In April 2021, another cable—one used by a Norwegian ocean research laboratory to monitor activity on the Arctic seafloor—was removed. Map showing the location of the Svalbard submarine cable system connecting mainland Norway to the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean “This could have happened by accident,” Norway’s defense chief Eirik Kristoffersen told Reuters in response to the ruptures, which received little media coverage outside Norway. “But the Russians are good at cutting wires.” He spoke in general terms and offered no evidence of deliberate damage, but months later, in September, saboteurs suddenly caused major leaks in gas pipelines from Russia to Europe at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ends a post-Cold War era of low tension and cooperation, such events underscore how difficult it is for states to monitor their own waters — particularly in the Arctic, an ocean one and a half times the size of the United States, where satellites are vital to enable real-time detection and monitoring of activity. In recent years, NATO allies and Russia have escalated military exercises in the region. Chinese and Russian warships conducted a joint exercise in the Bering Sea in September. Norway raised its military alert level in October. Four Arctic experts say it would take the West at least 10 years to catch up with the Russian military in the region if it chose to. “The Arctic is currently a dark area on the map,” said Ketil Olsen, Norway’s former military representative to NATO and the European Union, who heads Andoeya Space, a Norwegian state-owned company that tests new military and surveillance technologies and launches research missiles. “It’s so huge and with few political monitoring resources.” The head of the US Northern Command, General Glenn Van Herk, told a Senate hearing in March that the United States needed better “Arctic domain awareness” to detect and counter Russian and Chinese advanced missile capabilities and destruction communications infrastructure. In a Pentagon strategy paper released in October, the United States pledged to improve early warning and surveillance systems in the Arctic, but the pace of the planned modernization is unclear. At the same time, rapidly rising temperatures are creating problems for some US military infrastructure built on permafrost foundations, which are melting. Coastal erosion could also affect US radar sites, the Pentagon says. There are few risks in the near term, US officials and military analysts say: The West is far stronger than Russia in conventional forces, and Russia’s limited success in Ukraine has shown weaknesses that many in the West did not expect. Russia’s military efforts are currently mostly focused on Ukraine, leaving “very limited personnel strength on the military side” on the Arctic Kola Peninsula, which is home to the Northern Fleet’s navy and nuclear submarines, according to Kristoffersen. U.S. missile defenses are designed to defend against a limited attack by a rogue state, and the United States has expressed confidence in its ability to deter a nuclear attack from Russia or China. However, poor visibility in the Arctic could limit U.S. response time in a crisis, a situation VanHerck and other officials want to avoid. “What you can’t see and what you can’t define, you can’t defend,” Van Herk told the Senate. Svalbard’s ground station, SvalSat, downloads time-sensitive data from most of the world’s commercial and scientific satellites, but not military missions, its operator says. Source: Kongsberg Satellite Services Police investigating the Norwegian cable breaks interviewed the crew of nearby Russian fishing trawlers, but dropped the investigation without charges due to a lack of evidence about what happened. the government said it proposed a planned upgrade of the backup line. If a sabotage attack were to happen in Norway, it would likely be difficult to account for it, Hedvig Moe, deputy head of Norway’s security police agency PST, told Reuters. “We call it an unacceptable attack on our world,” he said. “NATO is increasing its presence in the Arctic with more modern capabilities,” NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg told Reuters. “This is of course a response to what Russia is doing. They have significantly increased their presence… and therefore we also need a greater presence.”
Tensions
As a shrinking ice sheet opens up new sea lanes and resources, the Arctic is becoming more strategically important. In July, President Vladimir Putin launched a new naval strategy that pledges to protect Arctic waters “by all means.” Russia usually tests its nuclear deterrents in the Arctic in the fall. This year, it happened on February 19, five days before her invasion of Ukraine. “That was of course a signal,” said Norway’s defense captain Kristoffersen. Diplomacy in the region was thrown into turmoil in March when seven members of the Arctic Council, a forum for international cooperation, said they would boycott talks in Russia, which currently holds the body’s presidency. An incident on October 15 underscored the sharper tone. Speaking at an Arctic forum in Iceland, the chairman of NATO’s military commission, Rob Bauer, criticized China for not condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. China calls itself a near-Arctic state, and Beijing’s envoy to Reykjavik, He Rulong, was in the audience. She stood up and said Bauer’s speech was “full of arrogance” and “paranoid,” accusing him of stoking tensions. NATO and the Chinese embassy in Iceland declined to comment on the exchange.
The rule of Russia
“Right now, the military balance in the Arctic is heavily weighted toward Russia,” said Colin Wall, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Russia’s bases within the Arctic Circle outnumber NATO’s by about a third, according to data compiled by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and Reuters. Russia now has 11 submarines capable of launching long-range nuclear weapons for use in an all-out nuclear war, eight of which are based in the Arctic Kola Peninsula, according to the IISS. NATO has 22 between the United States, France and the United Kingdom. In July, the Russian navy took delivery of a new submarine, the Belgorod, which can carry the Poseidon torpedo, a new nuclear-armed stealth torpedo designed to sneak past coastal defenses by traveling along the seabed. Russian state media reported that Neptune could trigger a massive tsunami that would turn the coastline into a “radioactive desert.” Moscow has also in the past two years tested a supersonic cruise missile, the Zircon, which Putin said in 2019 could reach nine times the speed of sound, making it the world’s fastest. In February, it said the missile was fired into Arctic waters between mainland Norway and Svalbard. “We are starting serial production of the Zircon missile and have actually put it into operation,” Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told the Zvezda military news agency on August 20. The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for further details. Russia’s icebreaker fleet far exceeds that of other nations, according to the IISS. Official figures show it has seven nuclear-powered icebreakers and around 30 diesel-powered ones. The United States and China have two diesel-powered icebreakers in operation.
Large icebreakers and ice-capable patrol vessels
The chart shows the number of large icebreakers and ice-capable patrol vessels belonging to selected key nations. Russia has 57 of them compared to 32 among NATO members Canada, Denmark, the United States and Norway. Icebreakers play a limited role in military operations, but are essential to maintaining a presence in the Arctic.
NATO is investing
For decades, NATO’s Arctic allies were convinced that conflicts with Russia would not extend to their region: With overall defense budgets constrained, investments in military hardware and surveillance and communication capabilities were often considered too expensive. Now NATO and its Arctic allies are changing their stance. Since Russia launched its “special operation” in Ukraine, Canada has pledged to boost military spending by about C$13 billion ($10 billion) including upgrading an early warning radar system with the United States, the Administration North American Aerospace Defense Agency, or NORAD, and new surveillance planes capable of detecting submarines. The first planes will be delivered in 2032. Given the challenges of the harsh environment, it will take decades to be ready, Canada’s Chief of Defense Staff General Wayne Eyre told a parliamentary committee in October.
defense expenditure of NATO members (% of GDP)
The chart shows the defense spending (as a percentage of GDP) of NATO members in 2014 and 2022 and the renewed commitment to higher spending by some of them after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Eyre says one reason NORAD’s research and development component needs modernization is to better track hypersonic missiles. “This is of great concern – the ability to detect…
