Bombers, fighter jets and nuclear-capable submarines. Over the past year alone, analysts have documented dozens of times Russia has displayed these machines of military might in the Arctic.
NATO forces also train and operate in the region. And officials announced on Wednesday a new mission to step up the trans-Atlantic alliance’s Arctic presence against an increasingly aggressive Russia.
“It will leverage NATO’s strength to protect our territory and ensure the Arctic and High North remains secure,” said Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich of the United States, the top NATO commander in Europe.
The alliance can no longer afford to overlook the Arctic or leave its security solely to regional partners, officials have said. Warming waters have opened up new shipping lanes, and Moscow is testing NATO’s patience.
A push from Trump
Officials and experts say the new mission, called Arctic Sentry, will build up the number of troops in the so-called Cap of the North that includes parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland within the Arctic Circle.
NATO is expected to increase maritime patrols in the Norwegian Sea and then through waterways between Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom, called the GIUK Gap. That may be a testing ground for newly developed surveillance drones to see how well they can withstand harsh weather conditions.
“The Arctic has obviously risen in priority for the alliance, and the alliance is responding,” the American ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, told reporters on Tuesday.
Experts said NATO also hoped this would show President Trump that the alliance was serious about securing the Arctic without the United States needing to control Greenland as an early line of defense for the United States — a proposal that last month threatened to divide the group.
“The Arctic wasn’t really on NATO’s agenda for a long time, but that was because the Arctic allies wanted it so,” said Minna Alander, an Arctic and defense expert at the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies. She said NATO had been increasing exercises in the European Arctic for a while but added, “I don’t think that there would have been any other particular reason right now to do the Arctic Sentry if it wasn’t for Trump’s push for Greenland.”
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Threats from the Arctic
Since the start of January 2025, Russia has conducted at least 33 military maneuvers in the Arctic, about half of them training exercises, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an analysis group in Washington.
Much of Russia’s military activity in the Arctic is based in the Kola Peninsula, where Moscow keeps submarines that can carry nuclear warheads. Russia protects the submarines with coastal, naval and air patrols. That includes those at the headquarters of Russia’s Northern Fleet in Murmansk, on the Barents Sea, where warmer currents from the Atlantic Ocean keep the waters from freezing over.
A main concern among NATO military officials is that Russia could sail a nuclear-capable submarine through the Norwegian Sea and into the GIUK Gap to reach the broader Atlantic. “Then it’s game over,” Ms. Alander said. “It’s really hard to find a submarine in the Atlantic Ocean.”
Russia also engages in what officials have described as evasive “cat-and-mouse games” to smuggle illicit oil and sabotage critical energy pipelines and communication cables on the seabed.
Then there is the matter of Greenland. The shortest path for Russia or China to launch missiles against the United States is over the North Pole, Ms. Alander said. Mr. Trump has said he wants to base missile interceptors in Greenland. But experts are divided over whether that would significantly add to the current U.S. missile defense plans. China’s military generally does not sail near Greenland, although some of its commercial ships do.
NATO gears up
NATO has already increased maritime patrols in the Norwegian Sea and into the GIUK Gap, where an alliance military officer said Russian submarines and ships put Europe and North America at the most risk.
And a Nordic air force — with pilots from Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark — works together on a weekly basis, Ms. Alander said. Those countries will most likely lead the new Arctic Sentry initiative, based on their vast experience in the region, she said.
On Wednesday, Britain’s defense secretary, John Healey, was expected to announce that the number of troops the United Kingdom is deploying to Norway’s Arctic region would double, to 2,000, over the next three years. Britain is also contributing to a land force of at least 4,000 troops that is Swedish-led and based in northern Finland, and which includes France, Iceland and Italy. That force will be fully operational in the coming months.
“Demands on defense are rising, and Russia poses the greatest threat to Arctic and High North security that we have seen since the Cold War,” Mr. Healey said in a statement that pledged Britain will play a “vital part” in Arctic Sentry.
NATO, which trains in the Arctic regularly, will deploy about 25,000 troops and personnel for exercises set to begin in mid-March.
The alliance is running two other similar deterrence missions, in the Baltic Sea and Eastern Europe.
Lara Jakes, a Times reporter based in Rome, reports on conflict and diplomacy, with a focus on weapons and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. She has been a journalist for more than 30 years.
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