The US Army is planning to revamp its forces in Alaska to prepare for potential future cold-weather conflicts in the Arctic, an area where Washington and its NATO allies are looking to expand their military footprint.
“I think right now the purpose of Army forces in Alaska is much more about creating an extreme cold weather capable formation,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told The Associated Press.
The Army currently has a Stryker brigade in Alaska that uses eight heavy vehicles. Wormuth is considering replacing it with a more mobile infantry unit, and the Stryker vehicles would be substituted with vehicles more suited for the cold weather. “We’re trying to get to a place where we have Arctic capable forces — forces that can survive and operate in that environment,” Wormuth said.
In March, the US deployed Patriot missiles and other advanced air defense systems for drills in Alaska for the first time. The missile systems were used during the Arctic Edge military exercises that Canada also participated in.
The US views the Arctic as an area to confront Russia and China, which has been reflected in strategies from each branch of the US military. Last year, the Army released a policy document that said the Arctic has the “potential to become a contested space where United States’ great power rivals, Russia and China, seek to use military and economic power to gain and maintain access to the region at the expense of US interests.”
NATO has its eyes on expanding in the Arctic, which the alliance calls its “northern flank.” Finland, which shares an over 800-mile border with Russia, announced Thursday that it plans to apply to join NATO, expanding the alliance’s Arctic territory on Russia’s doorstep.
The Pentagon has only one Icebreaker and it’s a Klunker that breaks down frequently, so they can’t get there from November to the end of April.
I laughed outloud when I read this…lol
Hmmm…maybe the nut didn’t fall quite as far from the tree as I’d thought.
While Rand still has a long ways to go to rival his dad, this is a good beginning.
“The US views the planet (and space) as an area to confront Russia and China.”
Fixed.
space is even colder than the arctic. what.
The Polar Bear Brigade!
I simply get shivers, when I think about Finland joining…;-)
I’m trying to envision NATO on Russia’s doorstep but it doesn’t come out right… (I keep seeing troops of Polar Bears…)
DARPA robot polar bears.
Though robot woolly mammoths would be cooler.
Since about 1945 our nation holds that every square inch of the solid and liquid surface of the Earth is in our sphere of influence. That fact drives the annual DoD budget, the MIC, our interminable wars, and now potential war in the Arctic.
We are a state in paranoia.
drop the mic and say “what”
What a joke. Americans are not adapted to these harsh, cold and extreme conditions, Russians, by nature, are. Their equipment is definitely not suited for it. It will break down like their rusting sole surviving “icebreaker” from the 50’s or the early polar expositions that ended in death and misery.
Come on. It’s ridiculous. It’s much better and cheaper for US to do what they always does when they can’t achieve something, let Hollywood take care of it and call it misson accomplished.
Let’s laugh together for the Joke of the Week…!
arctic conflicts LOL lets have some battles at the frikkin north pole and see what happens.
hey uncle sam could use the $40 billion slated for the ukraine aid – it would be better spent building a frozen arctic military squad to fight some other frozen guys from the other side of the planet.
at the north freakin pole. what.
Makes me happy that he has the cahoneez to do it,,, And with all the sleazy deals Hunter Biden has been involved. What kind of kickback would Hunter want to direct 2.5 billion to one of his favorite co-conspirator… Crrooks in, our money out and fading into the inflationary MIST..
The so-called northern flank is still freezing cold and inhospitable.
Thawing tundra means everything is mud, mud, mud, for Strykers, and any permanent bases, runways and helipads subject to constant expansion and contraction as the seasons change, which means they’ll just fall apart in a few years if not expensively maintained.
It will be decades before conventional forces can really do more than posture there.
Capturing Sweden and Finland for NATO is more about size-matters geopolitics, making a future ‘United States of Europe’ as geopolitically relevant as possible economically.
Poor, poor little Putin, he’s upset about Finland and there is absolutely nothing he can do about it. He better work on containing the dissatisfaction this has caused among some russki politicans though, otherwise he might find himself permanently retired…
It is important to see that these are not new forces. They are re-named forces. They have not even been re-equipped. There is not yet an announced plan for any re-equipping. They are just a couple of brigades of the Hawaii-based light division, which is now left smaller.
It may be that re-organizing will focus training and mission readiness. It may increase the Army’s power to deal with cold weather problems. But it is not more than a leadership thing, not more force and not new equipment for existing force.
When I joined the Marine Corps in 1984, the main assumption was that the war we were preparing for was “the Soviets invade western Europe,” and the Marine Corps tasking for such a war involved places like Norway, Iceland, and Greenland. Frankly, I was glad that the war I ended up in was in the desert and much closer to the equator.
I don’t see how war in the arctic regions could depend much on infantry. In that kind of environment you’re spending too much of your energy just staying alive to have much left for combat operations.
But if it DID come down to a ground war in that climate, I’d bet on a Russian advantage. Winter seems to be a friend of the Russians.
The Finnish winter war was a painful lesson for the then USSR, the US have just received two allies that excel in winter warfare.
To my knowledge American troops are already training in the Nordic region, north of the polar circle. Norway is pretty good in winter warfare as well, which they showed the German invaders during WW2.