U.S. soldiers participate in an exercise at Donnelly Training Area, Alaska, on Jan. 26, 2025. The U.S. and its allies should join forces to counter Russian and Chinese activity in the Arctic region, according to a new Hudson Institute report. (Justin Morelli/U.S. Army)
The United States and its allies in Europe and the Pacific should join forces to build a joint Arctic fighting concept aimed at countering the growing Russia-China alliance in the High North, a new think tank report contends.
Russia has spent the past decade adding firepower in the Arctic with assistance from China, but allies aren’t keeping pace, the Hudson Institute said in a study released this week that calls for a new approach to close security gaps.
“As strategic competition heats up, the US alliance system may be unprepared to credibly counter military challenges from Moscow and Beijing,” the report said. “One concern is that Russia is seeking to expand its submarine operations to maintain credible targeting of the US homeland with submarine-launched nuclear weapons.”
Over the past several years, the region has steadily become more of a focal point for the United States and its two main rivals, Russia and China. As sea ice melts, new sea lanes are opening in the area, which also is home to vast amounts of valuable natural resources.
While the United States is the only NATO country with strategic interests that span the entire Arctic, from the Barents Sea to the Bering Sea, Washington needs allies to help secure those interests, the report said.
The strategy calls for integration of U.S. and allied naval warfare operations across the Arctic and into the Baltics and northern Pacific Ocean.
“This effort would counter Russian and Russian-Chinese operational plans by coupling the Arctic with the two theaters,” according to the report, which noted that northern European allies along with Canada, Japan and South Korea would need to coordinate their efforts.
The concept, which calls for allies to invest in a wide range of new manned and unmanned systems to increase the alliance’s reach, comes at a tense time in the High North and in NATO itself.
In recent weeks, the United States has been at odds with several allies over President Donald Trump’s push to take control of Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of fellow NATO member Denmark.
Leaders in Denmark and other key NATO countries — such as France, the U.K. and Germany — have opposed Trump’s insistence that Greenland be transferred to American control.
Others have criticized the White House for not ruling out the use of force as an option for taking the territory.
But at the World Economic Forum annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland, this week, the strain on relations started to show signs of easing, as Trump ruled out the use of military force to annex the strategic island.
Trump also announced that he and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte were working on an agreement related to Greenland that would be supported across the alliance.
While the details remain unknown, the new developments could eventually provide an opportunity for the U.S. and other allies to step up more in the Arctic. For Russia, the High North has been a major factor in its military planning over the past decade. Moscow and Beijing also are building an extensive seabed-to-space sensor network that will challenge the ability of U.S. and allied submarines to remain undetected in the area, the report said.
“Instead of reacting to Russian and Chinese challenges, NATO allies and their partners need a concept of operations that creates security dilemmas for Moscow and Beijing and makes the costs of undertaking military operations too high,” the report said. “Such a concept should force Russia and China to go on the defensive.”
One way to accomplish that is to have a forward-based posture closer to Russian bases of operation with assets capable of carrying out strikes, the report said, arguing that the current defensive approach hasn’t worked.
More thorough integration with allies will help deter Russia and China from trying to expand their military operations in the High North, according to the report.
In addition, doing so will “demonstrate that the US and its allies can operate across the Arctic in the event of a two-front war encompassing several theaters,” the report said.
