NATO’s northern flank has too many weak spots Analysis by Foreign Policy

Foreign Policy has published an analysis that says that key alliance members are failing to uphold their obligations in the face of Moscow’s unflagging interest in the High North. Caliber.Az reprints the article.

While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revealed significant weaknesses in Moscow’s military capacity, it has also shone an unflattering light on aspects of NATO’s strategic posture. It is incumbent upon the United States and its NATO allies to take proactive measures to plug these gaps before they are exploited by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime.

Finland’s recent NATO accession and the expected accession of Sweden have boosted the alliance’s capacity in critical competencies, including undersea warfare, signals intelligence, and artillery in the Baltic Sea region. Yet troubling deficiencies remain along NATO’s northern flank, particularly in the Arctic and near-Arctic, that reveal substantial failings by several key alliance members to uphold their obligations in the face of Moscow’s unflagging interest in the High North.

Russia has successfully exploited several factors to gain manoeuvre space in the region. There are multiple Arctic and near-Arctic islands with power-sharing relationships that leave control of national defence to a larger entity—as in the case of Svalbard (Norway), the Faroe Islands (Denmark), and Greenland (Denmark)—while permitting local governments a high degree of autonomy. In each case, Moscow has expanded its influence with far too little resistance by Oslo or Copenhagen.

In Svalbard, halfway between Norway and the North Pole, Russia has used the ambiguity of a 1920 treaty, which limits Norway’s sovereign ability to engage in traditional defence activities on the island, to grow Russia’s economic and political influence. Moscow maintains a considerable mining presence on Svalbard and has insisted that Oslo cannot enforce global sanctions on its shipments to Russian settlements there. Norway’s interpretation of its treaty obligations has permitted the growth of Russian as well as Chinese presence on a strategically vital island with considerable natural resources, including coal, zinc, copper and phosphate.

Despite the treaty affirming Norway’s “absolute sovereignty” over the island, Oslo views the treaty’s prohibition on the use of Svalbard for “warlike purposes” as severely restricting that sovereignty. However, it can be argued that, in upholding its sovereignty and NATO commitments, Oslo has an obligation to ensure compliance with international law on Svalbard, including sanctions enforcement.

The Faroe Islands, whose defence is Denmark’s responsibility, have remained host to numerous Russian fishing vessels throughout the Ukraine conflict, under a treaty between Russia and the Faroe Islands from the 1970s. Similar Russian vessels have been credibly accused of espionage and even sabotage, including of undersea cables in the North Sea. Copenhagen’s inability to intervene effectively in the matter has left its NATO partners across the alliance’s northern flank vulnerable to asymmetric Russian tactics.

Recent Faroese efforts to restrict Russian fishing vessels in the islands’ waters have maintained considerable loopholes permitting Russians to retain access. While the Foreign Policy Act of 2005 permits the Faroese considerable autonomy in foreign affairs related to issues solely within the jurisdiction of their government, a matter of this sensitivity should involve additional input from Copenhagen and coordination with larger Danish foreign-policy priorities.

Greenland has long been a zone of contention between Denmark and both Moscow and Beijing, which prize its potential natural resource wealth and strategic location astride the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Gap, the strategically critical body of water separating the North Atlantic Ocean from the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea. As Greenland’s local autonomy has grown, so has its receptivity to outside influence. Copenhagen’s decreasing authority has provided ample opportunity for great-power competition on the world’s largest island.

While Greenland’s progress toward increased autonomy seems all but inevitable, Copenhagen has an opportunity to set the parameters of the foreign-policy relationship for the coming decades by insisting on greater coordination in areas directly impacting its NATO obligations and defence prerogatives. As the relationship between Greenland and Denmark evolves, Copenhagen must draw clear lines in the international realm where its vital interests, and those of its NATO allies, are clearly at stake.

The alliance’s northern flank also suffers from the strategic neglect by Canada under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, which is currently spending roughly per cent of GDP on defence—significantly below NATO’s 2 per cent requirement. Ottawa’s ageing icebreaker fleet has long been scheduled for replacement, but the government has repeatedly failed to deliver or even specify a date for such replacement. Despite repeated warnings from within the military that Canada lacks the capabilities to contest Moscow’s remilitarization of the Arctic, Ottawa has engaged in fanciful discussions of an Indo-Pacific strategy that leaves the United States and NATO vulnerable in the Western Hemisphere.

These challenges require serious solutions across the alliance, beginning with an integrated NATO Arctic strategy that builds upon the work done by individual members (such as in the United States’ recent Arctic Strategy) to generate a shared appreciation for the challenge of defending the High North and allocating sufficient resources to do so effectively. This would likely include a unified NATO Arctic Command to appropriately funnel resources across warfare domains; coordinate joint Arctic warfare training; and take appropriate advantage of the capabilities brought to the alliance by the accession of Helsinki and soon Stockholm, including icebreaking and Arctic warfare skills.

Additionally, the United States must work with its partners in Copenhagen, Oslo, and Ottawa to encourage a more forward-leaning posture in the High North. Russia cannot be allowed to operate with near impunity in the Faroe Islands or threaten NATO’s strategic communications through its influence in Greenland or Svalbard. China, with its Polar Silk Road initiative, is deeply interested in growing its presence in the region and has preposterously declared itself a “Near Arctic State.” The United States should work both multilaterally through NATO and bilaterally with the Danes, Norwegians, and Canadians to provide the intelligence support necessary to prevent ambiguous legal statuses from threatening the alliance’s northern flank.

Many on both sides of the Atlantic are rightly celebrating NATO’s success in rallying to resist Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine, as well as in the accession of Sweden and Finland. Yet there remains much work to be done in securing the alliance’s northern flank and providing the security umbrella envisioned by the North Atlantic Treaty. With NATO’s 75th anniversary approaching next year, now is an opportune moment to reorganize to meet today’s threats.