The Arctic: a frosty theatre in the new cold war

Thousands of miles north of the Ukrainian frontline, the winds of a new cold war are howling in the Arctic.

This week, Russia began “Safe Arctic 2023”, a series of military drills in partnership with nine African and Latin American nations to test Russian-manufactured equipment and clothing in sub-zero conditions.

It follows Norway hosting NATO’s biggest Arctic military exercise in 30 years earlier this month. Member states assembled an armada of submarines, fighter jets, amphibious transport ships and 20,000 troops to gameplay a simulated invasion. The theoretical enemy didn’t need to be spelt out.

Both Russia and NATO are boosting their presence in the Arctic, a region of vital strategic importance for energy, trade and security, and a hotbed of geopolitical manoeuvring.  

Frosty theatre

There are eight nations with territory within the Arctic circle – the US, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Russia.

On one level, the stand-off is straightforward. Once Sweden and Finland join NATO, every Arctic state will be a member of the alliance, except Russia, NATO’s biggest threat.

Other powers are also sniffing around, however. China, for instance, has plans for a “polar silk road” and has invested more than $90bn in Arctic infrastructure and assets.

Climate change is raising the stakes. Arctic ice is melting at a rate of 13% a decade, opening up new transportation routes and making a wealth of natural resources easier to access. Estimates suggest the region holds around a quarter of the world’s oil and natural gas, and large quantities of valuable minerals.

The Arctic thaw is making nations’ northern frontiers increasingly vulnerable. Some US military infrastructure is built on permafrost foundations, which are melting, and the Pentagon has warned that coastal erosion could impact US radar sites.

Playing catch-up

Russian militarisation of the Arctic was well under way before the war in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin has reopened dozens of Arctic Soviet-era military bases since 2005 and built at least 475 military sites along Russia’s northern border in the past six years.

Russia has modernised its navy and assembled an impressive fleet of icebreakers. It’s pioneered Arctic-capable military drones and developed new hypersonic missiles designed to evade US sensors and defences.

Around two-thirds of Russia’s nuclear-powered vessels, including ballistic missile submarines and nuclear attack submarines, are assigned to its Northern Fleet, based in the Kola Peninsula which borders Finland and Norway. It’s no coincidence that the shortest route to North America, as the hypersonic missile flies, is across the top of the world.

NATO is playing catch-up, and it knows it. Experts believe it would take the West at least a decade to match Moscow’s military might in the Arctic. Last month, the Biden administration nominated Dr Mike Sfraga, an Alaskan geographer, to serve as the first ever ambassador-at-large for the Arctic Region.

Tangible threat

One area of particular interest is the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap, through which Russian vessels need to pass to access the Atlantic Ocean. Beyond the gap lies the nervous system of telecommunications between North America and Europe – a web of transatlantic data cables sitting on the sea floor.

Sabotaging the cables would be a tantalising prize for the Kremlin – and the risk is real. In April 2021 and January 2022 two fibre-optic undersea cables connecting the Norwegian mainland with the Svalbard Archipelago, home to the world’s largest satellite hub, were severed. “This could have happened by accident,” Norway’s defence chief, Eirik Kristoffersen, said. “But the Russians are capable of cutting cables.”

The odds of war breaking out in the Arctic right now are slim. Conditions are too hostile and the realistic gains too marginal. Yet the region’s increasing strategic importance means it could be a flashpoint triggering future conflict. Or it could be drawn into a wider confrontation. Even as war rumbles on at the edge of Europe, rival powers are keeping a close eye on the frozen wastes of the north.

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