Track of Interest: Exercise Vigilant Eagle 13 examines ongoing geopolitical tensions in the circumpolar North, including North American and Russian airspace.

 

Conceived in the aftermath of 9/11, Exercise Vigilant Eagle was the fourth in a series of military collaborations between Russia, Canada, and the United States, which were intended to strengthen interagency coordination. Following Russia’s incursion in eastern Ukraine in 2014, all such collaborations were suspended, and ultimately cancelled.

 

Flying from Anchorage, Alaska to Anadyr, Russia, the operation deployed a “track of interest”—a civilian jet undergoing a live-fly, simulated hijacking—on which Kavanagh was embedded. The resulting film juxtaposes military training operations with the natural forces of the North, examining how geopolitical ambition intersects with ecological precarity. A decade after its production, Track of Interest brings into focus the region’s contradictions: the pursuit of security amid political instability and environmental crisis, and the persistent tensions that continue to shape the Arctic’s future.