Train Where You Expect to Fight: Why Military Exercises Have Increased in the High North

Duncan Depledge

doi:10.31374/sjms.64

Abstract

The new Arctic Military Exercise (ArcMilEx) dataset, which I introduce in this article, demonstrates that since 2006, Western-led military exercises have increased in the ‘High North’ (European Arctic), and that involvement in such exercises is not limited to Arctic states (26 European countries from beyond the Arctic have participated in at least one of these exercises). What the increased number of military exercises shows is that Western states (including both Arctic and non-Arctic countries) are keen to demonstrate that they have the capabilities, competence and resolve to project force in the northern high latitudes to deter potential adversaries. This paper examines the reasons behind this activity. First, it highlights the calls made by small Arctic states, especially Norway and Iceland, for their non-Arctic allies to increase their military presence in the High North. Second, it points to the renewal of NATO’s commitment to deterrence and territorial defence in Europe, including the High North, as it has sought to improve Alliance cohesion and enhance interoperability. Both developments have emerged in response to concerns growing in the West about Russia’s military ambitions in the Arctic, North Atlantic and Europe, especially since President Vladimir Putin’s re-election in 2012. The paper concludes that the material increase in Western military exercises weakens claims that cooperation is the dominant trend in the Arctic and reinforces recent scholarly analyses that paint a more complex picture of the contemporary regional security environment where conflict and cooperation go hand in hand. Using the new ArcMilEx dataset to monitor military exercises in the Arctic (and who is participating in them) is shown to be a valuable barometer of both Arctic and non-Arctic states’ concern about regional stability and security.

Highlights

Military activity in and around the Arctic is growing
The resumption in 2006 and the subsequent intensification of Western-led military exercises that were implicitly, if not explicitly, at least in part directed towards Russia have been largely ignored in the scholarly literature – despite the fact that such exercises remind us that the Arctic security and defence complex is not just an A8 concern, but has long been of consequence for others from well beyond the region
Even when these Western-led exercises have been mentioned by scholars, their significance was only hinted at, perhaps because military exercises interfered with the consensus that had emerged after the Cold War, and yet again after 2008, that the prospect of conflict in the Arctic was exceptionally low

Summary

Introduction

Military activity in and around the Arctic is growing. It has been well documented that all eight Arctic states (A8) have been restructuring and upgrading their military forces over the past decade (Wezeman 2012, 2016). The resumption in 2006 and the subsequent intensification of Western-led military exercises (especially those involving non-Arctic states) that were implicitly, if not explicitly, at least in part directed towards Russia (such as those shown below) have been largely ignored in the scholarly literature – despite the fact that such exercises remind us that the Arctic security and defence complex is not just an A8 concern, but has long been of consequence for others from well beyond the region.5 Even when these Western-led exercises have been mentioned by scholars, their significance was only hinted at (see, for example, Huebert 2010), perhaps because military exercises interfered with the consensus that had emerged after the Cold War, and yet again after 2008, that the prospect of conflict in the Arctic was exceptionally low. This variation is partly explained by the fact that, excluding TRJE (which was a one-off exercise in the north), the largest exercise considered here, EXCR, is held biennially, bringing a surge of non-Arctic countries to the High North every two years.

United States

Conclusion