Russian Roulette

Moscow is playing a high-stakes game, and Canada and its allies must be prepared
SEAN M. MALONEY AND RICHARD MARTIN
The Russian Tupolev Bear bombers approached the northwestern edge of the NORAD air defence zone as two Canadian and four American fighters lifted off to intercept them. The USAF F-15s from Elmendorf air force base in Alaska moved in, as the Cold Lake-based Canadian CF-18 fighters provided backup in case the Russians penetrated farther into North American airspace. Eventually, the Bears headed home to a base somewhere on the Kamchatka peninsula. Such scenes between Russian and NATO forces, commonplace during the Cold War, have been quietly but repeatedly replayed since the tense 1999 standoff between Russian and NATO forces in Kosovo -- and is only part of a disturbing pattern of Russian behaviour. How many Canadians know that Russian forces have attacked Canadian Forces helicopters with lasers? In the nearly forgotten case of the Russian ship Kapitan Man in 1997, they even blinded a Canadian pilot. As the recent arrest of an alleged Russian spy in Montreal underscored, we had better be prepared to keep watch, just as we did back in 1946 after Igor Gouzenko revealed rampant Russian espionage in Canada, and Churchill declared that an Iron Curtain had come down from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic.
Stettin has a new name and new occupants. In 1999, NATO quietly established...

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