When most people imagine future conflicts, they envision an all-out war either between the US and China or a broader war in Europe. While these are still real possibilities we must work towards preventing, the reality is that challengers to the current world order don’t necessarily need to wage an all-out conventional war to change the status quo. They simply need to identify our capability gaps and place pressure where it hurts the most. And for the moment, the Arctic region offers potential adversaries to NATO some of the greatest options to exploit weaknesses within it and to challenge allied cohesion.
Let’s be clear, it would be highly irrational to try to challenge NATO to an all-out war. With 32 member states, three of them being nuclear powers (the United States, France, and the UK), possessing a collective estimate of over 4,200 nuclear warheads, taking NATO head-on would have drastic consequences for any potential adversary. That being said, NATO is far from invulnerable, and for any power seeking to weaken its growing influence, there are options.
A more realistic approach an antagonist to NATO would take to reduce its influence is to try to find ways to diminish it from within. The keys to weakening NATO aren’t bombing strategic locations, but rather identifying vulnerabilities that, once exacerbated, threaten NATO operability, breed uncertainty, and question allied cohesion. And for the moment, the Arctic region offers one of the greatest places to accomplish this.
The Arctic has been a glaring blind spot for NATO that has only grown larger over the decades. While most within the alliance have considered the region to be peripheral, competitors such as Russia and China have been making serious, consistent, long-term investments in the region. From China’s stated ambitions and its inclusion of polar development in successive Five-Year Plans to Russia’s continued military build-up in the region, NATO’s response as a whole has been lacklustre, to say the least.
Over the past 10 years, Russia has constructed more than 475 new military installations in the High North, and China has announced sweeping new plans to help develop the new Northern Sea Route, or as they refer to it, the ‘Polar Silk Road’. Together, the Russians and Chinese have also begun conducting regular naval and aerial drills in the region, including joint nuclear-capable bombing missions off the coast of Alaska.
They have both also been working to drastically increase their access to the region through planned expansions of their icebreaking fleets. Russia possesses the world’s largest fleet of icebreakers, at around 41, eight of which are nuclear-powered, and while currently only operating five conventional ones, China has announced the start of its own nuclear icebreaker program. Contrast this with the only three icebreakers the United States currently operates, one of which is almost completely devoted to servicing the Antarctic; the capability and accessibility gaps in the region are widening.
This matters significantly. Not because the Arctic is the likely place a war will start, but because it’s the place that can be used by the adversary of NATO to help generate dilemmas that don’t have good solutions. In the case of the Arctic, Russia hosts a great deal of its nuclear deterrent with its Northern Fleet based around the Kola Peninsula. This includes several nuclear-capable submarines and missile cruisers capable of launching nuclear missiles. Now, let’s imagine a realistic scenario on why this matters.
‘The primary concern isn’t that Russia or China will strike the US with nuclear weapons from the Arctic. What matters most is visibility and access’
Realistically, while we need to be prepared, the primary concern isn’t that Russia or China will strike the US with nuclear weapons from the Arctic. What matters most is visibility and access. If Russia and China coordinate to make strategic gains in their respective regions, they can jointly exploit our current capability gaps in the Arctic to cause headaches for the US and NATO. For example, in a scenario where Russia, China, and even Iran were to decide to coordinate together, taking advantage of NATO’s capability in the Arctic, Russia could start disrupting NATO’s eyes and ears in the Arctic and their communications in the region.
Taking advantage of their superior access, Russia could begin systematically disrupting essential NATO undersea communications cables and networks while simultaneously starting massive military exercises involving its nuclear-capable submarines and other craft. Slowing communications and creating a potential blind spot in NATO’s ability to monitor Russia’s Northern Fleet would cause genuine panic, and NATO nations would be forced to divert resources to try to determine immediately where they are.
This would be especially concerning if communications and NATO eyes on the critical Greenland–Iceland–UK (GIUK) Gap were disrupted—the principal maritime gateway between Russia’s Northern Fleet and the North Atlantic. It is the very same choke point that, until recently, experienced systemic budget cuts and saw Russian submarines breach it in 2019. Then, Russia dispatched roughly 20 per cent of its submarines to take part in the exercises, forcing more than 40 NATO aerial missions and untold numbers of undersea missions to try to track and identify the Russian submarines and other naval assets that spread out through the North Atlantic. Imagine this happening again while Russia simultaneously launches a limited military operation against a NATO member, designed not to defeat the Alliance outright but to test its political cohesion and response.
In utilizing the Arctic, the goal will be to force NATO to simultaneously confront a series of coordinated crises. This will open a window for Russia, China, or any other potential adversary to begin conducting major stress tests of the alliance or pursue strategic objectives. Whether it be Iran starting a renewed Suez Canal or Strait of Hormuz crisis threatening NATO access to energy, China choosing to test the waters of the Taiwan Strait, or Russia beginning to probe NATO air defenses or wage hybrid warfare, and more.
Beyond the use of applying pressure and causing dilemmas at the worst possible time for NATO, its also important to note the increasing usage of the Northern Sea Route (NSR). With changing global temperatures opening new shipping routes in the Arctic and continued geopolitical strife at major choke points for current trade routes through the Suez and the Strait of Hormuz, Russia and China have been busy modernizing and investing in critical infrastructure to open and exploit potential new trade routes.
Meaning that Russia’s continued Arctic dominance and China’s rising influence undoubtedly give them not only significantly more military options but also very real political and economic leverage. The point should be clear: NATO cannot afford to continue to treat the Arctic as a peripheral or low-risk area. In a new study conducted by the Danube Institute, Danube researchers lay out in more detail how, if things remain the same, the Arctic can be used by competitors to try to weaken and degrade NATO while staying under the threshold of war.
‘The point should be clear: NATO cannot afford to continue to treat the Arctic as a peripheral or low-risk area’
The solution is not simply to put more troops in the Arctic. NATO needs to make the region harder to use as a source of strategic ambiguity. That means improving persistent Arctic domain awareness, expanding undersea infrastructure monitoring, strengthening allied icebreaking and logistics capabilities, and, most importantly, integrating the Arctic and North Atlantic into a more coherent strategic framework.
As geopolitical tensions continue to rise and the self-proclaimed 2027 deadline set by China to be ready and capable of invading Taiwan approaches, NATO nations now more than ever need to close the capability gaps in the Great White North. Great strides have been made, but there’s much more work to be done if we wish to deny potential adversaries any opportunities to weaponize our planet’s poles against us.
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