The Distant Early Warning Line (DEW Line) runs north of the Arctic Circle from Alaska in the west to Baffin Island in the east, then continues across Greenland.
It was built by the United States, with the cooperation of Canada, at the height of the Cold War in the 1950s as a defence against the Soviet Union.
Most of the self-sufficient bases on this line had a paved runway, with equipment and personnel necessary to keep the runway cleared. The bases had to be operational for the dozens of fighter planes that were kept at the ready by U.S. Strategic Air Command, in case Soviet jets came over the North Pole.
Most of those sites fell into disuse, and the DEW Line became the North Warning System. Not much has happened since then.
Although the federal government has promised to address the deterioration of our defences, nothing of substance has been done by Ottawa to deal more effectively with the defence of our vast North. Similarly, although the government has promised to modernize its NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command) commitments, it has been largely ignored.
The Trump administration has made it clear that it finds Canada’s defence readiness to be unacceptable. The complaint is legitimate.
The fact is that the world is very different from what it looked like in the 1950s and 60s. At that time, the Soviet Union was the major threat to the West, while communist China was desperately poor and weak. Under Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” and later his “Cultural Revolution,” millions starved. China looked then more like North Korea than the economic and military behemoth it has become today. We certainly didn’t fear it as a threat.
Now, both communist China, and an increasingly aggressive Russia are formidable foes. They are also very interested in the North. Ominously, they have recently partnered with each other in a “friendship without limits” which raises the possibility that they might collaborate (or be collaborating right now) on joint plans for the military and commercial exploitation of the North.
The fact that shipping on a large scale through the Northwest Passage might be a possibility in the not-so-distant future is one of the reasons why. The passage can cut shipping distances drastically, so huge amounts of money and fuel can be saved. Future passage from Asia to Europe via the Northeast Passage (also called the Northern Sea Route) and Northwest Passage would be incredibly valuable—strategically, militarily and commercially—for both Russia and China.
Russia is far ahead of Canada on northern strategy and development. It has at least 40 ships capable of breaking through ice, including eight nuclear-powered icebreakers. Canada has no icebreakers that are nuclear powered. Recent promises to build two are years away from fruition. The Americans are acutely aware of Russia’s northern superiority.
Northern security goes some way to explaining Donald Trump’s very public offer to buy Greenland.
Hellbound and Down 
_Line.jpg){kind=link}