National Tactics to Secure a Sustainable Canadian Arctic Future through NATO+UN Partnered Arctic Militarization & Innovative Methodologies

There is international agreement on the need to immediately increase Canada’s National focus on the sustainable development of its Arctic, as it is paramount to the success of both Canada and NATO. However, given the high value, high friction, high risk setting of Canada’s Arctic, all initial infrastructural development will need to be planned in heavy partnership with Canada’s Armed Forces in collaboration with our global partners. This is necessary to ensure regional security as well as emergency response capabilities, and in the event of war this will ensure Canada’s “hard-power” system integrity in a currently vulnerable region. Through that self-evident truth, it is indisputable that if Canada wants to see sustainable development in the Arctic, we will need to drastically increase our military funding to ensure that they can afford to even consider sustainable development practices in the first place. Consideration should also be put into potential changes of Canada’s information distribution system, adapting the structure to the modern era based on a scientific outlook using organizational behavior and complex adaptive system practices, as this would give us a fundamental edge against Eastern competitors that have locked up decision making structures arguably too focused on stability. We should not emulate those systems, and we are at risk of such a situation which would only pull us further away from our NATO allies. It is time for Canada in regular communication with its allies to direct appropriate funding to the correct sources to allow for rapid response sustainable infrastructural development, nationalize the Canadian Arctic identity in response to global political shifts, and take moves to analyze our system for making potential adjustments to the current development path of the national decision making structure.

The title of Marie-Anne Coninsx’s article, “Arctic Sustainability in Troubled Times” written on April 12th 2022? and arguing for urgent sustainable Arctic development [1], is a perfect summary of the Arctic development situation globally, but to a much stronger extent in Canada. In Canada, much of the headlines around sustainable development have been on Bay du Nord, or the Bear Head Project [2] which both have impressive sustainability gains based around oil and LNG transportation/extraction. Those have an important role to play in the global economy, however we have been severely lacking in other areas largely due to a restrictive participation structure and lack of Federal vision; making us pale in comparison to the global community. Exciting developments around the world lately include Scottish sustainable spaceport rockets [3], Norway's incredible sustainable tourism [4], Greenland and Iceland’s new research partnership that will benefit Arctic sustainability [5], Ireland's offshore port bid [6] and large scale solar farms [7], exceptional policy pushes in the UK [8] and Norway [9], and the inspiring strategic masterplan of the Keflavík Airport Area [10] to name a handful. Canada has put sustainable development secondary to internal politics for the time being in a stretch towards inclusivity that arguably extends into critical-market-damaging exclusivity. The term often used by many groups across the world “Nothing about us, without us” has strength, validity, and applicability behind it, however it can also easily and with good intention border on segregation, discrimination and economic stagnation inducing values that blocks minorities from authentic leadership positions that they could drastically contribute to. Mads Qvist Frederiksen makes excellent points towards an alternative, more inclusive path while drawing a stunning vision for sustainable development in “The World Needs the Arctic and the Arctic Needs People” [11]. The Arctic is as valuable, if not incredibly more, to the global ecosystem as the Amazon Rainforest is; we cannot afford to play identity politics at a time when national unity is needed to cooperate with our international friends to solve global problems. We in Canada cannot block out our friends from partnership positions when we need them the most. In times of global emergencies, the internal speed of trust must match the holistic situational speed or we can trust that external forces will overwhelm us, as the UN is warning [12].?

In order to accomplish any of this however, we must give the incredibly long overdue funding and power to the Canadian Armed Forces that it deserves. The Arctic is the centre of global conflict when it comes to the main players as is explored wonderfully by Dr. Rob Huebert [13] and Canada is currently essentially completely unprepared for Arctic military conflict[14] [15]. As Dr. Huebert [16] and many others predicted, there has been a massively increased public demand for sustainable Arctic development in response to the events in Ukraine from both the international viewpoint [17] and the national viewpoint [18]. When all of these pieces are put together, we can clearly see that development will be occurring soon, it will need to be based around military planning, and that therefore if we want sustainable infrastructural development, we will need to adequately fund Canada’s Armed Forces for such? expenditures. Yes, it may sound crazy, but to secure a sustainable Arctic future, we are going to need to give the Armed Forces as much money as accountants say they need for it. It is only once that reality has been brought forward that we will be able to adequately tackle the climate crises that are both ongoing and projected to be much worse over time. The longer it takes for that to happen, the higher the likelihood of an oil spill happening in Canada’s virtually unmonitored Arctic waters which, due to Canada’s lack of infrastructure and ability to respond, would be the world’s most damaging human-induced climate emergency in history. Canada has an international obligation to rapidly develop sustainable emergency response infrastructure in its North, that infrastructure can only be made possible through intense military funding, and taking longer for Canada to move on it means less sovereignty and? more probable ecological damage.

While there are still valid points being brought up among some in the international community of maintaining “One Arctic” as opposed to two [19], and even some who speak of removing government oversight in the Arctic in favour of science [20] (which coincidentally falls in line with the subversion tactics employed when Putin was in the KGB, using well intended individuals to promote vulnerability increasing policies), it would be out of line with Canada’s and NATO’s critical strategic interests to not prepare for a potential of “Two Arctics”. To properly address such a challenge, a starting understanding may be achieved by hearing from the insights of what the most important next steps are for Canada to take in Northern defence from some of the heavyweights of the field. On a fascinating exchange [21], Major General Iain Huddleston, Chief of Staff, Canadian Joint Operations Command HQ, Royal Canadian Air Force seemed to argue for an urgent and large increase to Canada’s funding and manpower for its Armed Forces, as well as access to resources with high concern at the alternative. Professor Whitney Lackenbauer: Professor & Canada Research Chair, Trent University; Leader, North American & Arctic Defence & Security Network argued for an increase of sensory capabilities, rapid movement on our F-35 procurement, and a layered ecosystem leading to pan-domain awareness with a focus on cyber and information. Robert Huebert: Associate Professor & Fellow, Centre for Military & Strategic Studies, University of Calgary argued for full, in depth system security, a ‘total war’-esque approach to strategic national decision making incorporating all vulnerabilities, extending out to a positive globalist perspective on international relations.

I personally am under the strong impression that we need to see a holistic, ‘open-source’, rapid National approach to developing sustainable Arctic infrastructure both physically as well as in regards to the National Spirit, enhancing the ‘We The North’ mentality. This needs to be drawn forward with a tight lead by military infrastructure expansionism that focuses on the integration, not assimilation or segregation, of Canada’s Indigenous peoples across the nation, including the entire vast plethora of powerful identities found within the indigenous cultural landscape. We are at the end of an age from many perspectives, the Inuit culture being a prime example of a culture that is being forced to adapt through, among other influences, heavy climate change. Our entire National spirit and all of the identities within it need to fuse a cultural influence into the sustainable development of our National infrastructure to be able to finally bridge together our? National identity; through this identity we find unity, purpose, and undefeatable strength to tackle all climate and militaristic concerns that lay ahead. Through building such an identity, we may also hope to adequately preserve many of the cultures that are being forever changed by climate change.? We must lower the internal identity tensions and all trust one another immediately to allow for rapid, sustainable, culturally inclusive military infrastructural expansion as it is in line with every single Canadians direct interest, and that requires non-exclusionary organisational methodologies that drive engagement from all Canadians regardless of sex, gender, religion, philosophy or political belief. With that trust as a foundation, with that participation and National engagement, we can build a true full system security that Dr. Huebert refers to [21] that encompasses the information warfare points brought up by Lackenbauer and addresses the concerns expressed by Major General Iain Huddleston.?

Another reason that it is in the Canadian strategic interest to rapidly develop its Arctic identity is that who is, and who is not an Arctic nation is a question that has now been spilled wide open internationally. While Canada has lagged behind and put out policies inhibiting international participation which would have driven knowledge spillover and innovation, we have Poland [22] and Latvia [23] among many others aside from China, who are actively promoting their international approaches to issues like cold water shoreline protection among others. Our allies are developing capabilities that could be huge benefits to the Canadian Arctic. We need to immediately establish a strong cultural identity in the region to allow for a healthy international development scene to take place. Without that strong cultural identity basis, Canada is opened up to either a lack of international participation through exclusionary policies, or an over-easiness for foreign subversion identity-based activities in Canadian critical industries which can come even through a well intended international partner (ie. Trump or Obama era cultural spillover effects on Canada for example would be a non-intended & non-direct but powerful influence on Canadian organisational methodologies and corporate cultures). I’m sure you could imagine much worse effects from clever, malintended international actors that can buy research rights, flood the market with misinformation, buy development spots to inhibit development, or redirect the academia towards less beneficial study paths.?

Moving into our final topic, the world has changed, and we are seeing rapid disruptions across all fields from intelligence, to knowledge distribution, to technology and organisational methodologies due largely to Industry 4.0 and the UN’s 2030 goals. Canada's decision making structure is something that is truly incredible and something that can be applauded worldwide in relation to governments of the 1900’s and perhaps even the early 2000’s. However, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has highlighted much of how Russia’s decision making structure works, and in contrast has shone light on the structures of many other nations in relation to Russia. Due to the global environment, these national decision making structures are being analyzed and improved upon by nations worldwide. We do not need to look far back to see Canada's exclusion from AUKUS, or our allies creating Capacity Packages with one another [24] to recognize that our allies do not have significant trust in Canada’s decision making structure, otherwise we would have our own exciting deals to talk about other than half promises that lead to superficial changes. We have lacked the initiative and avoided funding the most critically important region to Canada’s future, and attempts to develop in both the North and the West are systematically denied compared to Eastern Federal developments. We avoid disruptive nature based infrastructure solutions as opposed to less efficient solutions that benefit longstanding, stagnant business interests [25]. We systematically suppress concerns over our Arctic vulnerability from the most respected individuals from the highest positions in our system [26] who have been warning of this emergency concern for years while we focus on boosting divisive and culturally disruptive stories; when instead a healthy decision making structure would have such a critical vulnerability held at the forefront of the public discussion from the time the issue became apparent until the issue was solved. Even when Canada held a Zoom conference for its National Adaptation Strategy Symposium on May 16th [27], while there were excellent pillars that the Symposium revolved around such as indigenous involvement, overall there was a sense of politically induced ‘group think’ that was palpably different from what was discussed at the Conservative Party debate, keeping in mind that the Conservatives won the popular vote for Canadians and are therefore a stronger representation of Canada’s spirit than the party that won through a constructed rule system (even though the validity of leadership indisputably lays with the rule system of course). If Canada’s decision making structure is going to truly be representative of Canada, these conversations need to be held at the National level and not sidelined for only parties that are aware of such events. Acting in opposition to the public interest sets up yet another further rupture in Canadian society, and will decrease trust in both the Federal and International system; that must not happen.?

It has been said in the common media that Xi Jinping has critical news relayed to him months too late at times because his subordinates are too afraid to tell him; a clear issue which is replicated in Russia and combined in Russia with an aged-out knowledge base for its decision making structure. With the examples brought up in the last paragraph, it is clear to see that Canada has large ruptures in its decision making structure. These ruptures are exploitable by foreign governments or frankly anyone with the right knowledge in the right place at the right time. We have entered a world where every single detail of our societies is exposed, which comes with its own set of opportunities and success on the global stage will come to those that move the fastest in the appropriate direction. How a nation thinks, how it makes its decisions, these are questions that are more widely solvable today than at any time in history, which makes embarrassments like being caught doing Federally approved blatant propaganda or being caught after the fact using special forces to surveil protestors all that much more embarrassing. Canada’s Federal institutions mean well, and they are doing the best job they can with limited funding as well as a highly damaged federal decision making structure, however it is time for Canada to take a collective movement to shift away from such damaging methodologies that are already long outdated. I would argue instead for a pan-government approach? based on something that I’m certain must have been termed by someone somewhere before, but I call it ‘Open Subversion’.?

Open Subversion relies on an opposite approach from the old idea of propaganda, in today's methodology part of Perception Management. Rather than a nation hiding its subversive activities and processes, the approach is to trust that today's informed citizens are both aware of and expect Federal ‘propaganda’, as most understand that terms like ‘public relations campaigns’ are largely synonymous with ‘propaganda campaigns’. Propaganda also does not have to be lies, nor alternative truth, it can be simply an authentic, clear message with a distinct and transparent agenda behind it.? If we are to take a true look at the National spirit, how many people think that there is some varying level of government surveillance and/or propagandistic activities going on? I would wager that you would be hard pressed to find an individual not under the impression that Western nations actively participate in such activities. Given the massive amounts of Russian disinformation that is ongoing, I would argue that it is best for those ‘in the know’ to blow the lid off of perception management practices to the general public and to operate on an increased level of transparency. You can still move quietly when out in the open if you can develop the appropriate practices. This practice, this Open Subversion, from trial data seems to engage participants to a higher extent than traditional subversion, increases overall trust between the two parties, and drastically improves counter-subversion capabilities by informing the public of trends to be aware of.?

To apply such a structure to a pan-government approach means full transparency, it would mean the ‘open-sourcing’ of Canada’s decision making structure, blatantly telling our population when influence and intelligence campaigns are ongoing, allowing for the traditionally non-publicized power players in Canadian society to step forward and make their influential actions in the light in exchange for positive recognition and occasional public forgiveness as opposed to sweeping mistakes under the rug like in other nations. This move will arguably be seen as risky by most given that protecting a nation's decision making structural process is paramount in most countries, however the world will inevitably rapidly shift towards this new model; it is inescapable given the freedom of access to information worldwide. Once one country gets on board, the increase to economic and status mobility will draw in other systems due to competitive advantage from increased national worker engagement. Open Subversion also falls in line with innovation principles around Complex Adaptive Systems [28], and innovation is the most important influence for each nation worldwide.? It is in Canada’s best interest to step forward with a new model that adapts to the new international intelligence and geopolitical system that we live in, as our current system is approaching the point where it could be used against us once it stabilizes into international non-competitive status; I believe that Open Subversion is a strong position to start from.

Through combining Open Subversion methodologies with building a Canadian Arctic-focused Identity, and immensely increasing the funding for Canada’s Armed Forces to include sustainable development costs, we can secure a sustainable Canadian Arctic future for everyone. We can make ground using infrastructural design on forever locking existing and at risk Indigenous cultures into the Canadian National Spirit as distinct identities that are equally part of what makes Canada, Canada; rather than tragically losing those cultures to climate change by taking a ‘hands-off’ segregated approach. We can respond to climate crises by building the sustainable infrastructure we need to get people and resources on crisis sites immediately, and in most cases we can proactively work to stop or mitigate these crises before they happen. Through all of this, if we can manage to operate with trust through transparency both nationally, and with respective-restrictions internationally with no interest in influencing other cultures, then we can bring Canada into a safe, system secure, healthy, diverse, innovative and thriving future. Vive le Canada.?

Written by David Tomkulak

Sources

1. Arctic Sustainability in Troubled Times, April 12th, Marie-Anne Coninsx, https://www.arcticcircle.org/journal/arctic-sustainability-in-troubled-times
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