Senior Fellow Rob Huebert spoke to BNN Bloomberg about the worldwide implications of the War in Ukraine, and how it forces Canada to rethink its approach to Arctic sovereignty.
“With the Russian resumption of their attack on Ukraine, what we are seeing is the destruction of what many people call the ‘Arctic Exceptionalism‘ period,” says Huebert. “We’ve had very good cooperation with the Russians and with all the other Arctic states in a whole host of multilateral agencies, the most important being the Arctic council. The Arctic Council has suspended action on the basis of the resumption of the Russian attack and it’s very doubtful that the Russians will want to come back. Because with the entry of the Finns and the Swedes into NATO … it’s very unlikely that they’re going to agree to come back to an organization that has seven NATO members.”
“He (Putin) has threatened the use of nuclear weapons, and I think that is nebulous: he’s not saying specifically against the North American continent per se but it is understood if he were to use tactical nuclear weapons on any part of Europe, he would need to blind the Americans first and that would mean attacking the bases in Alaska and Thule, and Canada obviously is right in the middle of that.”
