Cold front: Inside NATO's race to secure the Arctic

No thing where you go and who you speak with in defence circles these years, there's ace word — unity region — on the lips of most people.

The Arctic.

And it's spoken with a unique, newfound sense of urgency. 

Defending the region has become the new rallying cry for Canada and NATO writ large. 

Without question a lot of it is being driven by U.S. President Donald Trump's threats to annex Greenland from Denmark by force and his opaque security concerns that may be code for coveting critical minerals. 

To say that the Arctic — particularly Canada's North — has suffered from benign security neglect would be an understatement. 

Not even former NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg's visit to Cambridge Bay in 2022 — and his warning that the fastest, easiest way to attack the United States would be through the Arctic — was enough to fully arouse interest and urgency, both in this country and across the alliance as a whole.

With Russia's grey zone war in Europe now in full swing and Trump's now muted but still lingering threats toward Greenland, NATO is scrambling to defend the top of the world. 

It has established an initiative known as Arctic Sentry. 

A senior Canadian defence official, speaking on background, said the major tenets of the plan were drafted several years ago by the Canadian delegation at NATO in co-operation with the U.K. At a time when it was a struggle to get the alliance to focus on the Far North.

Arctic Sentry is not a mission, per se, with defined parameters and objectives. It is an evolving collection of training and surveillance activities being pulled under one umbrella. 

Who’s defending Canada’s Arctic?

From Icelandic air patrols, to emerging under-ice dangers faced by submarines, to simply surviving and fighting in the frozen wilderness, the alliance is on a learning curve and faces a number of challenges in securing its new cold front.

Simply knowing what's going on in the Arctic is one of the most pressing — and vexing — concerns. The drone and satellite images that seem to instantly flood our social media and television feeds leave the perception of near-constant surveillance.

But that is not the reality of the High North.

"In the Arctic it's quite hard to get situational awareness," said Norwegian Maj.-Gen. Frode Kristoffersen, the deputy commander of NATO Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., which is responsible for the Arctic.

"[It's] a vast area with few sensors, so situational awareness in the Arctic is an objective."

There's no sign Russia will scale down its Arctic ambitions, says Norwegian general

As much as there has been focus on Trump's Arctic ambitions, Kristoffersen said Moscow is the biggest concern. 

"Russia sees the Arctic as a key to their great power ambition," Kristoffersen said. "In the Arctic, they have built up new bases and also modernized Soviet-era bases with deepsea water ports, with airfields, and there's no sign that Russia will scale down its Arctic ambitions." 

Kristoffersen made the remarks while witnessing the late winter deployment of the Swedish Air Force in Iceland where the Nordic nation — a new alliance member — was leading NATO's air policing mission.

Maintaining surveillance over the Greenland/Iceland/U.K. Gap — a critical gateway to the North Atlantic — has long been a challenge. It is the line Russian ballistic missile submarines and strategic bombers must cross in order to get to North America.

"The main threat here is Russian long-range bombers," Lt.-Col. Johan Legardt, who was the Swedish air detachment commander and current flight commander of the F-7 Wing fighter division. 

Despite Trump's claim that the Arctic around Greenland was teeming with Russians and Chinese, the Swedes found it less busy than policing their own backyard over the Baltic. They conducted fewer so-called Alpha scrambles — or high-priority missions — during their deployment, which ended in mid-March.

"According to our intel guys, there has been no increased Russian air activity in the area," Legardt said.

A recent report by the Center for European Policy Analysis noted how NATO is behind both Russia and China in developing drones capable of flying and fighting in the Arctic. 

Surveillance is not the only challenge NATO faces.

Being able to conduct modern ground combat operations in such harsh conditions is a major preoccupation of military planners and trainers. 

"The Russians, they're more capable, they are more organized than some of the traditional adversaries that we've faced over the last few years," said Lt.-Col. Robert Girouard, the commanding officer of the Canadian Special Operations Regiment, which took part in NATO's recently concluded Cold Response exercise in northern Norway and Finland.

More than 30,000 allied troops, aircrew, sailors and civilians took part in the biennial drill, which aims to practise reinforcing northern Europe in the event of open conflict with Russia.

In Bardufoss, a little slice of Norway above the Arctic Circle, German and Norwegian troops and U.S. Marines waded through hip-deep snow, learning the challenges and limitations of the modern battlefield.

During the exercise, Canadian commandos were dropped far behind enemy lines and Girouard said it was a new experience, even for troops versed in Canada's Far North.

"From a Canadian perspective, our Arctic is completely different," Girourard said. "It's much colder. There's a lot of additional challenges in our own Arctic."

Finding ways to keep gear operating — especially delicate electronics — proved to be among the most eye-opening of issues.

"When you get down to some of the temperatures like we have in our Arctic, some of these technologies are very difficult to operate," Girouard said.

"Batteries just don't last as long … a commercial off-the-shelf drone like you saw today might be able to operate for 30 minutes in kind of more humid weather or warm weather. But in the cold, that might drop down to under 10."

The other major takeaway for Canadian troops was the difference in scale. Canada's Arctic territory is vast and just getting anywhere is a challenge, whereas the battlefield in northern Europe — and the distances involved — were more compressed.

Canada's Far North covers nearly four million square kilometres, including 36,563 islands, increasing the surveillance and mobility challenges.

The dilemma of distance is one of the reasons why the federal government recently chose to invest $35 billion in Arctic infrastructure — expanding old bases and building new ones.

The Canadian military's operations commander, Lt.-Gen. Steve Boivin, said the larger northern footprint will allow for more exercises and more presence.

One of the biggest fears of allied planners is that adversaries — operating submarines or surface ships — in the Arctic could launch missiles or drones to attack targets in the south — using the Far North as a thoroughfare.

The federal government has begun to invest in a $6-billion Arctic over-the-horizon radar system, but it still needs a presence on — and under — the water in the region.

A program to buy modern submarines, capable of operating under the ice, has been accelerated, but the commander of the navy said planners will have to develop a concept of operations and procedures to do it safely.

The first new boats are not scheduled to be delivered until the early 2030s. Even still, Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee said they will need specialized equipment for under-ice operations.

Defending distant, unsurveyed Arctic 'more complicated,' top naval commander says

"The first thing you need to do is you need an upward-looking sonar to be able to see the ice because the ice is a hazard to the submarine just as much as the bottom is," said Topshee.

Both the U.S. And the U.K. Have extensive experience operating nuclear-powered boats under the ice of the Arctic and have a lot to teach Canadians, but Topshee said one of the biggest challenges they all face is climate change and how melting ice makes underwater navigation more difficult.

"It's always a difficult and dangerous environment because it's distant, it's not very well surveyed and everything else," said Topshee. "So is it more dangerous? It's more complicated. You have to be more careful."

Senior reporter, defence and security

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