NATO Arctic Security: Increased Focus and Strategy

Several European NATO countries want to participate in the defense and monitoring of the northern regions.

Updated on Thursday 12 February at 21:33

– Russia is still the biggest threat in the north, says Defense Minister Tore O Sandvik (Ap) to VG.

– The Kola Peninsula is becoming more important for Russia, which is renewing its fleet of submarines and testing new weapons in the northern regions. Great Britain, Germany and France are helping to take greater responsibility for the Arctic, says Defense Minister Tore O Sandvik (Ap) to VG.

The US’s appetite for taking over Greenland is one of several explanations why it has become easier to mobilize European interest in participating in the northern regions.

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre (Ap) said in the Storting on Thursday that the Greenland ambitions of the US president are the most demanding issue in the transatlantic relationship “for a long time”.

New mission

This week NATO’s military leaders have launched the new mission, which has been named Arctic Sentry.

Sweden has announced that it will send its Jas Gripen fighter jets to patrol around Greenland.

When asked what is Norway’s contribution to Arctic Sentry, Sandvik says that it is essentially everything that the Norwegian defense forces are now doing in northern Norway.

– For Norway, it is about security in the north, what the Norwegian Armed Forces do every single day through presence and surveillance.

Arctic Sentry is to be led from NATO’s main command for the North Atlantic in the American city of Norfolk.

Increases

Last summer, Støre told VG about how the USA and the NATO countries in Northern Europe agreed to take security in the Arctic more seriously.

On Thursday, Tore O. Sandvik met the other NATO defense ministers in Brussels. He says that both Great Britain, France and Germany will use more of their military resources in the north.

– We are entering into a major defense agreement with Germany. Much will be about control in space, he says.

On Wednesday, British Defense Minister John Healey announced that he will double the number of soldiers who will train in northern Norway, from 1,000 to 2,000.

Apart from the host country Norway, France is now the NATO country that participates with the most soldiers in the exercise Cold Response, which starts in Troms in March with 25,000 soldiers. The US has previously enlisted 4,000 soldiers.