Politics and Press

The Russians are flying, are the Russians thinking of landing?

On Feb. 18, the day before President Obama’s visit to Ottawa last week, two Russian Tupalov bombers entered a zone of international airspace over the Canadian Arctic that is in the NORAD air defence identification zone under Canadian control and penetrated to the very edge of Canadian air space itself. Canadian fighter jets were sent from Cold Lake in northern Alberta to intercept them and when they did so over Canadian Arctic islands, the Russians retreated. Prime Minister Harper denounced this incident as an encroachment on Canadian territory, a serious charge considering the visit of President Obama, and denounced “aggressive Russian actions around the globe and Russian intrusions into our air space.”

Defence Minister Peter MacKay indicated that he felt it could not be a coincidence that this happened as Obama was preparing to visit. And the question remains, just why are the Russians returning to tactics not seen since the fall of the Soviet Union? About the only thing they could really accomplish by forcing the Canadians to confront them militarily in the Arctic would be to bring the Canadian and US military commands into closer co-operation than would have been conceivable during the Bush years, something that many think is a necessity if the North American Arctic is considered to have become vulnerable to intrusions from its north.