With climate change rapidly opening up new opportunities for shipping and resource extraction across the once permanently frozen Arctic, the United States and other northern countries are being compelled to re-examine their policies, both national and collective, towards this region of growing geostrategic importance.

...despite the usual military posturing, the Prime Minister has come to understand that Canada’s claim to the North will be pressed by means other than guns and warships....the search-and-rescue operation designed to make a statement about Canadian sovereignty is actually an essential capability critical for northern economic development.