Paratroopers with 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 11th Airborne Division, board a C-17 Globemaster III on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, prior to an airborne operation onto Donnelly Training Area, Alaska, in February 2024. CAPT. MOLLY TREECE/U.S. ARMY
DR. TROY J. BOUFFARD/UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA FAIRBANKS
Before February 2022, the Russian Federation continued to make notable progress on its Arctic strategic development priorities throughout all sectors. However, Moscow’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine not only stopped, but also degraded much of Russia’s Arctic military progress. Western cooperation rapidly paused or excluded Russian participation in many activities and organizations, including security-related activities such as the Arctic Coast Guard Forum. Gone were any hopes of potential Arctic military dialogue and cooperation between Russia and the West. Yet, it became apparent that Russia’s actions could lead to important opportunities for the West in its strategic competition with Moscow.
During the previous decade, Russia consistently exhibited intent and development of its Arctic land forces. Russia formed the 200th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade (Arctic) in 2011 and the 80th Motorized Rifle Brigade (Arctic) in 2014, which fell under the provisionally established 5th military district known as the Arctic Joint Strategic Command (Northern Fleet) in December 2014 and under military command of the Russian 14th Combined Arms Army (i.e., Army Corps) in 2017. In late February 2024, Russia dissolved the new military district and rolled it into the new Leningrad Military District. The Russian Arctic brigades worked over the years to demonstrate its northern operational capabilities as Moscow strategically communicated its approval and pride.
As Russian northern bastion defense improved, it became apparent that the Kremlin had a plan to strengthen both Arctic defense and force projection capabilities. The West understood the importance of Russia’s continued Arctic military progress and knew it had a legitimate competitor, especially when considering the basic formula for military success as “precision-enabled, all-domain, combat- and combined-arms warfare.” Russia’s Arctic land forces — with or without naval infantry — helped fulfill the combat and combined arms part of requirements. The United States (and allies) had a problem: Russia, at its absolute peak, had actual Arctic military superiority within definable circumstances, both quantitatively and qualitatively. No matter how short lived, this was realized as fact.
While the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy submarine forces maintained unmatched strategic ability, it complicated the understanding of new operational requirements for emerging Arctic security issues.
Traditional components of North American defense requirements (i.e., different national strategies and money) require both resource and mission capabilities. Geographic combatant command (GCC) strategic plans need to articulate how prioritized national security and defense mandates will be addressed through the application of military operational capabilities (e.g. lines of operation) and other means (e.g. lines of effort).
Where once Russia gained a slight edge, the United States and Western allies now have an unforeseen, extremely valuable opportunity to close and reverse those gaps by focusing resources and efforts in those areas most in need: U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps land force operational capabilities. While an Arctic maritime surface presence capability is desperately needed, our western allies can help cover that effectively. This allows U.S. military land forces, which are massively larger than our northern allies combined (special operations and conventional forces), to operate at the necessary levels on land with capabilities that rival and surpass the most dangerous potential of our main adversaries.
Once strategic-level products can be fully developed and published with the addition of resourced, vital land force solutions (including short and medium-range air defense), all other efforts — vertically and horizontally — can advance with significantly greater clarity and purpose. This opportunity to overcome competitive operational capability gaps will not happen again. When all is said and done, and Russia crawls back after its war with Ukraine to begin reconstituting its Arctic capabilities and latest developments, the United States and its allies should be able to inform Moscow that its self-proclaimed status no longer applies, and we are now the dominant Arctic military power of the region.
Dr. Troy Bouffard is the director of the Center for Arctic Security and Resilience at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. His experience and expertise include Arctic defense and security issues with the DOD and NATO as well as geopolitical and diplomatic Arctic affairs to include the Arctic Council, and continuing research in the social and natural sciences of the Arctic.