Once upon a time the whole world was completely swept up in a war. Not World War One or Two but something called the Cold War. It lasted from 1947-1991, a period of international rivalry between the capitalist led United States and its allies and the communist led Russia and its allies in the Soviet Union and China. However, because both sides possessed enormous numbers of nuclear weapons they never fought with each other directly for fear of unleashing complete nuclear destruction. This strategy was referred to as Mutually Assured Destruction or MAD. Instead both sides supported smaller conflicts with proxy partners like Korea, Vietnam, and Angola.
As part of Canada's contribution to the defense of North America a joint defense organization was established in 1957 called the North American Aerospace Defense Command or NORAD, and a series of radar stations were built in the 1950's across the country to detect any possible Soviet bombers coming over the North Pole. Called the Distant Early Warning Line or DEW Line it was the biggest military project in Arctic history. However, the construction of this Dew Line had a profoundly negative impact on the Inuit who lived there as their way of life changed radically and the pristine North was treated as a garbage dump.
In the 1960's with the advent of intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, this radar technology became obsolete and the stations were decommisioned, leaving even more mess to clean up. The toxic cleanup continues to this day, a project that has cost close to $1 billion dollars and leaves behind 134 landfills containing 283,000 cubic metres of less contaminated soil and non-hazardous waste from buildings, steel drums, and water tanks. The other 35,000 cubic metres of soil contaminated with PCBs and lead have been bagged and shipped south for incineration. The DEW Line was replaced by the North Warning System using a more advanced Over The Horizon radar.
Now with hypersonic missiles being the latest in missile technology, a new type of defense system is believed to be required which Trump is calling the Golden Dome. This would integrate both land based and space based missile detection systems to shield the U.S. from ICMBs, hypersonic missiles and missiles launched by submarines. Once again Canada is being asked to pony up for a share in the cost which will be in the billions.
But before Canada decides to help pay for the Golden Dome or something similar as part of the U.S. pressure to increase our contribution to the defense of North America and end our so-called "free ride" perhaps a closer look at a polar map would be warranted. The first thing to notice is that nobody will ever be invading Canada from the North. The frozen seas, arctic wasteland, and topography make it impossible. There won't be any tanks or troops marching across the frozen tundra to Churchill or Yellowknife. The ICBMs and other missiles won't be aimed at Winnipeg or Toronto either. They will be aimed at non-Canadian targets like Chicago, New York and other U.S. cities. Nobody is coming after us so we don't need America's protection. Besides the Cold War is over and MAD is still an effective deterrent. There are other more important issues.
Thanks to climate change and water use, the falling water levels of the Hoover Dam reservoir known as Lake Mead, point to a much bigger issue the U.S. is facing and that's a shortage of fresh water. This shortage of fresh water is happening all over the U.S. particularly in the Northern and Southern plains but it is also starting to affect the Northwest and Minnesota. In the West the Colorado River basin is particularly stressed with major reservoirs like Lake Mead and Lake Powell sitting at low capacity. A shortage of fresh water is much more of a threat than any missiles, particularly for Canadians.
With Canada possessing 20% of the world's fresh water in its millions of lakes and rivers, not to mention parts of the Great Lakes water system, it's no wonder the U.S. would look enviously at us and try to come up with a way to tap into it. Already Trump has suggested building a pipeline from the Columbia River to California and there have also been discussions about tapping into the Great Lakes themselves with a pipeline across America. The hotter our world gets the more thirsty it gets as well and if we don't cooperate when the time comes we could very well find ourselves invaded from the south.
All the more reason to build up our military separate from that of the United States. German made submarines along with our domestically built icebreakers and frigates are the first step. Next is signing up with Sweden for their Saab fighter jet design that has proven to work well in the North and we can also build in-house instead of buying the overpriced and unreliable American F-35s. Taken together these and other initiatives will enable us to patrol the North and all of our coastlines while creating jobs in manufacturing and all sorts of trades. We don't have to start a fight with the U.S. but we can certainly give them the cold shoulder and that's the kind of cold war we can win.
