Military Review English Edition November-December 2014 | Page 63
ARCTIC STRATEGY
Members of the Arctic Response Company Group face intense cold and prepare for a possible displacement 3 March 2014 during
Exercise Guerrier Nordique in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada.
(Photo by Cpl. Valérie Villeneuve, 35th Canadian Brigade Group)
relationship that undermines our military’s ability to
make substantial headway in developing a joint Arctic
warfare capability.
Conclusion
As Chad Briggs observed, “changing environmental
conditions … create new security risks where none
existed before.”28 He goes on to say that military threats
likewise shift, demand a new strategic focus, and, in
some extreme cases, require an entirely new tactical
approach to maneuver warfare.
The Arctic region requires just such a shift in strategic focus. The time may well be coming when countries
collide over their interests in the Arctic and sub-Arctic
regions. Although we hope for peaceful expansion of
business interests and governance into the Arctic, we
must also prudently prepare to defend national interests at the top of the world against those who would
oppose us or seek to exert control over the region. At
present, we are not prepared for such a contingency.
In the face of such a clear and plausible danger,
strategic-level leaders and planners should be aware
that despite having articulated a formal Arctic
strategy for DOD, current capabilities at the joint
tactical and operational levels do not include adequately trained and equipped ground combat units
who could perform successful Arctic operations.
Furthermore, while a small contingent of leaders and
instructors in various U.S. military units maintain a
certain depth of knowledge in Arctic operations and
the associated skills, the Army and joint community
lack the critical institutional knowledge and the
trained and experienced personnel necessary to
quickly create and employ enough units capable of
accomplishing the kinds of major operations that may
be needed in the Arctic region. As the Arctic becomes
indisputably more important and other nations with
Arctic borders move toward increased operational
capability in the region, every year of delay puts the
U.S. military at further risk of being unprepared to
defend its own interests or those of its NATO allies in
the region. As Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson
wrote in his treatise The Northward Course of Empire,
“There is no northern boundary beyond which
productive enterprise cannot go until North meets
North on opposite shores of the Arctic Ocean.”29
Capt. Nathan Fry, U.S. Army National Guard, is the intelligence officer for 3rd Battalion, 172nd Infantry Regiment
(Mountain), of the Vermont National Guard’s 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Mountain). He holds a B.A.
in Russian from Dickinson College and is currently completing his M.S. in environmental and natural resources at
the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School. Fry is also pursuing certification as an alpine, rock, and ski guide
from the International Federation of Mountain Guides Association. He led the U.S. Guerrier Nordique 2014 team
on Baffin Island.
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