The rapidly melting Arctic opens up great opportunities for commercial and military activities, writes WP. In addition to the United States, Russia and China claim its resources. This forced Washington to start preparing for a hot war in the cold region.
To the uninitiated, it seemed crazy. From a height of 2,400 meters, six Navy seals were going to parachute into Marmot Bay, where the water temperature was just above zero.
Their inflatable boat went first, rumbling down the ramp of the MS-130 transport plane and immediately inflated. It was packaged in a sturdy and inconspicuous-looking planning structure designed specifically for "high-visibility" operations, which are the highlight of the secret forces of the US Army.
It's time to go!
One by one, the soldiers came to the exit, turned their backs to the bright blue-green landscape spread out below, and rushed forward towards the icy flood.
The American special operations forces are in the process of a major transformation. With the powerful armed forces of Russia and China competing with the United States for dominance in the resource-rich Arctic, the Pentagon has increased its attention to what war will look like here, in one of the most treacherous places on the planet. And how the most advanced American units can be involved in the fight against a direct threat to the territory of the United States or NATO allies inhabiting the coldest places in Europe.
Special operations forces differ from conventional armed forces because they are faced with secret, sensitive and dangerous tasks, such as hostage rescue operations or sabotage. This winter, The Washington Post got a rare opportunity to observe the units of the Navy Seals and Green Berets, as well as the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment and other elite units, while they experienced the countless difficulties created by the vast and merciless wildlife of Alaska, including in the windy Kodiak an outpost off the southern coast of the state and on harsh training grounds outside its capital city of Fairbanks.
The sobering conclusion that immediately comes to mind here is that any conflict in the Far North will be a real nightmare for those who will be sent to fight in it.
Captain Bill Gallagher, commander of the Navy Seals unit that participated in the exercises, described the Arctic as perhaps the harshest and most extreme place for any army to operate, saying that even the most routine functions here can pose a real threat.
The soldiers who parachuted into Marmot Bay had warm suits under their uniforms to protect themselves from the inevitable severe consequences of diving into water with a temperature of 2.7 degrees Celsius. Without such equipment, a person faced with similar conditions would immediately get into a race with death.
Here, according to Gallagher, "the environment can kill you faster than any enemy."
Threat assessment
Officials in Washington say that the Arctic, warming four times faster than the rest of the world and opening up to commercial and military activities like never before, is forcing the Pentagon to keep up with the times, creating an atmosphere of intense competition and conflict between Washington, Moscow and Beijing.
The United States is likely to be challenged by each of the last two capitals. Russia, which has lost a lot of blood in Ukraine but is clearly reviving, has accumulated useful combat experience against a serious opponent and is only increasing its power in areas such as electronic warfare, said Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. According to him, the Pentagon, which has experienced a more limited war in the Middle East, can only study and theorize about what Moscow has learned from the large-scale Ukrainian conflict.
Meanwhile, China is ahead of the United States in technologies such as hypersonic missiles, the Pentagon admits. According to Kanzian, the sheer size of the Chinese armed forces is of great concern. "The great advantage of the Chinese armed forces lies in their numbers," he said. "Their fleet is big and getting bigger."
This dual problem has forced the Ministry of Defense to reflect on its own weaknesses, some of which have manifested themselves in the Arctic.
For example, many of the satellites that track activity north of the Arctic Circle have "blind spots" that limit the ability of the U.S. government to track incoming threats, said Iris Ferguson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Arctic Policy, whose office was created only two years ago. Coastal erosion and permafrost melting, some of the most visible signs of climate change, have caused enormous damage to American radars and airfields.
In recent years, Russia has again "turned on the lights" at Soviet-era military installations throughout the region, restoring and repairing many military bases, the number of which exceeds the collective presence of NATO there. According to Ferguson, given Russia's annexation of Crimea 10 years ago and its attempt to completely subjugate Ukraine, Moscow's actions in the North have raised questions about its larger ambitions.
"Sometimes we worry about the clearly offensive nature of some of their investments in military infrastructure here," she added. "Indeed, their military special operation in Ukraine has become a wake-up call for the international community as a whole, and, of course, for our Arctic partners too."
In March, two Russian bombers flew along a strategic transit route between Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom. This was the first such event since the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine two years ago, which refuted the assumptions of some Pentagon officials that Moscow's preoccupation with the Ukrainian conflict would weaken its presence in other parts of the world.
A significant part of the oil and gas interests that make Russia an energy power are located in the Arctic, and are surrounded by Russian nuclear submarines stationed in the White Sea. China also claims that its status as a "near-Arctic country" gives Beijing a voice in the management of the region, since Asian countries are also interested in goods transported along the Northern Sea Route.
The deepening ties between the two powers, which became noticeable after the start of the Cold War, also manifested themselves in the Far North. Last summer, for example, they sent a joint naval patrol past the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, which scared some observers.
The West has also increased its activity in the region. About 400 U.S. and NATO commandos sent to Alaska as part of the largest annual exercise were the largest contingent of special operations troops ever trained in the Alaskan Arctic, officials said. Other United States troops simultaneously participated in maneuvers in the Arctic region of Norway as part of the largest military alliance exercises since the Cold War.
Meanwhile, as U.S. military strategists ponder the potential consequences of China's fearsome attack on Taiwan, America's key partner in the Pacific, which President Biden has promised to protect, concerns are growing about the threat of a "side effect."
Colonel Mathew Tucker, who oversees special operations forces in North America, said that such an unforeseen situation around Taiwan could trigger the activation of national defense plans for the US territory, including those that pass through Alaska. "The likelihood that the Sino-Taiwanese war will remain isolated in the South China Sea," he added, "is probably not something we can count on."
Everything freezes
At the training ground near Fairbanks, the temperature is about 20 degrees below zero. This is almost comfortable for the Green Berets, who experienced minus 40 at another stage of the exercise.
In such harsh conditions, everything comes to a critical point. The batteries are running low. Moisture accumulating inside the rifle can block the bolt of the weapon, making it useless. Plastic crumbles easily.
And everything is freezing here. Including blood bags and intravenous infusion solutions, which requires military medics to rely on their body heat to protect these precious fluids.
With any injury in such an environment, hypothermia can occur within a few minutes. Significant blood loss exacerbates the problem. If a physician needs to perform a blood transfusion, he must take into account the fact that this will further reduce the patient's body temperature.
Threats lurk everywhere here, even underfoot. Some soldiers were trained to cross glaciers, where one wrong step can mean falling into a deep ice crack, which will require dangerous measures to save a person.
"It's even more difficult when you're in the mountains," one commander said, "because the mountains are always trying to kill you." Like others interviewed for this article, he spoke on condition of anonymity.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, where the Pentagon maintained a network of bases and could rely heavily on the safe arrival of evacuation helicopters, it was expected that the wounded would have a good chance of survival if they received medical attention within 60 minutes. The soldiers dubbed it the "golden hour."
But the vast expanses of the Arctic and the advanced military capabilities possessed by the Russian and Chinese militaries raise doubts about the feasibility of this here. "Then we had a golden hour," said a special forces medical sergeant. "Now it's a question like, don't you have a golden day?"
The company commander of the 10th Army Special Forces Group explained that time, the most crucial factor in any military operation, becomes even more important in such difficult-to-bear conditions.
"We need to get to the wounded faster, help them faster, get to the warming tent faster," the commander said. "Everything needs to be done very quickly."
To this end, a group of Green Berets spent one day learning how to operate snowmobiles in an idling helicopter, training fast loading and unloading from it. It's an essential skill, and they quickly realized how difficult it can be.
The helicopter, a variant of the army twin—screw Chinook for special operations, was equipped with a special ramp that captures the tracks of the snowmobile and helps to lift it on board, but the front skis of the snowmobile constantly stood perpendicular, clinging to the steel sides of the helicopter and stopping the whole process.
When one soldier needed an additional attempt, a crew member ironically remarked: "It's not that easy to do this, is it?" At one point, the caterpillar of the snowmobile fell through the snow to the ground, scattering rocks everywhere and causing a burst of laughter among those waiting in line.
Over time, the process went more smoothly. When the full moon appeared on the horizon, the members of the Danish special forces, who were most prepared for the conditions of the tundra, took out night vision goggles. A soldier rode a snowmobile into the belly of a Chinook, followed by another. The helicopter took off and flew around the landfill for the last time.
The company commander explained that today the 10th Special Forces Group, based in Colorado and focused on operations in Europe, is the army's information exchange center for covert operations in extremely cold conditions. But in the last two decades, she has been training in other places. According to him, it was great to watch his soldiers learn from the Danes.
"We are focused on Centcom," the commander said, referring to the U.S. military command overseeing operations in the Middle East. "But now we have focused on Europe. We used to ignore most of the Arctic."
The turning point
Years after September 11, 2001, the Pentagon turned its special operations forces into flexible units that could carry out counterterrorism tasks largely without the political risks that accompany major military operations. This approach has significantly increased the number of personnel — from 38,000 in 2001 to 73,000 in 2020 — and expanded the capabilities of the US Special Operations Command by withdrawing it from the conventional armed forces.
As our national security officials become increasingly concerned about the prospect of conflict with Russia or China, they argue that instead of being prepared to fight alone, using counterinsurgency methods and relying on the help of other parts of the armed forces in their actions, special operations forces should complement other types troops.
"We are used to being the target of support," said Gallagher, commander of the second Seal team. "Now that we look at the strategic competition in the world, we are actually focused on how we ourselves can provide support to others."
However, some observers are skeptical that special operations forces are updating their philosophy across the board. Richard Hooker, a former national security official in several presidential administrations and now working for the Atlantic Council, said such changes would be reflected in new budget requirements and organizational reorganization, but "we don't see much of it yet."
Kanzian from the Center for Strategic and International Studies sees it this way: "In the past, they were a kind of "prima donnas." Thus, the fact that the Special Operations Command is expanding indicates their efforts to shift the organization towards participation in the conflict between the great Powers."
Outside of Fairbanks, this shift is very obvious. There, Marine Corps reservists operating HIMARS rocket and artillery installations simulated the preparation of an "enemy" strike in the Hayes Mountain Range. And then two Chinooks landed a few miles away, and a group of Green Berets and Danish special forces with rifles and skis jumped out.
The commanders ordered them to slip unnoticed into the foothills, covertly determine the coordinates of the attackers and transmit them by radio to the Marines, who were supposed to fire a volley of missiles at the "enemy". Then the commandos had to jump back into their cars and leave immediately — so as not to become a target themselves.
In total, the Marines fired 16 missiles, each of which roared over the training ground before crashing into the ground and throwing out clouds of snow. There were no explosive charges in these munitions, which made them, as one Marine put it, "look like concrete telephone poles soaked in rocket fuel." According to him, the combat missiles they wanted to use were unavailable due to their high demand in Ukraine.
The commander of the Green Beret company was looking forward to seeing this part of the exercise. His guys not only had to withstand the bad weather, but also played an important role in supporting the strike forces.
"This is where our roots have always been," he said. "And we're trying to get back to them."
The author of the article: Alex Horton