When I first met Michael Klare in the
late Neolithic age (it was actually the early 1970s), he was already
researching the U.S. military in a way no one else was doing. His first book on
the subject, War Without End: American Planning for the Next Vietnams, had
just been published. The title remains eerily apt, given Washington’s
twenty-first-century “forever wars.” Almost 50 years later, he’s still ahead of
the curve and his newest book on that military, All Hell Breaking Loose: The
Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change, has only recently come
out.
And he hasn’t stopped yet,
as you’ll see in today’s piece on a new nuclear flashpoint for the U.S. and
Russia: the melting Arctic. It’s the sort of thing that, in another world,
would be headline news. Still, his latest piece saddens me for personal reasons.
When Klare and I first met, the Cold War with the other superpower of that
moment, the Soviet Union, was still in high gear; the Vietnam War had yet to
end; and the Cuban Missile Crisis (the
one time in my life when I truly felt like “ducking and covering”) was only a decade past. In other
words, the possibility of a global conflagration that might end life as we know
it on this planet still seemed all too possible. As late as the early 1980s, in
the age of Ronald Reagan, I would find myself on the streets of New
York City with my family, marching in the company of Hibakusha --
survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bombing -- and perhaps a million other
protestors, part of a global antinuclear movement calling for disarmament and
protesting the possibility of an annihilating war. That seemed a moment of fear
but also of hope when it came to the nuclear issue.
In 1991, of course, the
Soviet Union imploded and such Armageddon-like thinking ended, though research
indicated that even a regional nuclear war in a post-superpower world between,
say, India and Pakistan could create “nuclear
winter” conditions across the planet. And those, of course, were the “good
times.”
Now, however, as the U.S.
military repositions itself in the wake of 18-plus years of forever wars across
the Greater Middle East and parts of Africa (without actually
leaving them), some version of superpower conflict seems once again the
Pentagon order of the day (as Klare has been noting at
this site for a while). And thanks to the ingenuity of a fossil-fuel-burning
humanity, a new area of the world, the Arctic, is ripe for it (in a melted sort of
way), even if you have to turn to Klare, once again ahead of the curve when it
comes to U.S. military planning, in a mainstream world preoccupied by... well,
you know who... to learn about the dangers involved. Tom
In early March, an estimated 7,500 American
combat troops will travel to Norway to join thousands of soldiers from other
NATO countries in a massive mock battle with imagined invading forces from
Russia. In this futuristic simulated engagement -- it goes by the name of
Exercise Cold Response 2020 -- allied forces will “conduct multinational joint
exercises with a high-intensity combat scenario in demanding winter conditions,”
or so claims the
Norwegian military anyway. At first glance, this may look like any other NATO
training exercise, but think again. There’s nothing ordinary about Cold
Response 2020. As a start, it’s being staged above the Arctic Circle, far from
any previous traditional NATO battlefield, and it raises to a new level the
possibility of a great-power conflict that might end in a nuclear exchange and mutual
annihilation. Welcome, in other words, to World War III’s newest battlefield.
For the soldiers participating in the exercise, the
potentially thermonuclear dimensions of Cold Response 2020 may not be obvious.
At its start, Marines from the United States and the United Kingdom will
practice massive amphibious landings along Norway’s coastline, much as they do
in similar exercises elsewhere in the world. Once ashore, however, the scenario
becomes ever more distinctive. After collecting tanks and other heavy weaponry
“prepositioned” in caves
in Norway’s interior, the Marines will proceed toward the country’s
far-northern Finnmark region to help Norwegian forces stave off Russian forces
supposedly pouring across the border. From then on, the two sides will engage
in -- to use current Pentagon terminology -- high-intensity combat operations
under Arctic conditions (a type of warfare not seen on such a scale since World
War II).
And that’s just the beginning. Unbeknownst
to most Americans, the Finnmark region of Norway and adjacent Russian territory
have become one of the most likely battlegrounds for the first use of nuclear
weapons in any future NATO-Russian conflict. Because Moscow has concentrated a
significant part of its nuclear retaliatory capability on the Kola Peninsula, a
remote stretch of land abutting northern Norway -- any U.S.-NATO success in
actual combat with Russian forces near that territory would
endanger a significant part of Russia’s nuclear arsenal and so might precipitate
the early use of such munitions. Even a simulated victory -- the predictable
result of Cold Response 2020 -- will undoubtedly set Russia’s nuclear
controllers on edge.
To appreciate just how risky any
NATO-Russian clash in Norway’s far north would be, consider the region’s
geography and the strategic factors that have led Russia to concentrate so much
military power there. And all of this, by the way, will be playing out in the
context of another existential danger: climate change. The melting of the Arctic
ice cap and the accelerated exploitation of
Arctic resources are lending this area ever greater strategic significance.
Energy Extraction in the Far North
Look at any map of Europe and you’ll note
that Scandinavia widens as it heads southward into the most heavily populated
parts of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. As you head north, however, it
narrows and becomes ever less populated. At its extreme northern reaches, only
a thin band of Norway juts east to touch Russia’s Kola Peninsula. To the north,
the Barents Sea, an offshoot of the Arctic Ocean, bounds them both. This remote
region -- approximately 800 miles from Oslo and 900 miles from Moscow -- has,
in recent years, become a vortex of economic and military activity.
Once prized as a source of vital minerals,
especially nickel, iron ore, and phosphates, this remote area is now the center
of extensive oil and natural gas extraction. With temperatures rising in the
Arctic twice as fast as
anywhere else on the planet and sea ice retreating ever
farther north every year, offshore fossil-fuel exploration has become
increasingly viable. As a result, large reserves of oil and natural gas -- the
very fuels whose combustion is responsible for those rising temperatures --
have been discovered beneath the Barents Sea and both countries are seeking to
exploit those deposits. Norway has taken the lead,
establishing at Hammerfest in Finnmark the world’s first plant above the Arctic
Circle to export liquified natural gas. In a similar fashion, Russia has
initiated efforts to exploit the mammoth Shtokman gas field in its sector of the
Barents Sea, though it has yet to bring such plans to fruition.
For Russia, even more significant oil and
gas prospects lie further east in the Kara and Pechora Seas and on the Yamal
Peninsula, a slender extension of Siberia. Its energy companies have, in
fact, already begunproducing
oil at the Prirazlomnoye field in the Pechora Sea and the Novoportovskoye field
on that peninsula (and natural gas there as well). Such fields hold great
promise for Russia, which exhibits all the characteristics of a petro-state, but there’s
one huge problem: the only practical way to get that output to market is via
specially-designed icebreaker-tankers sent
through the Barents Sea past northern Norway.
The exploitation of Arctic oil and gas
resources and their transport to markets in Europe and Asia has become a major
economic priority for Moscow as its hydrocarbon reserves below the Arctic
Circle begin to dry up. Despite calls at home for greater economic diversity,
President Vladimir Putin’s regime continues to insist on the centrality of
hydrocarbon production to the country’s economic future. In that context,
production in the Arctic has become an essential national objective,
which, in turn, requires assured access to the Atlantic Ocean via the Barents
Sea and Norway’s offshore waters. Think of that waterway as vital to Russia’s
energy economy in the way the Strait of Hormuz, connecting
the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean, is to the Saudis and other regional
fossil-fuel producers.
The Military Dimension
No less than Russia's giant energy firms,
its navy must be able to enter the Atlantic via the Barents Sea and northern
Norway. Aside from its Baltic and Black Sea ports, accessible to the Atlantic
only via passageways easily obstructed by NATO, the sole Russian harbor with
unfettered access to the Atlantic Ocean is at Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula. Not
surprisingly then, that port is also the headquarters for Russia’s Northern
Fleet -- its most powerful -- and the site of numerous air, infantry, missile,
and radar bases along with naval shipyards and nuclear reactors. In other
words, it’s among the most sensitive military regions in Russia today.
Given all this, President Putin has substantially rebuilt that
very fleet, which fell into disrepair after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
equipping it with some of the country’s most advanced warships. In 2018,
according to The Military Balance, a publication of the International
Institute for Strategic Studies, it already possessed the largest
number of modern cruisers and destroyers (10) of any Russian fleet, along with
22 attack submarines and numerous support vessels. Also in the Murmansk area
are dozens of advanced MiG fighter planes and a wide assortment of
anti-aircraft defense systems. Finally, as 2019 ended, Russian military
officials indicated for the
first time that they had deployed to the Arctic the Kinzhal air-launched
ballistic missile, a weapon capable of hypersonic velocities (more than five
times the speed of sound), again presumably to a base in the Murmansk region
just 125 miles from Norway’s Finnmark, the site of the upcoming NATO exercise.
More significant yet is the way Moscow has
been strengthening its nuclear forces in the region. Like the United States,
Russia maintains a “triad” of nuclear delivery systems, including
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), long-range “heavy” bombers, and
submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). Under the terms of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New
START), signed by the two countries in 2010, the Russians can deploy no more
than 700 delivery systems capable of carrying no more than 1,550 warheads.
(That pact will, however, expire in February 2021 unless the two sides agree to
an extension, which appears increasingly unlikely in
the age of Trump.) According to the Arms Control Association, the Russians
are currently believed to
be deploying the warheads they are allowed under New START on 66 heavy bombers,
286 ICBMs, and 12 submarines with 160 SLBMs. Eight of those nuclear-armed subs
are, in fact, assigned to the Northern Fleet, which means about 110 missiles
with as many as 500 warheads -- the exact numbers remain shrouded in secrecy --
are deployed in the Murmansk area.
For Russian nuclear strategists, such
nuclear-armed submarines are considered the most “survivable” of the country’s
retaliatory systems. In the event of a nuclear exchange with the United States,
the country’s heavy bombers and ICBMs could prove relatively vulnerable to
pre-emptive strikes as their locations are known and can be targeted by
American bombs and missiles with near-pinpoint accuracy. Those subs, however,
can leave Murmansk and disappear into the wide Atlantic Ocean at the onset of
any crisis and so presumably remain hidden from U.S. spying eyes. To do so,
however, requires that they pass through the Barents Sea, avoiding the NATO
forces lurking nearby. For
Moscow, in other words, the very possibility of deterring a U.S. nuclear
strike hinges on its
ability to defend its naval stronghold in Murmansk, while maneuvering its
submarines past Norway’s Finnmark region. No wonder, then, that this area has
assumed enormous strategic importance for Russian military planners -- and the
upcoming Cold Response 2020 is sure to prove challenging to them.
Washington’s Arctic Buildup
During the Cold War era, Washington viewed
the Arctic as a significant strategic arena and constructed a string of
military bases across the region. Their main aim: to intercept Soviet bombers
and missiles crossing the North Pole on their way to targets in North America.
After the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, Washington abandoned many of those
bases. Now, however, with the Pentagon once again identifying “great
power competition” with Russia and China as the defining characteristic of the
present strategic environment, many of those bases are being reoccupied and new
ones established. Once again, the Arctic is being viewed as a potential site of
conflict with Russia and, as a result, U.S. forces are being readied for
possible combat there.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was the first
official to explain this new strategic outlook at the Arctic Forum in Finland
last May. In his address, a kind of “Pompeo Doctrine,” he indicated that the United
States was shifting from benign neglect of the region to aggressive involvement
and militarization. “We’re entering a new age of strategic engagement in the
Arctic,” he insisted, “complete with
new threats to the Arctic and its real estate, and to all of our interests in
that region.” To better protect those interests against Russia’s military
buildup there, “we are fortifying America’s security and diplomatic presence in
the area... hosting military exercises, strengthening our force presence,
rebuilding our icebreaker fleet, expanding Coast Guard funding, and creating a
new senior military post for Arctic Affairs inside of our own military.”
The Pentagon has been unwilling to provide
many details, but a close reading of the military press suggests that this
activity has been particularly focused on northern Norway and adjacent waters.
To begin with, the Marine Corps has established a permanent presence in that
country, the first time foreign forces have been stationed there since German
troops occupied it during World War II. A detachment of about 330 Marines were
initially deployednear the port of
Trondheim in 2017, presumably to help guard nearby caves that contain hundreds
of U.S. tanks and combat vehicles. Two years later, a similarly sized group was
then dispatched to the
Troms region above the Arctic Circle and far closer to the Russian border.
From the Russian perspective, even more
threatening is the construction of a U.S. radar station on the Norwegian island
of Vardø about 40 miles from the Kola Peninsula. To be operated in conjunction
with the Norwegian intelligence service, the focus of the
facility will evidently be to snoop on those Russian missile-carrying
submarines, assumedly in order to target them and take them out in the earliest
stages of any conflict. That Moscow fears just such an outcome is evident from
the mock attack it
staged on the Vardø facility in 2018, sending 11 Su-24 supersonic bombers on a
direct path toward the island. (They turned aside at the last moment.) It has
also moved a
surface-to-surface missile battery to a spot just 40 miles from Vardø.
In addition, in August 2018, the U.S. Navy
decided to reactivate the previously decommissioned Second Fleet in the North
Atlantic. “A new Second Fleet increases our strategic flexibility to respond --
from the Eastern Seaboard to the Barents Sea,” said Chief of Naval
Operations John Richardson at the time. As last year ended, that fleet was
declared fully operational.
Deciphering Cold Response 2020
Exercise Cold Response 2020 must be viewed
in the context of all these developments. Few details about the thinking behind
the upcoming war games have been made public, but it’s not hard to imagine what
at least part of the scenario might be like: a U.S.-Russian clash of some sort
leading to Russian attacks aimed at seizing that radar station at Vardø and
Norway’s defense headquarters at Bodø on the country’s northwestern coast. The
invading troops will be slowed but not stopped by Norwegian forces (and those
U.S. Marines stationed in the area), while thousands of
reinforcements from NATO bases elsewhere in Europe begin to pour in. Eventually,
of course, the tide will turn and the Russians will be forced back.
No matter what the official scenario is
like, however, for Pentagon planners the situation will go far beyond this. Any
Russian assault on critical Norwegian military facilities would presumably be
preceded by intense air and missile bombardment and the forward deployment of
major naval vessels. This, in turn, would prompt comparable moves by the U.S.
and NATO, probably resulting in violent encounters and the loss of major assets
on all sides. In the process, Russia’s key nuclear retaliatory forces would be
at risk and quickly placed on high alert with senior officers operating in
hair-trigger mode. Any misstep might then lead to what humanity has feared
since August 1945: a nuclear apocalypse on Planet Earth.
There is no way to know to what degree such
considerations are incorporated into the classified versions of the Cold
Response 2020 scenario, but it’s unlikely that they’re missing. Indeed, a 2016 version of the
exercise involved the participation of three B-52 nuclear bombers from the U.S.
Strategic Air Command, indicating that the American military is keenly aware of
the escalatory risks of any large-scale U.S.-Russian encounter in the Arctic.
In short, what might otherwise seem like a
routine training exercise in a distant part of the world is actually part of an
emerging U.S. strategy to overpower Russia in a critical defensive zone, an
approach that could easily result in nuclear war. The Russians are, of course,
well aware of this and so will undoubtedly be watching Cold Response 2020 with
genuine trepidation. Their fears are understandable -- but we should all be
concerned about a strategy that seemingly embodies such a high risk of future
escalation.
Ever
since the Soviets acquired nuclear weapons of their own in 1949, strategists
have wondered how and where an all-out nuclear war -- World War III -- would
break out. At one time, that incendiary scenario was believed most likely to
involve a clash over the divided city of Berlin or along the East-West border
in Germany. After the Cold War, however, fears of such a deadly encounter
evaporated and few gave much thought to such possibilities. Looking forward today,
however, the prospect of a catastrophic World War III is again becoming all too
imaginable and this time, it appears, an incident in the Arctic could prove the
spark for Armageddon.
Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular,
is the five-college professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at
Hampshire College and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association.
He is the author of 15 books, including the just-published All Hell Breaking Loose: The
Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change (Metropolitan
Books), on which this article is based.
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Copyright 2020 Michael T. Klare
