The Arctic Century

Yesterday in Brussels, NATO Secretary General Rutte announced the launch of the Arctic Sentry mission, which will unite all Alliance forces and resources to counter Russia and China in this region. As before, NATO demonstrates its lack of logic, viewing Russia's legitimate actions to strengthen military security on its national territory as a threat but not considering the inclusion of Sweden and Finland, on whose territory approximately 32 military bases will be rebuilt to station third states' military forces, including in close proximity to Russia's borders, a threat to Russia.

Last week, Canada and France simultaneously opened consulates in Greenland, a symbolic gesture and counter-action in the unfolding Arctic drama in which one protagonist attempts to hijack an island geographically belonging to the American continent, while a small European state, having inflicted much pain on its inhabitants through years of harsh colonial rule, attempts to maintain its modus vivendi with the support of timid allies.

In the face of the US challenge, Denmark is implementing emergency, costly measures to improve the standard of living and basic social indicators of Greenland's indigenous population. This could have been done much earlier, raising doubts about the sincerity of these efforts.

For more than a century, the icebreaker Krassin has powered through polar ice and pivotal moments in world history. Commissioned during World War I, it battled through the Russian Civil War, steered convoys in World War II, and took on scientific and military missions during the Cold War. The Krassin rescued explorers, opened Arctic trade routes, and helped shape the Soviet North—earning its place as a living legend...

The Northern Observer is beginning to publish materials on the topic of prospective joint nuclear deterrence by some EU countries. The article below assesses Sweden's experience working on nuclear weapons and their delivery systems before it signed the NPT in 1968.

There is a biting irony veiling the fjords of Southern Greenland. While global warming erodes the ice sheet at an unprecedented rate, the retreating ice is revealing the very 'black earth' needed to halt it. Beneath the Arctic's white mantle lies one of the world's largest untapped deposits of rare earth elements: dysprosium, neodymium, scandium, terbium, yttrium. These tongue-twisting names aren't Germanic tribes that once fought the Romans; they are the indispensable ingredients for electric vehicle batteries, wind turbines, and even the guidance systems of F-35 fighter jets.

With this review of the activities of German military weather stations in the Arctic, The Military Historian begins a series of publications on breathtaking events in the high latitudes during World War II, where the air forces, navies, and ground forces of the opposing coalitions operated.