The hard, cold reality of Arctic warfare

The U.S. could learn a lot from its Nordic allies about projecting military power in the Arctic, where the cold wreaks havoc on the high-tech tools American forces rely on elsewhere.

That process is already underway, as the U.S. works out details with Denmark and Greenland on a security deal aimed at countering Russian and Chinese influence above the Arctic Circle.

“I think it’s pretty well agreed to. They want us to do it,” President Trump told reporters Saturday night aboard Air Force 1. “From a national security point of view, a very, very important deal.”

Once an agreement is reached, the U.S. is set to take a more prominent role in defending the icy island, where extreme conditions can limit or render useless some key tools in the American arsenal, including drones.

“Technical equipment simply freezes,” said Minna Alander, a military analyst and fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis and the Stockholm Free World Forum. Ms. Alander said during a recent briefing on the military buildup in the north that there are unique challenges in the extreme cold. Even uncrewed systems are stressed to the breaking point.

“Battery life is way shorter,” she said. “Engines can freeze if you don’t have specific equipment to stop that from happening. Fuel can even freeze.”

Extended periods of darkness also create more power demands, and as batteries in all manner of military technology have become critical, they’ve become a weakness in the Arctic.

“This is one of the critical technical questions that developers need to answer and address when it comes to using and developing Arctic-capable drones,” said Federico Borsari, also a CEPA fellow.

“Battery capacity dropped from 100% to as low as 20% in a matter of a few minutes, given the very harsh, very cold temperatures. And this was a training exercise in Germany, for instance, not even in the Arctic. So you can imagine how fast the battery goes down in these regions.”

While now-proven drone systems revolutionized warfare, even on the frigid winterscapes of Ukraine, their usefulness is limited by the harsher conditions in Greenland. The Arctic will require new technological developments for equipment to work.

Drones with exposed motors, propellers and sensors are susceptible to icing over.

While NATO and other allies look to use uncrewed systems to detect threats in the Arctic, there is a fundamental physics problem at work at subfreezing temperatures that is difficult to overcome, experts say.

From Washington to the capitals of Europe, leaders are pouring resources into finding the answers.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen delivered a blunt message to European leaders in Paris last week.

“The world order as we know it, that we have been fighting for — 80 years since the end of the Second World War — is over,” she said Wednesday. “I don’t think it will return.”

During her visit to Paris last week to speak at Sciences Po university, Ms. Frederiksen repeated calls for a large NATO military presence in Greenland “for a long time” — highlighting ongoing tensions with Mr. Trump, who has backed away from talk of the U.S. arbitrarily taking control of Greenland.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said during a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week that negotiations are progressing.

“I think we’re going to get something positive done,” Mr. Rubio said.

Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, speaking alongside Ms. Frederiksen in Paris, said the world is viewing Greenland differently because of those global security pressures.

“There has been a change in the way of looking at it in Greenland over the last couple of years,” he said. “We have been through a lot … but we do agree on one thing: we need more surveillance and security in our region.”

Mr. Nielsen went on to acknowledge the threat from Russia.

One of those threats is a direct path to possible attacks on American soil, according to a Hudson Institute report published this month. Liselotte Odgaard, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, wrote in the report that tracking Russian nuclear submarines remains inadequate.

“Submarine detection and tracking capabilities along the coast of eastern Greenland and in the Barents Sea remain insufficient,” she wrote, possibly allowing Russian submarines to be within striking distance of the U.S.

“A Russian Borei-class [ballistic missile submarine] can carry the RSM-56 Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile under Arctic ice cover,” Ms. Odgaard wrote. “The vessel can then move to a launch position, such as in the Queen Victoria Sea, allowing missiles to follow a polar trajectory, which would minimize flight time to North America and avoid dense radar coverage.”

NATO allies aren’t oblivious to these threats.

At the Surface Navy Symposium in Washington last month, The Washington Times reported that NATO allies are focused on accelerating the acquisition of new uncrewed systems to address the problem.

Col. Anders Akermark, Sweden’s naval attache to the U.S., Canada and Mexico, said his country’s military is developing an uncrewed underwater vehicle, essentially a submarine drone, “intended for long endurance missions,” such as monitoring under the Arctic sea ice for adversaries, specifically submarines.

The urgency of the ongoing negotiations reflects a stark operational reality that has been hammered home repeatedly by Mr. Trump: Both the U.S. and NATO have neglected Arctic defense, leading to large gaps in the region that offer adversaries a path into the North Atlantic.

Experts on NATO and Arctic warfare say that the newest defense technologies proven on the battlefields of Ukraine aren’t yet ready for Greenland.

There are tools, tactics and techniques proven to work in the cold — just ask Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. The Nordic nations have valuable experience that they share across NATO.

An agreement signed in Helsinki last year by Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark aims to “launch Nordic procurement of micro-sized drones” and increase cooperation with Ukraine. They are, according to Ms. Odgaard, the main footholds for “NATO’s Arctic defense force.”

NATO and outside defense suppliers still face challenges in incorporating modern technology.

A potential NATO mission in the high north would require designs and equipment that meet NATO standards. While those exist, most of the available technologies suitable for the region are for high-altitude surveillance, not for ground or sea warfare.

“NATO provides a framework for data and network integration through standard nation agreements. But even there, it’s upon the nations themselves to actually comply with the agreements that they sign up to,” said Gordon “Skip” Davis Jr., a senior fellow at CEPA.

Mr. Davis, a retired U.S. Army general who worked directly for NATO, acknowledged that countries don’t always participate. “We need both implementation and also probably certification to ensure that those standards are, in fact, respected and implemented,” he said.

A report published in December by CEPA highlighted that while NATO militaries are racing toward new technologies, “most allies treat Arctic-specific requirements as secondary modifications rather than purpose-built.“ Instead of designing systems for Arctic conditions, they add heating elements or insulation to products designed for more normal temperatures.

In CEPA’s report, Mr. Borsari and Mr. Davis wrote that Norway recently closed a $9.4 million deal with drone manufacturer Skydio for their X10D quadcopters, a product the U.S. military has also purchased. Those drones, even marketed as “cold weather certified,” can operate down to -4° Fahrenheit, according to the manufacturer.

The average winter temperatures in the Arctic dip well below -20° Fahrenheit.

The Nordic agreement to develop drones, signed in October, shows some allies understand this urgency. But as Ms. Frederiksen and Mr. Nielsen shuttled between European capitals this week seeking support, the timeline gap remains stark: Allies are debating while Russia is already developing combat-tested drone technology, grounded in its established Arctic doctrine.

“Rearming ourselves now is the most important thing. The U.S. depends on us,” Ms. Frederiksen said. “I know that if we did everything we should do, then we would be in a very different place in just a few years from now. But it will take a lot of us.”