On January 27, 2026, the Inter-American Dialogue hosted a private conversation with Jim Townsend, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Europe and NATO, on the growing strategic importance of the Arctic in the Western Hemisphere, with a particular emphasis on Canada and Greenland.
Townsend argued that the Arctic, long treated by the Pentagon after the Cold War as a secondary theater and viewed primarily through a Euro-Atlantic or NATO lens, has now reemerged as a core component of North American security and great-power geopolitics. For the United States and Canada, the Arctic has long mattered for continental air defense, particularly during the Cold War, when early-warning radars and air and missile defense systems on Greenland and across northern Canada were built to protect North America from Soviet aircraft and missile threats approaching over polar routes.
Although much of the remaining Cold War–era infrastructure in Canada and Greenland was dismantled in the early 1990s, Greenland has never lost its strategic relevance to the United States and Canada. Its enduring value lies in its location astride key North Atlantic approaches to the Western Hemisphere and its role in North American aerospace defense, underscored by the continued relevance of the joint U.S.–Canadian North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), headquartered in Colorado Springs.
That importance is now growing as climate change melts Arctic sea ice, reshaping the region’s strategic geography by improving access to rare earths and other critical minerals in Greenland and opening a new maritime route, the Northern Sea Route, between China and Europe over the top of Russia. For China, Greenland could become an important element in its use of this route, potentially providing logistical support for Chinese merchant vessels transiting Russia’s Arctic coastline and the Arctic Ocean into European waters, reducing transit times and costs. This dynamic, which benefits both China and Russia, has intensified strategic competition, including Chinese efforts to influence Greenland’s home-rule authorities. While Greenland plays an important role in NATO defense as a semi-autonomous part of NATO member Denmark, Townsend argued that its importance to the defense of the Western Hemisphere, not only to NATO Europe, has returned and should be incorporated into hemispheric defense planning.
Canada is a central pillar of Arctic and North American security. Townsend emphasized that effective continental defense depends on sustained U.S.–Canada cooperation and deep air and missile defense integration, particularly through NORAD. Participants raised concerns about Canada’s reduced military capacity following decades of post–Cold War underinvestment. Townsend acknowledged these gaps, noting that across the NATO alliance, even where political will and funding now exist, rebuilding military capability to deter Russian aggression and counter a rising China will take years, given defense industrial constraints and long production timelines.
The discussion also addressed recent tensions in the U.S.–Canada relationship. Townsend referenced what he described as a “Carney doctrine,” based on Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, reflecting the view that U.S. leadership and reliability can no longer be assumed, a sentiment increasingly shared by many U.S. allies. He underscored that this erosion of trust has concrete strategic consequences, prompting close partners such as Canada to diversify their relationships, including with China, and to develop security arrangements capable of functioning without U.S. participation.
The overarching conclusion was that the Arctic is no longer a distant or secondary security theater. Greenland, Canada, and the broader Arctic now sit at the intersection of climate change, resource access, continental defense, and great-power competition, ensuring sustained strategic attention well beyond current political cycles.
This event was by invitation only.
