The Swedish corvette Nyköping, front, and the Danish ship Esbern Snare take part in a NATO anti-submarine warfare exercise in 2018. Sweden, Denmark and Finland are among the countries that now fall under the Virginia-based Joint Force Command Norfolk. (Rob Kasteleijn/Allied Joint Force Command Naples)

Finland, Sweden and Denmark now fall under a U.S.-based NATO headquarters, as the 32-member bloc aims to bolster operations in two areas of significant interest to Russia, the alliance’s top general said this week.   

The arrangement, to be made official at a ceremony Friday in Finland, updates NATO’s command structure by expanding the area of responsibility for the Virginia-based Joint Force Command Norfolk.

With Norway already in the fold, the entire Nordic region is part of the Norfolk headquarters’ purview.

The reorganization underscores how NATO is prioritizing operations in the north Atlantic and Arctic, both of which have seen an increase in Russian military activity in recent years. 

The move shifts responsibility for Denmark, Sweden and Finland away from Joint Force Command Brunssum in the Netherlands, which is mainly focused on NATO’s eastern flank states.

“With the alignment of our adversaries around the globe, it is imperative we strengthen the Euro-Atlantic area as much as possible, and reinforce our posture in the High North,” U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said in a Thursday statement.

The Norfolk headquarters, led by Vice Adm. Doug Perry, is responsible for the defense of NATO territory stretching from Florida to the North Pole.

That includes protecting undersea cables, which transmit internet traffic around the world and carry trillions of dollars of financial transactions on a daily basis.

NATO officials over the years have voiced concerns about potential Russian targeting of such infrastructure to disrupt Western life.

JFC Norfolk is the only U.S.-based operational command in NATO. It was reconstituted in 2019 amid concerns about a more assertive Russia and Moscow’s potential to disrupt allied efforts to cross the Atlantic during a crisis.

It became fully operational in 2021 and is the first allied headquarters dedicated to protecting the Atlantic sea lanes since 2003.

Besides the Nordic members, JFC Norfolk’s area of responsibility also includes the United Kingdom.

Grynkewich called the command “the strategic bridge between North America and Europe.”