KEFLAVIK, ICELAND – The sun had yet to rise over Iceland as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown boarded a Navy submarine-hunting aircraft for a simulation of how the U.S. and its allies are managing the growing threat Russia poses in the Arctic.
Brown spent two days in Iceland meeting with the Arctic chiefs of defense as the group discussed the security, both physical and economic, of the Arctic. One Arctic nation not present: Russia, which has not been invited to an Arctic chiefs of defense conference since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Concerns about Russia operating in the Arctic are not new – the U.S. has had these apprehensions since the Soviet Union used submarine patrols to assert power in the North Atlantic. The difference now is that Arctic nations are dealing with an increasingly unpredictable Russian regime since President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, an Icelandic official told USNI News and The Washington Post in a recent trip to the region.
“It’s not only about the capabilities of the technology, it’s about the intention, and that’s why it’s so important to monitor the [submarine] traffic,” the official told USNI News during a mid-October visit to Iceland. “… [This is a Russia that] is willing to take much more risk, that is actually every day bombing civilians in Ukraine deliberately. And it’s the same government that’s doing that as [is] operating the submarines and the planes. So we have to be vigilant.”
Russia’s increased military activity in the Arctic, including its attempts to alter the governance in the High North, adds to the region’s challenges.
The Arctic is a major concern for U.S. Fleet Forces commander Adm. Daryl Caudle, partially due to the U.S. military’s lack of search and rescue abilities, the expansion of commercial and military ships operating in the Arctic as ice melts and China’s assertion that it is an Arctic nation.
Russia is an Arctic nation that’s so vast its northern border makes up 40 percent of the Arctic coastline. Russia wants to make Arctic waters its own, Caudle told USNI News, similar to what China has done in the South China Sea.
“Additionally, the ‘High North’ remains the first line of defense in our ability to conduct full spectrum maritime homeland defense, which starts above the Arctic Circle,” Caudle wrote in an email to USNI News.
Iceland is a connection between the Artic countries of North America and those in Europe, Icelandic Minister of Foreign Affairs Thórdís Kolbrún Reykfjörd Gylfadóttir told USNI News. The U.S. and Iceland have had a long-standing relationship, one that Iceland values, Gylfadóttir said. Iceland is a key base for the U.S. to track Russian submarines from both the land and the sea, she said. Although Iceland does not have a military, it can provide air monitoring while relying on the U.S. for undersea surveillance. The U.S. also has a cohort of service members deployed to Keflavik Air Base who operate P-8A Poseidon flights in the North Atlantic.
Tracking submarines in the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Gap — a maritime chokehold due to the harsh northern waters between the countries — peaked during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. It picked up again in 2014, following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the Icelandic minister of foreign affairs said. Those Arctic assets are increasingly active as the war in Ukraine continues.
“We see, and we know that they are quite strong in that regard. And that must worry us,” Gylfadóttir said.
Russia’s Arctic Intentions
Russia considers the Arctic its number one maritime priority, surpassing the Atlantic, Former U.S. 2nd Fleet commander Vice Adm. Dan Dwyer said during a Navy League conference last year.
Moscow is, “prioritizing the Arctic as its most important maritime direction, pledging to protect these waters ‘by all means.’ This includes increasing attention on the Arctic littorals as well as the introduction of new missile capabilities,” he said.
That includes operating six dual-use military bases, a dozen airfields and a fleet of at least 40 icebreakers.
The emphasis on the Arctic is not only military but increasingly economic, experts have told USNI News.
Moscow sees the Arctic as a strategic source of energy and natural resources, and the Kremlin wants to continue its scientific research in the area, Senior Associate at the Arctic Institute Pavel Devyatkin recently told USNI News last week.
Russia also wants to manage the Northern Sea Route’s shipping lanes and protect both its economic and security interests in the region through military presence. Recently, Moscow added a fifth component about the Indigenous people in the region.
Russia’s military presence in the Arctic peaked during the Soviet era and new increases to defense spending have expanded operations in the region, though it’s still far below the Cold War peak, Devyatkin said.
Russia’s stance on the Arctic, in terms of its 2023 defense strategy, is more domestic rather than valuing international cooperation, Devyatkin wrote in a co-authored with Nikita Lipunov piece for the Arctic Institute.
Last year Russia revised its Arctic 2035 policy taking a page out of China’s South China Sea playbook. In the 2023 revision to Arctic 2025, the Kremlin emphasized its own national interest in the region and rather than working with the Arctic Council, it would instead deal with nations bilaterally.
This comes as the other Arctic nations have shied away from working with Moscow in protest of its invasion into Ukraine. While Russia is still a member of councils that focus on economic concerns in the Arctic, Russia was not invited to the last two meetings of the Arctic defense chiefs.
Instead, Russia is looking to non-Artic partners, like China, Devyatkin said.
“The Arctic is a sensitive region for Russia as it is critical to Russia’s economic outlook. The loss of Western markets and partners has created significant problems for Arctic energy projects, but Russia will continue to make major investments in the region (led by some of the country’s largest companies) and is confident in the viability of these projects over the long term,” he said in an email to USNI News.
The Russo-Ukrainian War might lead Russian to put more emphasis on its Northern Fleet, according to an article in scientific journal Polar Science. The Black Sea Fleet, which sustained major attacks from Ukrainian forces, is essentially stuck in the Black Sea, while Moscow’s Baltic Fleet is now surrounded by mostly NATO countries.
“Based on the Kola Peninsula in the European Arctic, the Northern Fleet is the only Europe-based Russian fleet with direct access to the Atlantic Ocean – and thus to the world’s oceans,” reads the article, which notes that the Northern Fleet holds almost all of Russia’s nuclear submarines.
Arctic countries want to keep tension low in the region, Gylfadóttir said, but they also have to be prepared for more chances of miscalculation or misunderstandings that could result in military action.
The Arctic Countries Concerns
U.S. and U.K. concern about Russian submarine activity in the Arctic and North Atlantic has steadily been on the rise. In the last year, British officials have said they now routinely see Russian submarines operating around the U.K. and in the Irish Sea in higher numbers.
Gylfadóttir alluded to increased activity in monitoring Russian submarines.
“I would say that there is a good reason for the increased submarine surveillance around the island and in the region,” she said.
Last year, the nuclear attack boat Kazan, a Yasen-M-class guided missile submarine armed with long-range land attack missiles sailed for exercises in the Caribbean, USNI News reported at the time.
The capability of Russia’s modern nuclear attack boats and their ability to strike targets in Europe from the High North was a major the reason the U.S. Navy reestablished 2nd Fleet, USNI News understands.
Additionally, Moscow has developed a new breed of “Doomsday” submarine that fields a school-bus-sized torpedo with a nuclear warhead designed to attack major port cities in the Atlantic, USNI News has previously reported.
The first Project 09852 Belgorod delivered in 2022 and is assigned to Russia’s North Fleet.
The growing threats is prompting officials like Caudle to issue more warnings about the risk Russia poses in the Arctic. The Arctic can be a bit out of sight, out of mind, but Moscow does have a military presence there, and the country patrols the region using its icebreakers, submarines and aircraft, he told USNI New He pointed to the national security interests for Russia as evidence that Moscow has priorities in the High North.
For the Fleet Forces commander, this means the U.S. must increase its presence in region. That’s where carrier strike groups, like USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), come in. The U.S. also patrols the area with its own fleet of submarines.
The U.S. continues to increase its partnerships with allies, such as Iceland, he said, to bring more security and capability to the area.
Part of the strength comes from the addition of Sweden and Finland to NATO, the Icelandic official said. Now every Nordic country is part of the alliance.
But even without Sweden and Finland as official members, the countries were often part of operations due to the close relation between the Nordic countries, as well as other Arctic countries, not including, the official said.
China’s Stretch Claim
A consequence of the Arctic nations isolating of Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine is that the Kremlin is seeking partnerships with other countries, like China, Devyatkin said. He pointed to examples of Russian and Chinese warships exercising together near Alaska in 2022 and 2023 as signs of strategic cooperation between the two countries.
Over the summer, Russian and Chinese bombers conducted a joint patrol off Alaska’s coast, and more recently, Chinese Coast Guard vessels were spotted in the Arctic with the Russian Coast Guard, he said.
“From Russian policymakers’ perspective, this exercise could be seen in the interest of building ties with China and sending a signal to the Western Arctic states that Russia ‘is not alone in the Arctic,’” Devyatkin said. “However, it is unlikely that Russia would allow a permanent Chinese military presence in the Arctic to rival its own defensive complex in the region.”
China aims to be a near Arctic country, despite not having a physical border in the region. Beijing expanded its research, with its coast guard operating in the Bering Sea at the beginning of October, USNI News previously reported.
The growing cooperation between China and Russia is a concern for Iceland, the official said.
While the country has diplomatic ties with China, Iceland is still concerned about Beijing’s actions as they relate to the global rules-based order, Gylfadóttir said. Even though Iceland is far from the South China Sea, Beijing’s aggression in the Western Pacific gives Iceland reason to worry, she said.
“If big states can do things that are not in line with international laws and systems in other seas that naturally should [worry] us, an island surrounded by sea,” Gylfadóttir said.
Less Ice, More Water
Beyond the threat Russia, and potentially China, can pose to the Arctic, one of the most pressing concerns is search and rescue capabilities as more traffic heads north.
“Maritime traffic through the Bering Strait and Northern Sea Route is increasing because of receding sea ice together with Russia’s changing economic factors in the wake of their invasion of Ukraine. This poses an environmental risk in a remote and inhospitable region,” reads the Coast Guard’s Operational Posture 2024 statement released last week.
Melting ice caps means more water, Vice Adm. Nathan Moore, commander of the Coast Guard’s Atlantic Area, said during a discussion at the U.S. Naval Institute last week.
“More water is what we do,” Moore said.
The Coast Guard, while not part of the Defense Department, operates America’s polar icebreakers.
For the Coast Guard, less ice in the Arctic means more potential traffic. That brings possible problems, especially because the infrastructure for search and rescue is not prepared for more ships to pass through the waters.
The problem with search and rescue in the Arctic is there is not much out there that can get to a ship quickly if there is an issue. Ice makes things difficult. So does the lack of close entities. The Coast Guard works with partners, like Iceland, to bolster what is available.
The U.S. Coast Guard has a requirement eight icebreakers to operate but has been struggling to recapitalize its fleet as a new class of Polar Security Cutter has been mired in delays and cost overruns.
Although Iceland does not have a military, it does have a coast guard, which contributes to search and rescue operations, Gylfadóttir said. Safety precautions are important for anyone traveling in the Arctic, the Icelandic official said, adding that depending on weather, rescues could take days.
Canada also has a role in search and rescue, as does Finland, which owns a large fleet of icebreakers relative to the size of the country, Moore said.
The lack of search and rescue ability from the U.S. means the U.S. Navy will not participate in exercises, in general, above the polar ice cap, Caudle said. Search and rescue capabilities are a concern for all Arctic nations, especially as the chance of increased commercial traffic rises as the amount of ice lessens.
“Something bad’s going to happen in the Arctic,” Moore said.