As of: February 19, 2024, 5:50 a.m
From: Foreign Policy
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In the future, Russia will face seven NATO states in the Arctic.
The far north of Europe is increasingly being converted to combat readiness.
The Ukraine war caused the Scandinavian states to abandon their neutrality.
This also affects the balance of power in the Arctic.
Strategically, the Far North is extremely important for Russia because it has a large military base and extensive raw material reserves.
The confrontation is currently limited to hybrid warfare, but it doesn't have to stay that way.
This article is available for the first time in German - it was first published by
Foreign Policy
magazine on February 9, 2024 .
On January 9, 2024, Swedish Defense Minister General Micael Biden stood on a stage in Salen, Sweden, and gave a presentation that was meant to shock.
He projected a series of gruesome images from the front lines of the Ukrainian war against the backdrop of a snowy Swedish field and asked: "Do you think this could be Sweden?"
Until February 2022, these questions would have been unimaginable for a country that has pursued a careful strategy of peaceful non-alignment with NATO for 75 years.
In a 2012 speech, then-Commander-in-Chief of the Swedish Armed Forces Sverker Goranson said that Sweden “can survive for a week” in the event of an attack.
However, at the recent Society and Defense Conference in Salen, leading politicians made it clear that the time when defense was no longer the focus is over.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson urged his citizens to prepare for defense “with weapons in hand and at the risk of our lives.”
Finnish soldiers at the NATO exercise “Northern Forest”: “Steadfast Defender” also takes place in the far north.
© Jouni Porsanger/dpa
Scandinavian states end their neutrality
Among Russia's Scandinavian neighbors, the all-out invasion of Ukraine has upset the cool calculations of neutrality.
Last year, Finland became NATO's newest member, and Sweden is likely to follow soon if Hungary gives its consent.
These new northern alliances are shifting the geopolitical balance of power so that seven Arctic NATO states will soon face Russia.
And just as melting Arctic ice opens up new resources and routes for global economic competition, it also creates new vulnerabilities for defense.
Today, as Ukraine and its NATO allies corner Russia, world leaders – as well as Scandinavians themselves – are increasingly turning a concerned look north.
You ask yourself: How likely is an escalation in colder climes?
“Increasing competition and militarization in the Arctic region is concerning,” NATO Military Committee Chairman Admiral Rob Bauer said in a speech at the Arctic Circle Members’ Meeting in October 2023 in Reykjavik, Iceland.
“We must be prepared for military conflicts in the Arctic.”
The illusion of security policy stability in the Arctic
“Low tensions in the far north”: This is how world leaders and analysts have pointed to a period of relative polar stability after the Cold War.
In recent decades, bilateral and international agreements between Russia and other Arctic states have emphasized shared security in the north as well as scientific and security interests.
But after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, these agreements quickly fell apart.
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In March 2022, the Arctic Council, a forum of eight Arctic states, suspended its talks.
They cautiously resumed in May 2023, but Russia's involvement is not yet clear.
In September 2023, Russia left the smaller Euro-Arctic Barents Council with Norway, Finland and Sweden, saying the Scandinavian states had “paralyzed” cooperation.
In February 2023, Russia changed its Arctic policy and emphasized new alliances with other BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), particularly China.
This month also saw the suspension of participation in New START, the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia.
“There is this post-Cold War political idea of 'Arctic exceptionalism' that says the North is exempt from world political developments,” said Rasmus Bertelsen, holder of the Barents Chair in Politics at the Arctic University in Tromsø.
“The problem is that it was never valid.”
Putin's military strategy also includes the far north
If you look a little more closely at the last few decades, says Bertelsen, you will see a Russian Arctic strategy that is closely aligned with the global agenda.
In 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin firmly rejected a US-led post-Cold War global stability order in his speech at the Munich Security Conference.
That same year, Russia launched its first cyberattack on Estonia and made a bold territorial claim in the Arctic by planting a Russian flag on the seabed beneath the North Pole.
Putin has also brought militarization to the far north.
Since 2014, the year Russia annexed Crimea, Russia has steadily expanded its northern fleet of nuclear submarines, surface ships, missile systems, air fleets and radar stations.
Today, Russia's largest military base is located on the Kola Peninsula, which borders Norway and Finland, where new hypersonic missiles and a nuclear torpedo drone are also being tested.
Although about 80 percent of Russia's land forces have been transferred from the north of the country to Ukraine, its air and naval forces remain intact.
Russia is no longer a “constructive partner”.
“Russia previously had an interest in appearing as a constructive partner, including in the Arctic,” said Andreas Osthagen, senior fellow at the Arctic Institute in Oslo, Norway.
“Just like the rest of the world, things have gotten worse.” Russia's large-scale invasion was a wake-up call for Scandinavian neighbors who have resisted militaristic alliances for decades.
Suddenly neutrality looked a lot more like vulnerability.
Finland experienced a particularly astonishing turnaround: as recently as December 2021, 51 percent of Finns were against joining NATO.
Today, 78 percent support membership.
With this alliance comes the promise of US military power.
Both Finland and Sweden signed bilateral military agreements with the United States in 2023 that allow American personnel and weapons to be stationed at dozens of bases, including nine in the Arctic.
Norway, an active NATO member since its founding, already has several bases that admit American personnel and weapons.
Nevertheless, Norway has pursued a policy of “reassurance” since the Cold War.
It is now unclear whether this policy will last.
Close cooperation between Scandinavian states in defense policy
Since 2009, the Nordic Defense Cooperation has brought together Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland in national military policy.
In 2022, Norway, Finland and Sweden announced an agreement to strengthen the alliance with a focus on the Far North.
Today, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are in talks to formally share their air forces.
In March 2024, Norway will lead an expanded Nordic Response exercise for these nations to test their coordinated defense plans.
Michael Paul, senior fellow for security policy at the Science and Politics Foundation, said history will expose this new Nordic alliance as "one of Putin's biggest mistakes."
“If the war in Ukraine has achieved anything, it is to bring the Nordic countries into line on security issues,” Paul said.
“You want to divide your enemies, not unite them against you.”
The USA also benefits from bases in Finland and Sweden
Ferguson sees a mutual benefit in the US's Swedish and Finnish military bases: where the US has resources, it often lacks technical expertise for extreme conditions.
These smaller nations, Ferguson said, have a lot to teach the U.S. military.
And their alliance with NATO is a “game changer”.
“We now have seven of eight Arctic nations that are geopolitically connected and have very capable militaries,” Ferguson said.
“I don’t know if there is such a concentration of alignment and capabilities between nations anywhere else in the world.
Deterrence makes open conflict in the north unlikely
However, Ferguson emphasized that this is all in the name of deterrence.
And experts agree that a full-scale conflict in the north is unlikely.
Paradoxically, says Paul, Russia's sheer military capabilities and economic resources, which are increasing tensions in the Arctic, are also deterring real escalation.
In the north, Russia simply has too much to lose: its immense territorial dimensions and extensive fossil fuel resources represent an important part of its claim to identity as a global superpower. And unlike the cases of Ukraine and Crimea, Putin has never publicly considered To reclaim Finland, which declared its independence from Russia in 1917, nor has he discussed access to the Atlantic via Norway.
Paul said the Kremlin had an interest in keeping tensions in the north at a low level.
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Hybrid warfare: “instrumentalized immigration”
So far, this has meant hybrid warfare: tactics in the gray zone that are difficult to trace or attribute.
In November 2023, after a massive increase in asylum seekers led Finland to become the first neighboring country to close its border with Russia, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo described this step as “instrumentalized immigration”, that is, in retaliation for joining NATO.
Russia rejected the accusation.
At sea, potential aggression is even more difficult to track.
In April 2021 and January 2022, fiber optic cables connecting the Svalbard archipelago to mainland Norway were mysteriously interrupted.
In both cases, later vessel tracking data revealed that Russian fishing boats had repeatedly run over the cables before the damage occurred.
In October 2023, a Chinese container ship named Newnew Polar Bear damaged a Baltic gas pipeline before entering Russian waters.
According to the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, a severed anchor that likely belonged to the ship caused the damage, but experts are still debating whether the damage was intentional.
Proving malicious intent is extremely difficult and investigations are ongoing.
Russia gets away with attacks on underwater infrastructure
“This is one of the most important questions being asked right now: How can we protect against attacks on critical underwater infrastructure?” said Marisol Maddox, senior Arctic analyst at the Polar Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. So far there has not been a single case with serious consequences.
The lesson Russia is learning at this point is that it can get away with it.”
Whether intentional or not, the impact of such infrastructure damage can be widespread and long-lasting: for example, the fiber optic cable damaged in April 2021 was not discovered and repaired until November of the same year.
Fortunately, another submarine cable remained to maintain power in Svalbard.
But without that redundancy, thousands of people could have been without power for months.
In the event of an explicit conflict, Maddox said, these types of vulnerabilities are extremely worrying.
An oversight could lead to confrontation
In heavily militarized areas, mistakes can pose the greatest risk.
For Osthagen, “misjudgments and misinterpretations” are the “biggest security risk in the North Atlantic Arctic.”
In this region, both Russia and NATO regularly conduct military exercises in which they rehearse the mobilization of their armed forces and fleets.
These routine exercises are especially necessary in colder climates that require cold-resistant equipment and technology.
In particular, as Osthagen pointed out, Russia has simulated direct attacks on its neighbors, while NATO has only simulated defensive strategies.
However, they are complicated operations that often test people and procedures for the first time.
An accidentally discharged firearm or a false signal is enough to trigger a military scenario.
Normally, such exercises are clearly communicated and coordinated across borders.
But recently this communication has suffered.
“Paradoxically, after February 2022, the tension and fear of something happening increased, while the potential for dialogue disappeared,” said Osthagen.
“This is the most disturbing aspect of all.”
Putin's irrationality cannot be underestimated
And where will this war, whether hybrid or explicit, end?
In a worst-case scenario, the current war in Ukraine could end with an attack from the north.
Russia has 11 submarines capable of firing long-range nuclear weapons;
eight of them are on the Kola Peninsula.
For this reason alone, the Arctic holds particular weight for world leaders, who must consider escalation to its absolute hypothetical end.
Nevertheless, Paul emphasized that conflict in the Arctic in any form runs counter to Russia's interests and is less likely than in other parts of the world.
Still, he cautioned against assuming that Putin will behave rationally.
If he is backed into a corner because NATO is expanding and Ukrainian troops are advancing, it is impossible to know how he will respond.
But one fact remains that the Arctic nations will not easily forget: the rest of their military power is concentrated in the north.
“Putin made a big mistake in Ukraine,” Paul said.
“He could do another one in the Arctic.”
To the author
Brett Simpson
is a Fulbright Scholar in Berlin, Germany.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English in the magazine “ForeignPolicy.com” on February 9, 2024 - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.