American air power is a long-standing pillar of NATO’s northern force posture. Photo: PxHere
NATO must consider a variety of non-military factors that inform an innovative, accountable, maximally situationally aware, and minimally disruptive Arctic security strategy. This graphic attempts to evoke (some of) these elements.
As covered by this series’ authors, seven of the eight permanent members of the Arctic Council are NATO members after Sweden and Finland’saccessions in 2023 and 2024. In light of these additions, NATO’s “Regional Plan North” reportedly focuses on cohesive transatlantic defense, strategic deterrence, and conserving freedom of navigation. Indeed, NATO has already expanded its Arctic prowess in recent years through protecting underwater critical infrastructure, acquiring Arctic-grade military equipment, proposing joint operational fleets, and organizing joint exercises. Yet, NATO’s northern states must support an organization-wide Arctic posture as militarily sound as it is community- and system-conscious.
Most documents on NATO’s evolving Arctic approach understandably concentrate on security requirements, posture gaps, and force multiplication, but do not sufficiently consider colliding commercial, humanitarian, and environmental threads that typify relations in the region. They rarely explicitly account for the civilian-forward governance environment NATO will operate within and therefore help steward – a heterogeneous mixture of non-binding circumpolar dialogues, regional voluntary cooperative structures, and codified laws. Explicitly accounting for both the region’s geographic idiosyncrasies and normative attitude in military plans may foster goodwill with non-state actors, lessen disturbances to the Arctic’s landscape and inhabitants, and ultimately help NATO better anticipate irregular challenges.
Laurel Baker | The Arctic Institute A Holistic Arctic Security Schema for NATO.
This graphic therefore emphasizes through visualization: 1) the magnitude of dual-use assets NATO must navigate; 2) how intersecting operational domains inform kinetic and non-kinetic destabilizing factors; and 3) the layered, interdependent nature of circumpolar Arctic administration. At the grand strategic level, a survivable and well-rounded NATO should confront risks and advantages informed by individual nations’ or sub-coalitions’ strengths and weaknesses, dual-use infrastructure, non-state actors, and strategic, administrative, cultural, and environmental disparities between subregions like the North Atlantic, North Pole, and North Pacific.
Military Actors’ Strengths and Weaknesses
Identifying threat actors and likely domain contests can help members better wield NATO as a tool to allocate resources (e.g., heavier or lighter military technologies to achieve complementarity vs. redundancy) and develop counter-capabilities. The graphic orients the viewer around major physical domains and some of their representative assets.
NATO members must grapple with the merits of extended deterrence and diffusing capabilities to negotiate reliance on any one state/sub-region. This issue manifested when gauging sizes for the red and blue dots on the graphic, which represent the estimated footprint/density of physical assets and associated capabilities in the circumpolar Arctic (e.g., for North America, nuclear reach), agnostic of owners––including Russia.
Infrastructure
The Arctic’s harsh climate, sparse infrastructure, and other logistical challenges render many resources and facilities dual-use, especially in case of natural and humanitarian emergencies. If using a sufficiently broad definition of dual uses, nearly every icon on the non-military side of the graphic could qualify.
For example, economic-military lifelines also complicated qualifying or disqualifying elements as dual-use in the graphic. Acute challenges include Russia’s current lack of scientific transparency and disregard of regulated extraction and transport of hydrocarbons, both of which are degrading the region’s security environment.
Broadly, threat actors can use dual-use initiatives to expand their military presence or conduct hybrid operations in contentious areas like Svalbard, complicating NATO’s force composition (e.g., preemptive or reactive?) and requiring nuanced escalatory checks.
Non-State Constituents
Non-state actors, including Indigenous communities, environmental groups, and commercial entities, are integral to the Arctic’s socio-economic fabric and often bear the immediate consequences of geopolitical tumult. To stave off undue adversarial influence and avoid encroachment amidst its own military revitalization, NATO must liaise with industrial, climatic, and cultural experts.
Sub-Regional Strategic Disparities
Each Arctic sub-region requires strategic tailoring to socioeconomic, political, and environmental conditions. The North Atlantic, with its comparatively robust infrastructure, serves as a critical nuclear and rapid response hub. Monitoring the sparsely developed North Pacific may require greater coordination with non-NATO actors (e.g., Japan, South Korea), especially related to freedom of navigation. Finally, shifting political currents between North America’s constituent states and underserved communities require continued, nuanced examination.
Through the early introduction of these and other holistic considerations into high-level dialogues, NATO members can collectively devise an Arctic strategy where military readiness and responsible governance fruitfully coexist.
Laurel Baker is a Research Assistant at The Arctic Institute.
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