DOD’s new Arctic strategy calls for better tech to ‘monitor and respond’

Enhancing the Joint Force’s technology arsenal and infrastructure in the Arctic marks a key pillar in the Defense Department’s new approach for operating in that complex, rapidly changing region.

Pentagon leadership on Monday issued the 2024 Arctic Strategy, which aims to guide the military’s path forward as it adapts to the unfolding and intensifying geopolitical and geophysical shifts in the security environment — particularly in and around U.S. territory in Alaska and allied hubs in the High North.

“To ensure the Arctic does not become a strategic blind spot, this strategy outlines a series of deliberate steps for DoD to improve its ability to monitor events in the Arctic and, when directed, execute a tailored response to national security threats alongside its interagency and international partners,” officials wrote in the document.

They point to major transformational events that are “driving the need” for the new strategy — including “Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the accession of Finland and Sweden to the NATO Alliance, increasing collaboration between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Russia, and the accelerating impacts of climate change.”

To confront these and other intensifying risks and boost integrated deterrence, the strategy directs a range of activities across three broad lines of effort: enhancing the Joint Force’s Arctic capabilities and domain awareness; engaging with allies, partners and key stakeholders; and exercising tailored presence in the region independently and with NATO and others.

The first line of effort encompasses a variety of technologies that the U.S. military says it must prioritize to innovate and expand its Arctic presence.

“DoD should pursue early warning capabilities; discrimination sensors; tracking sensors; Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) capabilities; improved understanding of the electromagnetic spectrum; and sensing and forecasting capabilities,” the document states.

In terms of all-domain awareness and missile-warning assets, the strategy calls on the Pentagon to evaluate options for “improving ground-based sensors to complement and enhance existing NORAD capabilities.” Officials are also directed to continue research into options for new space-based missile-warning and observational systems with greater polar coverage.

Beyond maintaining investments in manned and uncrewed aerial systems to enable air and maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, the strategy also urges DOD to “conduct analysis of requirements for future unmanned platforms that can operate in the Arctic.”

In a press briefing Monday to unveil the department’s new strategy, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks noted that — as the Pentagon is moving quickly to deploy artificial intelligence and autonomous capabilities across its enterprise — the Arctic is a “perfect domain” to test out different applications. She said it also envelops “a clear area where we can apply some of what we’re doing in the department.”

“So that means a lot of research and development and testing — and that’s where we’re focused in this area — and looking at the possibilities of where uncrewed systems can bring value. But I think as Replicator is demonstrating [that], so we are ready to kind of catalyze where we can in the movement on the sorts of capabilities [where] really see the potential,” Hicks said.

“AI is ideal at helping us make sense of an environment pattern recognition, bringing in data and understanding the environment to make better decisions and faster decisions. And this is a space where I think bringing the two together or just in general being able to leverage AI can really advantage us,” she added.

The department is also encouraged to invest in satellite solutions to improve tactical and strategic communications — specifically above 65 degrees North latitude.

Officials are further directed to engage with allies and partners to improve data coverage and capacity for the more than 250 anticipated, advanced multi-role combat aircraft that NATO could deploy for Arctic operations by the 2030s.

The strategy also notes that the military’s weapon systems and equipment need to be outfitted or customized for Arctic specifications and conditions, where tasks must be performed at extremely cold temperatures routinely reaching -50 degrees Fahrenheit or below.

“The services should therefore ensure the adequacy of their Arctic equipment (accounting for both male and female personnel) in order to conduct relevant Arctic operations as directed, in accordance with their own Arctic strategies,” the document states. 

In the new guide, leadership also details refreshed strategic plans for how DOD components should approach engaging with military partners in the region moving forward. They also spotlight certain joint exercises in the pipeline that will help realize these efforts.

The plan “aligns and nests under” the U.S. national security and national defense strategies from 2022, and the National Strategy for the Arctic Region released that year. 

It’s also meant to build upon and implement prior directives from the Pentagon for components to adopt a “monitor-and-respond” approach to preserving stability in the region.

Expanding on the growing challenges there, the new strategy articulates DOD’s recognition that the area “may experience its first practically ice-free summer by 2030.” 

The “loss of sea ice will increase the viability of Arctic maritime transit routes and access to undersea resources. Increases in human activity will elevate the risk of accidents, miscalculation, and environmental degradation,” the strategy states.

Among other concerns, the document also warns that China is working to expand its influence and activities in the Arctic, such as through experiments testing uncrewed underwater vehicles and polar-capable fixed-wing aircraft. 

At the same time, Russia is posing “nuclear, conventional, and special operations threats,” and also “seeks to carry out lower-level destabilizing activities in the Arctic against the United States and our Allies, including through Global Positioning System jamming and military flights that are conducted in an unprofessional manner inconsistent with international law and custom,” officials wrote.

During the press briefing Monday following Hicks’s remarks, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Arctic and Global Resilience Iris Ferguson noted that DOD has seen an “uptick” in China-Russia military collaboration around the Arctic over the last couple of years.

“We see them exercising diplomatic agreements, including between Chinese and Russian coast guards. Within the Arctic region, we also see [them conducting joint] military exercises for the first time,” Ferguson said.

Although it does not detail immediate next steps and is not accompanied by an associated implementation plan, the strategy notes that the undersecretary of defense for policy will develop DOD-wide policy that “builds enduring advantages in [the] Arctic.”

“I think that that phrase actually just meant to say that the Undersecretary of Policy will be responsible for implementing the strategy going forward,” Ferguson noted during the briefing.

In response to questions regarding concrete outcomes and next steps that are envisioned following the release of this new strategy, she told DefenseScoop: “I think we will have an implementation plan — it’s unclear if it will be public or not.”

But in her view, it’s all “about creating the roadmap for the capabilities that we need to protect our interests and to ensure that our troops have what they need to operate in the region,” Ferguson explained.

She went on to highlight some of the investments DOD is already making in boosting up its missions in the region. 

“We recognize that it’s an incredibly challenging place to live and to serve, and many of the locations in the Arctic are remote and austere. So we’ve been focusing heavily on quality-of-life improvements for many of our troops that are stationed there — and as of this summer, all service members that are stationed in Alaska will actually have access to cold weather incentive pay for when they’re there. They’re able to buy cold weather gear for living up there,” she said.

Her team has also been looking at what kind of infrastructure repairs might be needed for DOD’s Arctic assets due to rapidly changing weather conditions there.

Additional progress is being made by the services.

“The Space Force has also invested some $1.8 billion in the Enhanced Polar System Recapitalization Payload, which is a payload that is actually uniquely hosted on Norway satellites. It was actually meant to launch several weeks ago and it will hopefully launch in the next couple of weeks. That’s the first time that we will have a payload on an allied partner satellite,” Ferguson told DefenseScoop.