[rad-green] The Arctic: World War III’s Newes t Battlefield -- U.S. troops head for the far north.

*https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/02/10/arctic-world-war-iiis-newest-battlefield
<https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/02/10/arctic-world-war-iiis-newest-battlefield>TomDispatch
        February 10, 2020*





*The Arctic: World War III’s Newest BattlefieldU.S. troops head for the far
north.by Michael Klare*

[image: Unbeknownst to most Americans, the Finnmark region of Norway and
adjacent Russian territory have become one of the most likely battlegrounds
for the first use of nuclear weapons in any future NATO-Russian conflict.
(Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images)]

*Unbeknownst to most Americans, the Finnmark region of Norway and adjacent
Russian territory have become one of the most likely battlegrounds for the
first use of nuclear weapons in any future NATO-Russian conflict. (Photo:
Mario Tama/Getty Images)*

In early March, an estimated 7,500 American combat troops will travel to
Norway to join thousands of soldiers from other NATO countries in a massive
mock battle with imagined invading forces from Russia. In this futuristic
simulated engagement—it goes by the name of Exercise Cold Response
2020—allied forces will “conduct multinational joint exercises with a
high-intensity combat scenario in demanding winter conditions,"or so claims
<https://forsvaret.no/en/exercise-and-operations/exercises/cold-response> the
Norwegian military anyway. At first glance, this may look like any other
NATO training exercise, but think again. There’s nothing ordinary about
Cold Response 2020. As a start, it’s being staged above the Arctic Circle,
far from any previous traditional NATO battlefield, and it raises to a new
level the possibility of a great-power conflict that might end in a nuclear
exchange and mutual annihilation. Welcome, in other words, to World War
III’s newest battlefield.

For the soldiers participating in the exercise, the potentially
thermonuclear dimensions of Cold Response 2020 may not be obvious. At its
start, Marines from the United States and the United Kingdom will practice
massive amphibious landings along Norway’s coastline, much as they do in
similar exercises elsewhere in the world. Once ashore, however, the
scenario becomes ever more distinctive. After collecting tanks and other
heavy weaponry “prepositioned
<https://www.stripes.com/news/a-cave-in-cold-hell-has-everything-a-marine-brigade-needs-to-fight-1.510256>"in
caves in Norway’s interior, the Marines will proceed toward the country’s
far-northern Finnmark region to help Norwegian forces stave off Russian
forces supposedly pouring across the border. From then on, the two sides
will engage in—to use current Pentagon terminology—high-intensity combat
operations under Arctic conditions (a type of warfare not seen on such a
scale since World War II).

And that’s just the beginning. Unbeknownst to most Americans, the Finnmark
region of Norway and adjacent Russian territory have become one of the most
likely battlegrounds for the first use of nuclear weapons in any future
NATO-Russian conflict. Because Moscow has concentrated
<https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/150826_Conley_NewIceCurtain_Web.pdf>
a
significant part of its nuclear retaliatory capability on the Kola
Peninsula, a remote stretch of land abutting northern Norway—any U.S.-NATO
success in actualcombat with Russian forces near that territory would
endanger a significant part of Russia’s nuclear arsenal and so might
precipitate the early use of such munitions. Even a simulated victory—the
predictable result of Cold Response 2020—will undoubtedly set Russia’s
nuclear controllers on edge.

To appreciate just how risky any NATO-Russian clash in Norway’s far north
would be, consider the region’s geography and the strategic factors that
have led Russia to concentrate so much military power there. And all of
this, by the way, will be playing out in the context of another existential
danger: climate change. The melting of the Arctic ice cap and the accelerated
exploitation
<https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805091262/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20> of
Arctic resources are lending this area ever greater strategic significance.

Energy Extraction in the Far North

Look at any map of Europe and you’ll note that Scandinavia widens as it
heads southward into the most heavily populated parts of Denmark, Finland,
Norway, and Sweden. As you head north, however, it narrows and becomes ever
less populated. At its extreme northern reaches, only a thin band of Norway
juts east to touch Russia’s Kola Peninsula. To the north, the Barents Sea,
an offshoot of the Arctic Ocean, bounds them both. This remote
region—approximately 800 miles from Oslo and 900 miles from Moscow—has, in
recent years, become a vortex of economic and military activity.

Once prized as a source of vital minerals, especially nickel, iron ore, and
phosphates, this remote area is now the center of extensive oil and natural
gas extraction. With temperatures rising in the Arctic twice as fast
<https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2018/12/12/NOAA-Arctic-warming-at-twice-the-rate-of-the-rest-of-the-planet/5141544580754/>
as
anywhere else on the planet and sea ice retreating
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-19/arctic-summer-melt-shows-ice-is-disappearing-faster-than-normal>
ever
farther north every year, offshore fossil-fuel exploration has become
increasingly viable. As a result, large reserves of oil and natural gas—the
very fuels whose combustion is responsible for those rising
temperatures—have been discovered beneath the Barents Sea and both
countries are seeking to exploit those deposits. Norway has taken the lead
<https://www.eia.gov/international/content/analysis/countries_long/Norway/archive/pdf/norway_2016.pdf>,
establishing at Hammerfest in Finnmark the world’s first plant above the
Arctic Circle to export liquified natural gas. In a similar fashion, Russia
has initiated efforts to exploit the mammoth Shtokman gas field
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtokman_field> in its sector of the Barents
Sea, though it has yet to bring such plans to fruition.

For Russia, even more significant oil and gas prospects lie further east in
the Kara and Pechora Seas and on the Yamal Peninsula, a slender extension
of Siberia. Its energy companies have, in fact, already begun
<https://www.eia.gov/international/content/analysis/countries_long/Russia/russia.pdf>
producing
oil at the Prirazlomnoye field in the Pechora Sea and the Novoportovskoye
field on that peninsula (and natural gas there as well). Such fields hold
great promise for Russia, which exhibits all the characteristics of a
petro-state
<https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195398637/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>, but
there’s one huge problem: the only practical way to get that output to
market is via specially-designed icebreaker-tankers
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-09/russia-is-building-320-million-icebreakers-to-carve-new-arctic-routes>
sent
through the Barents Sea past northern Norway.

The exploitation of Arctic oil and gas resources and their transport to
markets in Europe and Asia has become a major economic priority for Moscow
as its hydrocarbon reserves below the Arctic Circle begin to dry up.
Despite calls at home for greater economic diversity, President Vladimir
Putin’s regime continues to insist on the centrality of hydrocarbon
production to the country’s economic future. In that context, production in
the Arctic has become an essential national objective
<https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/150826_Conley_NewIceCurtain_Web.pdf>,
which, in turn, requires assured access to the Atlantic Ocean via the
Barents Sea and Norway’s offshore waters. Think of that waterway as vital
to Russia’s energy economy in the way the Strait of Hormuz
<https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/special-topics/World_Oil_Transit_Chokepoints>,
connecting the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean, is to the Saudis and other
regional fossil-fuel producers.

The Military Dimension

No less than Russia's giant energy firms, its navy must be able to enter
the Atlantic via the Barents Sea and northern Norway. Aside from its Baltic
and Black Sea ports, accessible to the Atlantic only via passageways easily
obstructed by NATO, the sole Russian harbor with unfettered access to the
Atlantic Ocean is at Murmansk <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murmansk> on
the Kola Peninsula. Not surprisingly then, that port is also the
headquarters for Russia’s Northern Fleet—its most powerful—and the site of
numerous air, infantry, missile, and radar bases along with naval shipyards
and nuclear reactors. In other words, it’s among the most sensitive
military regions in Russia today.

Given all this, President Putin has substantially rebuilt
<https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/150826_Conley_NewIceCurtain_Web.pdf>
that
very fleet, which fell into disrepair after the collapse of the Soviet
Union, equipping it with some of the country’s most advanced warships. In
2018, according to *The Military Balance*, a publication of the International
Institute for Strategic Studies <https://www.iiss.org/>, it already
possessed the largest number of modern cruisers and destroyers (10) of any
Russian fleet, along with 22 attack submarines and numerous support
vessels. Also in the Murmansk area are dozens of advanced MiG fighter
planes and a wide assortment of anti-aircraft defense systems. Finally, as
2019 ended, Russian military officials indicated
<https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/security/2019/12/russias-top-general-indirectly-confirms-arctic-deployment-unstoppable-missile>
for
the first time that they had deployed to the Arctic the Kinzhal
air-launched ballistic missile, a weapon capable of hypersonic velocities
(more than five times the speed of sound), again presumably to a base in
the Murmansk region just 125 miles from Norway’s Finnmark, the site of the
upcoming NATO exercise.

More significant yet is the way Moscow has been strengthening its nuclear
forces in the region. Like the United States, Russia maintains a “triad"of
nuclear delivery systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles
(ICBMs), long-range “heavy"bombers, and submarine-launched ballistic
missiles (SLBMs). Under the terms of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
<https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/NewSTART> (New START), signed by
the two countries in 2010, the Russians can deploy no more than 700
delivery systems capable of carrying no more than 1,550 warheads. (That
pact will, however, expire in February 2021 unless the two sides agree to
an extension, which appears increasingly unlikely
<https://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176491/tomgram%3A_james_carroll%2C_entering_the_second_nuclear_age/>
in
the age of Trump.) According to the Arms Control Association, the Russians
are currently believed
<https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Russian-Strategic-Nuclear-Forces-Under-New-START>
to
be deploying the warheads they are allowed under New START on 66 heavy
bombers, 286 ICBMs, and 12 submarines with 160 SLBMs. Eight of those
nuclear-armed subs are, in fact, assigned to the Northern Fleet, which
means about 110 missiles with as many as 500 warheads—the exact numbers
remain shrouded in secrecy—are deployed in the Murmansk area.

For Russian nuclear strategists, such nuclear-armed submarines are
considered the most “survivable"of the country’s retaliatory systems. In
the event of a nuclear exchange with the United States, the country’s heavy
bombers and ICBMs could prove relatively vulnerable to pre-emptive strikes
as their locations are known and can be targeted by American bombs and
missiles with near-pinpoint accuracy. Those subs, however, can leave
Murmansk and disappear into the wide Atlantic Ocean at the onset of any
crisis and so presumably remain hidden from U.S. spying eyes. To do so,
however, requires that they pass through the Barents Sea, avoiding the NATO
forces lurking
<https://www.stripes.com/news/navy-and-allies-conduct-anti-submarine-drill-in-north-atlantic-1.535716>
nearby.
For Moscow, in other words, the very possibility of deterring a U.S.
nuclear strike hinges on
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/world/europe/arctic-norway-russia-radar.html>
its
ability to defend its naval stronghold in Murmansk, while maneuvering its
submarines past Norway’s Finnmark region. No wonder, then, that this area
has assumed enormous strategic importance for Russian military planners—and
the upcoming Cold Response 2020 is sure to prove challenging to them.

Washington’s Arctic Buildup

During the Cold War era, Washington viewed the Arctic as a significant
strategic arena and constructed a string of military bases across the
region. Their main aim: to intercept Soviet bombers and missiles crossing
the North Pole on their way to targets in North America. After the Soviet
Union imploded in 1991, Washington abandoned many of those bases. Now,
however, with the Pentagon once again identifying
<https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf>
“great
power competition"with Russia and China as the defining characteristic of
the present strategic environment, many of those bases are being reoccupied
<https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/cast-off-by-the-united-states-a-decade-ago-keflavik-is-again-a-key-lookout/>
and
new ones established. Once again, the Arctic is being viewed as a potential
site of conflict with Russia and, as a result, U.S. forces are being
readied for possible combat there.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was the first official to explain this new
strategic outlook at the Arctic Forum in Finland last May. In his address,
a kind of “Pompeo Doctrine <https://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176603/>,"he
indicated that the United States was shifting from benign neglect of the
region to aggressive involvement and militarization. “We’re entering a new
age of strategic engagement in the Arctic,"he insisted
<https://www.state.gov/looking-north-sharpening-americas-arctic-focus/>,
“complete with new threats to the Arctic and its real estate, and to all of
our interests in that region."To better protect those interests against
Russia’s military buildup there, “we are fortifying America’s security and
diplomatic presence in the area... hosting military exercises,
strengthening our force presence, rebuilding our icebreaker fleet,
expanding Coast Guard funding, and creating a new senior military post for
Arctic Affairs inside of our own military.”

The Pentagon has been unwilling to provide many details, but a close
reading of the military press suggests that this activity has been
particularly focused on northern Norway and adjacent waters. To begin with,
the Marine Corps has established a permanent presence in that country, the
first time foreign forces have been stationed there since German troops
occupied it during World War II. A detachment of about 330 Marines were
initially deployed
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-norway-us-russia/norway-to-invite-more-u-s-marines-for-longer-and-closer-to-russia-idUSKBN1J8149>
near
the port of Trondheim in 2017, presumably to help guard nearby caves that
contain hundreds of U.S. tanks and combat vehicles. Two years later, a
similarly sized group was then dispatched
<https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-military/2019/03/29/new-marine-rotation-arrives-in-norway-as-corps-preps-for-a-cold-weather-fight/>
to
the Troms region above the Arctic Circle and far closer to the Russian
border.

From the Russian perspective, even more threatening is the construction of
a U.S. radar station on the Norwegian island of Vardø about 40 miles from
the Kola Peninsula. To be operated in conjunction with the Norwegian
intelligence service, the focus
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/world/europe/arctic-norway-russia-radar.html>
of
the facility will evidently be to snoop on those Russian missile-carrying
submarines, assumedly in order to target them and take them out in the
earliest stages of any conflict. That Moscow fears just such an outcome is
evident from the mock attack
<https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/early-2018-11-russian-bombers-flew-mock-attack-norwegian-radar-site-44647>
it
staged on the Vardø facility in 2018, sending 11 Su-24 supersonic bombers
on a direct path toward the island. (They turned aside at the last moment.)
It has also moved
<https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/security/2019/08/russia-deploys-bastion-missile-system-70-km-norways-vardo-radar>
a
surface-to-surface missile battery to a spot just 40 miles from Vardø.

In addition, in August 2018, the U.S. Navy decided to reactivate the
previously decommissioned Second Fleet in the North Atlantic. “A new Second
Fleet increases our strategic flexibility to respond—from the Eastern
Seaboard to the Barents Sea,"said
<https://news.usni.org/2018/08/24/cno-new-2nd-fleet-boundary-will-extend-north-edge-russian-waters>
Chief
of Naval Operations John Richardson at the time. As last year ended, that
fleet was declared fully operational.

Deciphering Cold Response 2020

Exercise Cold Response 2020 must be viewed in the context of all these
developments. Few details about the thinking behind the upcoming war games
have been made public, but it’s not hard to imagine what at least part of
the scenario might be like: a U.S.-Russian clash of some sort leading to
Russian attacks aimed at seizing that radar station at Vardø and Norway’s
defense headquarters at Bodø on the country’s northwestern coast. The
invading troops will be slowed but not stopped by Norwegian forces (and
those U.S. Marines stationedin the area), while thousands of reinforcements
from NATO bases elsewhere in Europe begin to pour in. Eventually, of
course, the tide will turn and the Russians will be forced back.

No matter what the official scenario is like, however, for Pentagon
planners the situation will go far beyond this. Any Russian assault on
critical Norwegian military facilities would presumably be preceded by
intense air and missile bombardment and the forward deployment of major
naval vessels. This, in turn, would prompt comparable moves by the U.S. and
NATO, probably resulting in violent encounters and the loss of major assets
on all sides. In the process, Russia’s key nuclear retaliatory forces would
be at risk and quickly placed on high alert with senior officers operating
in hair-trigger mode. Any misstep might then lead to what humanity has
feared since August 1945: a nuclear apocalypse on Planet Earth.

There is no way to know to what degree such considerations are incorporated
into the classified versions of the Cold Response 2020 scenario, but it’s
unlikely that they’re missing. Indeed, a 2016 version
<https://www.stratcom.mil/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/983856/b-52s-deploy-in-support-of-exercise-cold-response/>
of
the exercise involved the participation of three B-52 nuclear bombers from
the U.S. Strategic Air Command, indicating that the American military is
keenly aware of the escalatory risks of any large-scale U.S.-Russian
encounter in the Arctic.

In short, what might otherwise seem like a routine training exercise in a
distant part of the world is actually part of an emerging U.S. strategy to
overpower Russia in a critical defensive zone, an approach that could
easily result in nuclear war. The Russians are, of course, well aware of
this and so will undoubtedly be watching Cold Response 2020 with genuine
trepidation. Their fears are understandable—but we should all be concerned
about a strategy that seemingly embodies such a high risk of future
escalation.

Ever since the Soviets acquired nuclear weapons of their own in 1949,
strategists have wondered how and where an all-out nuclear war—World War
III—would break out. At one time, that incendiary scenario was believed
most likely to involve a clash over the divided city of Berlin or along the
East-West border in Germany. After the Cold War, however, fears of such a
deadly encounter evaporated and few gave much thought to such
possibilities. Looking forward today, however, the prospect of a
catastrophic World War III is again becoming all too imaginable and this
time, it appears, an incident in the Arctic could prove the spark for
Armageddon.

*Michael T. Klare <http://www.commondreams.org/author/michael-klare>,
a TomDispatch regular <http://www.tomdispatch.com/>, is a professor of
peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most
recently, of The Race for What’s Left
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250023971/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>. A
documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from the
Media Education Foundation. Follow him on Twitter at @mklare1
<https://twitter.com/mklare1>.*

-- 

--- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sid-l" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected].
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sid-l/CACKppcxdsDu6PUPyL-t5k03MdzufhxggD8-74L9UonXV_x9k4w%40mail.gmail.com.

---
To unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]>
List help: <https://riseup.net/lists>