the Arctic into an arena of great-power competition, the region’s strategic fundamentals remain largely unchanged. Territorial disputes persist and are largely procedural, shipping and resource incentives are overstated, and US rhetoric on Greenland is strategically incoherent.

Several long-standing territorial disputes illustrate this dynamic. The North Pole itself is contested between Canada, Greenland/Denmark, and Russia, while the United States, alone among the eight Arctic States in not ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), maintains an unresolved maritime dispute with Canada in the Beaufort Sea. Canada and Denmark only settled a territorial dispute over Hans Island in 2022.

Yet these disputes have not driven instability.

Governed by established legal frameworks and involving limited material stakes, the disputes over Arctic territory persist primarily because there is little urgency to resolve them. The fact that the Arctic Council has survived following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine owes less to any notion of Arctic exceptionalism than the region’s relative mundanity. Cooperation endures because the strategic payoff from confrontation remains low. Yet reports continue to claim, as if it is a matter of fact, that rising temperatures and receding ice will make the Arctic an arena for increased competition.

Commercial behaviour offers a more reliable indicator of risk than strategic speculation. Shipping routes that are central to global trade tend to attract sustained investment and infrastructure development. Arctic routes exhibit neither of these characteristics. Transit remains seasonal and unpredictable, with even summer navigation subject to severe weather, limited search-and-rescue coverage, and high insurance costs. As a result, shipping through the Arctic is best understood as supplementary rather than critical.

The truth about Arctic "strategic competition"

The region is far less important, and less contested, than commonly claimed.

www.lowyinstitute.org