The United States is looking to boost intelligence collection in the Arctic and enhance cooperation with allies in the region, to prevent Russia and China from exploiting the cold and icy northern region at America’s expense.
The mandate, part of the Pentagon’s just-released 2024 Arctic Strategy, comes as U.S. defense officials warn climate change is melting Arctic ice that used to keep adversaries at bay, and there are indications of growing Russian-Chinese cooperation in the region.
“In the Arctic, the strategic can quickly become tactical,” said Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, briefing reporters at the Pentagon.
“Ensuring that our troops have the training, the gear and the operating procedures for the unique Arctic environment [may] be the difference between mission success and failure,” she added.
The newly unveiled strategy calls for expanding the types of surveillance and intelligence capabilities that the U.S. military employs elsewhere in the world to the far north, where frigid temperatures can interfere with their operation.
Specifically, the strategy outlines the need for more ground-based sensors, space-based sensors and long-range radar to better pick up on activity by U.S. adversaries.
The U.S. is also looking to increase its unmanned aerial reconnaissance capabilities and its communication capabilities.
Hicks said the U.S. has already invested tens of millions of dollars in such capabilities, but that more is needed.
“The Arctic’s vast distances, especially in North America, make supporting infrastructure vital for Arctic operations and presence,” according to the new strategy. “However, much of the legacy Cold War-era infrastructure has declined over time due to the harsh environment, lack of investment, and climate change-driven permafrost thawing and coastal erosion.”
One bonus for the new Arctic strategy, according to U.S. defense officials, is the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO, which means every Arctic nation except for Russia is now part of the Western alliance.
U.S. officials have repeatedly praised Swedish and Finnish capabilities in the Arctic, and the strategy envisions additional joint exercises and cooperation, which could be required to counter an uptick in Russian and Chinese activities in the region.
“It's very noticeable and concerning,” Hicks said.
“The Russians, of course, have, even as they've continued their operation, their war in in Ukraine, they've been continuing to invest in their infrastructure throughout the Arctic region that they can access,” she said. “And then we've seen much more PRC [People’s Republic of China] activity, both in terms of so-called research, but because of their civil fusion, we always have concern that there's a military aspect to that.”
There have also been signs of increased cooperation between Russia and China.
The two countries conducted a joint naval patrol near Alaska’s Aleutian Islands last August, prompting the U.S. to deploy four naval destroyers and patrol aircraft as a precaution.
But Iris Ferguson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Arctic, told reporters Monday that those types of Russian and Chinese efforts are just the tip of the iceberg.
“We've seen an uptick, an uptick in their cooperation over the last couple of years,” Ferguson said. “We see China investing in a lot of Russian energy in order to not only have them supply that energy to the PRC, but also that is helping embolden some of Russia's activity in Ukraine.”
Ferguson sought not to overplay the threat, saying Russian-Chinese cooperation in the Arctic is “somewhat superficial in nature still, especially from a military perspective.”
However, Pentagon officials expect the Russian-Chinese military relationship to evolve, noting the growing level of Chinese military research in the Arctic and Beijing’s attempts to “internationalize” and influence the region as a whole.
“We see them operating more regularly in the last several years from a military perspective. Even just a couple of weeks ago, there were several Chinese warships off of the coast of Alaska,” Ferguson said. “They are our long-term pacing challenge and I think that that includes in the Arctic.”
The Russian and Chinese embassies in Washington have yet to respond to requests for comment.
