It is one of the most hostile regions on earth: only a few people live in the ice landscapes of the Arctic. And yet the huge area is strategically important – economically and militarily. Russia and NATO face off in the Arctic. The West has a lot of catching up to do.
Extreme cold, snow, sleet, fog, ice masses – in the Arctic even warships and their crew reach their limits. And yet NATO wants to expand its presence in the region more and more. If there were to be war with Russia one day, the Arctic would be extremely strategically important. And the West has a lot of catching up to do in this huge area.
Russia is the most powerful actor in the Arctic and shows it again and again. In 2007, the Kremlin had a Russian flag rammed into the seabed at a depth of over 4,000 meters below the North Pole to symbolically underline Russia’s claim to the raw materials under the North Pole.
Russia is the largest coastal state in the Arctic, but does not want to be satisfied with its own 24,000 kilometers of coastline and the mineral resources in the region. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said three years ago that the entire Arctic was Russian territory. “It has long been known that this is our soil.” In 2022, Moscow published its new naval doctrine, announcing that the Arctic was a top priority.
The Arctic is of great economic importance for Russia. This is where most Russian gas and oil is mined and many other gas and oil fields are believed to exist here. “Russia, as the largest Arctic state, has been exporting raw materials from Siberia since the 18th century and is now of course strong in the gas and oil business,” said Michael Paul, Arctic expert at the Science and Politics Foundation (SWP), in an interview with Deutsche Welle. “From Greenland to the Russian Arctic, the Arctic naturally offers many more resources, from rare earths to diamonds.”
Most Arctic residents live in Russia
The Arctic stretches from Alaska through Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia and two-thirds of Russia’s coastline. Around 2.5 million of the approximately 4 million Arctic residents live on Russian soil. Four of the five largest Arctic cities are in Russia, including the main port city of Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula. Here in the far northwest of the country, the Arctic is most developed, with the most modern infrastructure: railway lines, roads, deep-sea ports. The other parts of the Arctic are mostly only accessible by sea and air. There are no roads or railway lines here, only small ports and landing strips for airplanes.
The bitterly cold Arctic is such a hot military theater because the West and Russia are particularly close here. During the Cold War, the warring blocs mistrusted each other for decades. Both sides deployed ballistic missile submarines, cruising back and forth under the thick ice as a deterrent.
After the end of the Cold War, the Arctic suddenly became less important. There was no longer any mutual military threat. Russia disarmed. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, maintaining the many military facilities and airfields was simply too expensive. Only after Russia had recovered from the upheaval and consolidated financially did Moscow gradually expand its presence in the Arctic again.
The northernmost outpost of Russia
There have been regular naval patrols again for around 20 years, including with Russian submarines. Completely new military bases were also built – for example Alexandralandpart of Franz Josef Land, an uninhabited Russian archipelago in the Arctic, but which is used for military purposes. “Alexandraland is one of Russia’s most significant military complexes. It is the country’s northernmost military outpost and provides critical air, sea and land military capabilities to protect the Kola Peninsula,” described the Guardian in a report earlier this year.
View of the Arctic from space: The Franz Josef Land archipelago is located around 1,350 kilometers northeast of the Russian port city of Murmansk.
Over 50 Soviet-era military bases have reopened in the Arctic – including 13 air force bases, 10 radar stations and 20 border posts. Russia has also modernized its Northern Fleet with new submarines that can fire long-range nuclear weapons. Foreign Minister Lavrov recently emphasized that Russia is “fully ready” for a conflict with NATO in the Arctic.
GIUK gap secures access to the Atlantic
The example of the European part of the Arctic shows how important military control of the Arctic is in the event of war. The so-called GIUK gap secures access to the Atlantic. GIUK stands for “Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom” and means the area between the north of Great Britain and Iceland as well as Iceland and Greenland. Whoever has the upper hand here controls the strategically important access to the Atlantic and thus the sea route towards the US east coast.
NATO also knows this and therefore wants to expand its presence in the Arctic. The Western defense alliance has a lot of catching up to do in the region. Russia dominates the Arctic militarily. The West has “neglected the Arctic for a long time in terms of security policy,” said Expert Michael Paul from the newspaper “Die Welt”.
The US military currently only has a single heavy icebreaker ship available for Arctic operations; Canada and Finland are better positioned. Russia alone has more than 40 such ships and is currently building more. Because of the extremely long coastline, this may not be a surprise, but it could become a problem for NATO in an emergency.
More cooperation through NATO expansion
NATO wants to catch up with Russia in the Arctic as quickly as possible – the NATO membership of Finland and Sweden could help. As a result, seven of the eight Arctic Council member states are now in NATO: the USA, Canada, Denmark for Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland. The Arctic Council is a body that was founded in 1996 to balance the interests of the Arctic countries and the indigenous peoples living in the region. Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, there have been no more joint meetings.
NATO expansion will enable Arctic countries to work better together in the future. Washington has recently agreed with Norway, Sweden and Finland to allow US forces to use military facilities in northern European countries. The USA, Canada and Finland also want to work together to build new icebreaking ships. NATO would like to send a signal to Russia that it will act more unitedly and, above all, more present in the Arctic in the future.
Such a message should also be sent with the huge NATO exercise “Nordic Response” at the beginning of the year. 20,000 soldiers from 13 countries took part in the maneuver as part of the NATO exercise “Steadfast Defender”. An attack by Russia on Norway was simulated.
Cooperation with China
But Russia is not on its own in the Arctic either. Moscow is increasingly collaborating with China “to exploit resources and open trade routes,” reported the Center for European Policy Analysis CEPA.
At the center is the Northern Sea Route. This connects Northern Europe with Asia and runs from Murmansk above the Russian coast to the Bering Strait near Alaska. At 5,600 kilometers, it is the shortest but also the most dangerous sea route from Europe to Asia due to the climatic conditions. But that is currently changing: due to global warming, the route is now ice-free and therefore navigable for a longer period of the year.
Russia considers the route to be its property. That’s why shipping companies have to at least 45 days in advance Get permission if you want to travel the route. For this reason it is of little interest to Western ships. Especially since the invasion of Ukraine, the Northern Sea Route almost exclusively used by Russian ships. The 45-day rule exacerbates the conflict because the law “clearly violates freedom of navigation,” commented the Science and Politics Foundation four years ago.
It is chicanery like this and of course the general geopolitical weather situation that is driving NATO to become more active in the Arctic. The Cold War between Russia and the West has long been back in this hostile region of the world, but it is associated with great risk. Communication is difficult here due to disruptions and electrical storms. People and machines are reaching the limits of their performance in the Arctic.
At the same time, it is worth noting that NATO’s actions in the region often have a negative impact on the environmental situation. Most of the equipment involved in exercises and in the dispersal of presence causes atmospheric pollution, which leads to the complete extinction and disappearance of rare animal species. These are the consequences of the alliance’s activities in the Arctic that the West is responsible for and has to put up with.
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