“Arise, awake, and stop not, till the goal is reached”, is perhaps a timely quote articulated by Prime Minister Mark Carney, from the great Hindu philosopher and spiritual leader, Swami Vivekananda (1863-1904, spent few days in two Canadian cities of Vancouver and Winnipeg in July 1893 before heading for his milestone lecture at the Chicago Parliament of Religion, September 1893), during his first official visit with his Indian counterpart, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in New Delhi, March 2026. This bilateral meeting is another well-timed engagement for both Canada and India as they experience geopolitical  and geostrategic threats, coupled with economic uncertainties from their respective interactions with the United States, their closest ally. Above all, the US assertions over Venezuela, Iran and Cuba, and her looming threats over Greenland and Canada necessitate concerted endeavours among middle powers to adjust themselves in this suddenly changed new world order that provokes unipolar hegemony over multilateral collectivism. Amidst such turbulent background, the geostrategic vulnerabilities of the Arctic and the Indian Oceans emerge as prime destinations for extra-regional contestations that demand maritime bilateralism between Canada, an Arctic State, and India, a littoral State of the Indian Ocean.

Today, both the Arctic and Indian Oceans are among the fastest warming regions and interspersed with both conventional state-centric security-military predicaments and non-traditional human-centric socio-environmental-climate-related consequences, wherein both Canada and India are integral parts. This commentary examines some of those vulnerabilities that generate convergence of interests to boost their bilateral relationship. 

Canada and the Arctic ‘Great Game’?

As the second largest Arctic State after Russia, Canada’s forty percent landmass, seventy percent coastline and over 36,000 islands are located between the Arctic Circle and the North Pole. Sharing the Arctic borders with Denmark (through Greenland and Hans island), and the US (through Alaska), this vast Canadian Archipelago constitutes world’s largest High Arctic landmass, and is the symbol of national pride, identity and sovereignty that entail robust foreign and national policy priorities, which are embedded within her geography, people and natural resources. Hence, Ottawa has taken pride in protecting her ‘North, strong and Free’ from external encroachments. However, with the intention to extend the existing 200 nautical miles to another 150 (total 350 nautical miles) under Article 76 of the Extended Continental Shelf (ECS) of the UN Convention on the Laws of the Sea, the Arctic is presently encountering overlapping claims from the four Arctic States of Canada, the US, Denmark and Russia. Additionally, Arctic thawing has exposed its critical resources, including hydrocarbons, diamond, gold, base metals, and rare earth minerals that were previously concealed under the generational ice-pack, which spawns race for resource extraction not only among the Arctic members but also from non-Arctic States like China, who is an Observer of the Arctic Council, and self-identifies as a ‘near-Arctic State’. 

Above all, given its shortest flight/missile trajectory, the Arctic is fast becoming another probable front from Russia following the latter’s full-scale aggression over Ukraine. To heighten further consternation, both Russia and China have been transforming the Arctic Northern Sea Route as a viable alternative route for global shipping that would significantly reduce transit time unlike the conventional Indian Ocean routes, leveraging the global warming and consequent disappearance of the Arctic sea-ice. Beside modernizing her Arctic military base and deploying her advanced nuclear-powered icebreakers, Moscow has recently concluded a rare summer transit through the northern corridor from the Barent Sea in the west to the Bering Strait in the east (close to Alaska, US, and the Yukon Territory, Canada) in record number of days to supply her oil to China. Similarly, while China’s Arctic icebreakers are undertaking routine expeditions through the Arctic as part of her coveted Polar Silk Road, her surveillance buoys dispatched in the Canadian Arctic shores were recovered by the Canadian military later. All these........

© OpenCanada