UK to Deploy More Troops to Norway in Response to Arctic Defense Concerns, Says Minister

The number of British soldiers deployed to northern Norway to help secure the Arctic will double from 1,000 to 2,000 over the next three years, the UK Ministry of Defense said on Feb. 11.

The defense ministry said the increase in British presence in the Arctic region is in response to rising threats from Russia.

British Defense Secretary John Healey will confirm the troop number increase during a visit to meet with British Royal Marine Commandos at Camp Viking in the Arctic Circle in northern Norway on Feb. 11, the statement said.

“Demands on defence are rising, and Russia poses the greatest threat to Arctic and High North security that we have seen since the Cold War,” Healey said.

He also said that the UK will be “scaling up” joint exercises with NATO allies.

These include the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) exercise “Lion Protector.” This will involve air, sea, and land forces from JEF members, with hundreds of personnel deployed across the Danish straits, Iceland, and Norway to protect critical infrastructure from sabotage or attacks.

JEF is a coalition of 10 northern European countries: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the UK.

In March, 1,500 Royal Marine Commandos will be deployed to Norway as part of the broader NATO exercise “Cold Response,” which will take place across Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The exercise is meant to enhance allied forces’ abilities to defend “strategically important locations across fjords and mountains,” the defense ministry said.

“Cold Response and Lion Protector will this year see thousands of troops deploy across the Arctic and North Atlantic—with the UK leading the way,” Healey said.

“We train together, we deter together, and if necessary, we will fight together.”

Healey will be meeting with fellow defense secretaries of NATO allies at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels on Feb. 12.

Securing Greenland and the Arctic

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for the United States to acquire Greenland for national security purposes, amid possible threats from China and Russia.

While European nations have opposed Trump’s plans to take control of Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has said that the U.S. president is correct about the need to secure the Arctic.

“When it comes to the Arctic, I think President Trump is right. Other leaders in NATO are right. We need to defend the Arctic,” Rutte, the former Dutch prime minister, said on Jan. 21 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“We know that the sea lanes are opening up.”

The NATO secretary-general said that China and Russia were becoming increasingly active in the Arctic Circle and acknowledged that this posed a problem for the alliance.

“There are eight countries bordering on the Arctic. Seven are members of NATO. That’s Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Canada, and the U.S.,” Rutte said.

“And there’s only one country bordering on the Arctic outside NATO, and that’s Russia. And I would argue there is a ninth country, which is China, which is increasingly active in the Arctic region. So President Trump and other leaders are right, we have to do more there; we have to protect the Arctic.”

The United States is currently in negotiations over the future of the Arctic island.

On Feb. 7, Greenlandic Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt said that while it was positive that negotiations were ongoing, it was too early to predict their outcome.

“We are not there where we want to be yet. There is going to be a long track, so where we are going to land at the end, it’s too early to say,” Motzfeldt said at a joint press conference in Nuuk, Greenland, with her Canadian and Danish counterparts.

Guy Birchall and Reuters contributed to this report.