REUTERS NATO allies wake up

 

REUTERS

NATO allies wake up to Russian supremacy in the Arctic Wed, November 16, 2022

“As Russia's invasion of Ukraine ends a post-Cold War era of low tension and cooperation”… This January, one of two fibre-optic cables on the Arctic seabed connecting Svalbard to the mainland was severed. Norway was forced to rely on a back-up link."

"In April 2021, another cable – one used by a Norwegian research laboratory to monitor activity on the Arctic seafloor – was ripped away."

(Nord stream pipeline explosion anybody?)

“Over recent years, NATO allies and Russia have scaled up military exercises in the region; Chinese and Russian warships conducted a joint exercise in the Bering Sea in September. Norway raised its military alert level in October.”

(The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasses on Earth: Eurasia and The Americas. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves. Wikipedia. Yeah...The Chinese and the Russians held joint exercises there in Sept...think about it for a second, you'll figure it out.)

"Since 2005, Russia has reopened tens of Arctic Soviet-era military bases, modernized its navy, and developed new hypersonic missiles designed to evade U.S. sensors and defences."

"Four Arctic experts say it would take the West at least 10 years to catch up with Russia's military in the region, if it chose to do so."

"The Arctic is currently a dark area on the map," said Ketil Olsen, formerly Norway's military representative in NATO and the European Union, who heads Andoeya Space, a Norwegian state-controlled company that tests new military and surveillance technologies and launches research rockets.

"It's so vast and with few civilian surveillance resources."

"The chief of the U.S. Northern Command, General Glen VanHerck, told a Senate hearing in March the United States needed better Arctic "domain awareness" to detect and address Russian and Chinese capabilities to launch advanced missiles and destroy communications infrastructure." In a Pentagon strategy document released in October, the United States committed to improving early warning and surveillance systems in the Arctic, but the pace of the planned modernization is unclear."

(I love how everything were gonna do were gonna do sometime in the future and nobody know how or when we are gonna get started (filling the SPR would be an example), but were gonna get going now etc...)

"At the same time, fast-rising temperatures are creating problems for some U.S. military infrastructure built on permafrost foundations, which are melting. Coastal erosion could also impact U.S. radar sites, the Pentagon says."

(Everybody that thinks climate change is a hoax anymore raise your hands...The US military sure doesn't think it is and it said so years ago it was a major threat to security, ours and in the world.)

"There are few risks in the near term, U.S. officials and military analysts say: The West is far stronger than Russia in conventional forces and Russia's limited success in Ukraine exposed weaknesses many in the West had not expected."

(Russia's "limited success in Ukraine" was by design and maybe a clearer definition on "near term" is warranted here, exactly when should we expect more risk exactly?" While you are saying Peace and prosperity, destruction shall come upon them suddenly like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. Those labor pains getting farter apart? or closer together? More intense? Or less intense? What time do you really think its getting ready to be?)

"Russia's military efforts are currently mostly focused on Ukraine, leaving "very limited strength of personnel on the army side" in the Arctic Kola Peninsula, which is home to its Northern Fleet navy and nuclear submarines, according to Kristoffersen."

(Understood, but the fact that monitoring cables/links etc. are getting severed tells you somebody doesn't want you to know what they are doing and the ice melting in the artic gives the Russians even more mineral and oil field in its territory.)

"U.S. missile defenses are designed to defend against a limited attack from a rogue state, and the United States has expressed confidence in its ability to deter a nuclear attack by Russia or China. But insufficient visibility in the Arctic could limit U.S. response time in a crisis, a situation VanHerck and other officials want to avoid."

"What you can't see and what you can't determine, you can't defend from," VanHerck told the Senate.

("U.S. missile defenses are designed to defend against a limited attack from a rogue state," Think China and Russia dont know that? "the United States has expressed confidence in its ability to deter a nuclear attack by Russia or China. But what about a conventional one using Hypersonics? "insufficient visibility in the Arctic could limit U.S. response time"...Its the same effect as cutting the subterranean cable in Guam, slows reaction time, in the first few moments when hostilities start seconds count and somebody is up to no good...)