As of: February 13, 2024, 4:57 a.m
By: Nana Brink
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For a long time, the North Polar region was considered an idyll in terms of security policy.
In fact, Russia is driving their militarization.
NATO reacts.
At first glance, the agreement offered nothing surprising: Norway's US ambassador Marc Nathason signed the Supplementary Defense Cooperation Agreement with the Nordic NATO partner at the beginning of February.
In addition to the four Norwegian military facilities that have already been used since 2021, the US armed forces will have access to another eight.
A closer look reveals the haste with which the USA wants to compensate for a strategic deficit in the far north.
Unlike the rest of Europe, the world's strongest military power has almost disappeared from the Arctic Circle since the Cold War.
US Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter aircraft during Northern Command Exercise Arctic Edge over Alaska (symbolic image).
© Ssgt.
Taylor Crul/US Air/Imago
Without the capabilities of the US military, little can normally be achieved, as can be seen from the current NATO exercise.
In “Steadfast Defender,” more US troops are operating on the European mainland than at any time since the fall of the Iron Curtain.
In the Arctic, however, the USA is dependent on its allies.
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The Arctic is moving into NATO’s focus
As early as December 2023, the new NATO member Finland and Sweden, which will soon be part of NATO, signed agreements similar to Norway in Washington.
Lapland, Finland's northernmost region, is a strategically important hub for U.S. military operations, with Europe's largest military training area in Rovajärvi, its Rovaniemi air base and the Ivalo border guard base.
“The Arctic is becoming more and more important, including for the USA and NATO.
The reactive deterrent measures they are now taking are only logical,” explains Michael Paul, Arctic expert at the Science and Politics Foundation (SWP).
The answer from Moscow didn't take long to arrive.
“This is fully consistent with NATO’s policy of military build-up and active engagement in the Arctic,” said Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry.
The idyllic times when the North Polar region was considered a haven of peaceful coexistence are over.
The Arctic Council, which includes the eight coastal states, has stopped its consultations since the Russian attack on Ukraine, also because Russia officially held the chairmanship from 2021 to 2023.
Although the Council, a type of intergovernmental body, was never responsible for security issues, it was used for communication.
Above all, the thread of conversation about Russia has broken.
Paved the way for confrontation
“The cooperative approach from before no longer exists,” says Carlo Masala, politics professor at the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich.
He considers the current situation to be dangerous and describes it as increasingly “competitive” between the USA and Russia: “The way for a confrontation has been paved, similar to the 1960s and 1970s.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear at the end of December : An increased presence in the Arctic is an “indisputable priority” for Russia.
The new 2022 naval strategy explains why.
Russia has a 25,000 kilometer long, almost uninhabited coastline on the Arctic Ocean, which is largely protected by an ice sheet.
Still, one would have to say.
Due to climate change, experts estimate that a largely ice-free Arctic Ocean could be a reality as early as 2035.
This makes ship passage easier and allows greater access to oil and gas reserves.
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“The North Polar region has always been of great strategic importance for Russia, this is nothing new.
Almost 50 percent of the Arctic is Russian.
“Putin’s speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007 marked the beginning of a remilitarization of the Arctic,” says SWP expert Paul.
As agreed, a few months later, Russian marine researchers spectacularly raised a flag on the seabed at the North Pole - more than four kilometers deep.
Russia claims large parts of the Arctic
What is new, however, is that Russia is laying claims to more and more areas.
At one of the last meetings of the Arctic Council in May 2021, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared that the entire Arctic is “our territory.”
Russia has been reactivating decommissioned military bases for years.
In December, Putin inaugurated two new nuclear submarines in Severodvinsk on the White Sea that can fire intercontinental ballistic missiles with a range of up to 8,000 kilometers.
They are a centerpiece of Russia's nuclear strategy.
At the end of January, the President also announced the construction of two nuclear-powered icebreakers.