WILL CANADIAN WATERS BECOME THE NEXT MAGINOT LINE?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504160006-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: February 21, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000504160006-3
ARTICLE APPEARED 21 February 1986
OPI QAGF 3
Will Canadian Waters Become the Next Maginot Line?
TORONTO-Anxious eyes in Washing-
ton and Ottawa are turning north to the
Arctic littoral. Our northern frontier, once
thought an impenetrable barrier, is fast
becoming a concourse for Soviet military
activity. Even more disturbing, in tlfe high
Arctic the Soviets may be well on the way
to outflanking NATO's main line of defense
of the vital North Atlantic sea lanes.
Not many North Americans could locate
Baffin Bay or Ellesmere Islands on a map,
though each alone is the size of Scandina-
via. And no wonder: The distance from To-
The Americas
by Eric Margolis
ronto to Canada's northernmost base on
Ellesmere is about the same as from New
York to Rio de Janeiro.
There is growing concern in the Arctic
over a new generation of Soviet heavy,
long-range bombers now being deployed.
These aircraft must be intercepted far to
the north, before they can launch their
cruise missiles. Accordingly, the U.S. and
Canada are upgrading the 1950s early-
warning technology and planning some
new, austere air bases on the bomber
routes. Despite these efforts, budget re-
strictions will leave North American air
defense porous; today, for example, low-
flying Soviet bombers could likely reach
Winnipeg before they were detected.
While Soviet long-range aviation skirts
northern Canada, the Red Banner North-
ern Fleet is becoming increasingly active
in Arctic waters. In March 1984, U.S. satel-
lites for the first time observed Soviet nu-
clear submarines breaking through the
Arctic Ocean ice sheet.
The Soviets are now estimated to have
a considerable number of specially
strengthened subs capable of breaching
ice. This allows Soviet submarines to cross
undetected under the Polar ice cap, breach
an opening off northern Canada and fire
their missiles southward. This gives them
a relatively flat trajectory that allows the
U.S. only a few minutes warning-or even
none at all-for a Soviet attack, rather
than the 30 minutes upon which a nuclear
retaliatory strategy is based.
It is apparent that Soviet attack subma-
rines are also busy in Canadian Arctic wa-
ters, but just how busy Ottawa will not
say. Canada's decrepit navy cannot even
protect its own main base at Halifax, Nova
Scotia; what goes on 4,000 miles to the
north remains something of a mystery.
While the Canadians and Americans
watch with mounting unease, the Soviet
navy appears to be quietly nosing out
routes through the vast Arctic archipelago
that lies north of the Canadian coast, an
area larger than Western Europe. The ur-
pose of this Soviet reconnaissance is to m
a route by which to outflank NATO's de-
fense barrier at the GIUK Gap (the con-
stricted waters tween Green and Ice-
land and the United King om . ere,
NATO has created a web of hydraphones,
giant underwater "ears" that can pick up
noisy Soviet submarines at great range
and, thanks to powerful computer analysis,
identify the vessels and direct aircraft and
ships against these targets.
In the event of a war, one of the prime
Soviet strategic goals would be to use its
large attack submarine force based in the
White and Barents seas to break out into
the North Atlantic where a guerre de
course could be conducted to sever NATO's
critical sea lanes of communication with
Europe. Severing the sea bridge from
North America to Europe would mean the
quick collapse of NATO. But to reach the
North Atlantic, the Soviet fleet had, until
recently, to fight its way across the peril-
ous GIUK Gap.
Now the Soviets are discreetly probing
an alternative route, just as the Germans
scouted the Ardennes Forest in 1940 for a
way around the Maginot Line. In both the
Arctic and the Ardennes, conventional mil-
itary wisdom held that the terrain in ques-
tion was too inhospitable for movement.
And like the German generals of World
War II, the Soviet admirals seem to have
found an undefended route.
Soviet attack submarines might sail due
north from their bases on the Kola Penin-
sula, cross under the polar ice cap, and re-
emerge off Ellesmere Island. From there,
they could thread their way south, down
the narrow channels of the archipelago,
through the Jones or Lancaster Sound, and
into Baffin Bay.
Continuing southward, the 500-mile-wide
Davis Strait between Greenland and Baffin
Island opens directly into the Labrador
Sea. Once reached, the Labrador Sea gives
onto the North Atlantic, neatly and conve-
niently intersecting the main convoy route
between Halifax and Britain.
This back door to the North Atlantic is
now wide open. Aside from the U.S. air
base at Thule, Greenland, there is no sig-
nificant offensive NATO base able to cover
the high Arctic. Nor, according to non-clas-
sified information, does the SOSUS system
cover North America's Arctic approaches
or the Baffin Island-Davis Strait choke
point. If war broke out tomorrow, many
Soviet attack subs could appear, without
any warning, athwart NATO's most impor-
tant single supply artery.
Some military planners in Canada and
the U.S. are aware of this growing men-
ace. But Ottawa has chosen for political
reasons to remain mute, unwilling to high-
light a problem about which it can do little.
This year, Ottawa has not even managed
to meet its NATO commitment of spending
3% of gross national product on defense.
Gutted by years of official neglect under
former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau,
Canadian forces are little more than an in-
effectual, overpaid gendarmerie. There
are simply no ships or aircraft to defend
the northern borders.
Instead, the Canadian government, hu-
miliated by last year's transit of a U.S.
ship through Arctic waters that it claimed,
is talking about building an icebreaker to
show the flag along its northern littoral.
This little gesture will not make the Soviet
submarines go away.
Washington is taking more realistic ac-
tion by preparing its attack submarines to
navigate and fight under the Arctic ice cap
and in the turbulent waters of the northern
archipelago. But countering the growing
Soviet underwater threat also requires
throwing a SOSUS barrier across the Davis
Strait at Cape Dyer. It means blocking the
Gulf of Boothia through which Soviet sub-
marines have been slipping into Hudson's
Bay. New air and naval bases, housing ex-
panded anti-submarine forces, will be
needed in the high Arctic. Building and op-
erating such northern posts is extraordi-
narily expensive. Maintaining air and na-
val patrols in the Arctic night is danger-
ous, dreary and mind-numbing work.
Where funds will be found for Arctic air
and naval defenses remains a question.
But something must be done, and soon.
Like the Turkish fleet in G.K. Chesterton's
"Lepanto," which "dared the white repub-
lics on the capes of Italy," the Soviet fleet
is today daring our own North American
republics and must be checked before the
high Arctic becomes a second Red Sea.
Mr. Margolis is foreign-affairs colum-
nist for the Toronto Sun.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504160006-3