Anticipatory Defense in the Arctic

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The Arctic is no longer a remote backwater of global affairs—it is a physically and socially contested battlespace in which adversaries, particularly China, are conducting operations contrary to US interests through gray-zone activities.¹ These actions—subtle, persistent, and plausibly deniable—proceed beneath the threshold of open conflict. China exploits diplomatic venues, academic networks, privately funded think tanks and commercial partnerships to erode American influence, not by force of arms but by corrosion of access, advantage, and awareness while simultaneously taking advantage of the open nature of Western society. The defense, security, and intelligence communities often detect these incursions only once they have metastasized into defense vulnerabilities.

The prevailing Arctic narrative must be dismantled. We continue to indulge in outdated paradigms—fixating on climate change and the Northern Sea Route (NSR) as if the stakes were merely environmental or economic while simultaneously reassuring ourselves that China’s influence is waning.² Such frameworks are fiercely guarded by a small group of scholars from various academic, and defense-affiliated think tanks, regional centers and Alaska-centric policy circles. They are irrelevant to defense planning in a region defined by illusory operational cooperation and strategic ambiguity. The United States must recalibrate toward a data-driven, threat-informed Arctic posture, rooted in the realities of gray-zone competition—not the mirage of peaceful cooperation.³

Gray-zone competition, or irregular warfare, as defined here, comprises a constellation of state-directed activities that exploit the seams between peace and war, where jurisdictions and authorities are often ambiguous such as those between the defense, law enforcement, and intelligence enterprises. These operations—legal, covert, cyber, economic, and informational—seek cumulative strategic advantage without triggering an overt military response. While kinetic force remains the final arbiter, gray-zone actors use its threat to reinforce their position across the full spectrum of conflict. This is war by infiltration and subversion, not invasion—aggression by algorithm and access, not artillery. Competition by co-option of sentiment.

Ongoing environmental transformation only compounds the strategic calculus. The Arctic is warming—but unevenly. Svalbard, for example, has witnessed temperature increases triple the global average,⁴ while portions of Alaska have recorded net cooling.⁵ Such disparity underscores the Arctic’s defining feature: heterogeneity. At operational scales—often as fine as 10 kilometers—physical, geopolitical, and socio-technical variables diverge in ways that defy centralized planning or one-size-fits-all deterrence models.

To navigate this complexity, the US Department of Defense Joint Staff’s Allies & Partners Force Development Division (APFDD) Multinational Capability Development Campaign (MCDC), developed the Multinational Military Operational Science and Technology (MMOST) Framework for Joint Warfighting. Originally a response to the absence of a coherent understanding of the Arctic operating environment, MMOST reorients defense thinking around adaptive, evidence-based planning. This article applies MMOST to the Arctic as a proving ground for anticipatory defense—a concept rooted in international law and legitimized by the 1837 Caroline case, which affirmed the right to strike in the face of imminent threat. In this regard, the current Department of Defense (DOD) Arctic Strategy is fundamentally inadequate. It fails to confront the reality that today’s threats manifest not through armored divisions or missile salvos, but through hybrid, irregular, and gray-zone activities that exploit institutional blind spots and normative ambiguities. Whether described as preemption, prevention, or anticipatory self-defense, the strategic principle is unchanged: waiting to “monitor and respond” is an admission that we expect a kinetic blow that, in this theater, is unlikely to fall. The real danger lies not in what might explode, but in what already permeates—cyber intrusions, institutional co-optation, academic espionage, and data exfiltration. These actions produce tangible, cumulative effects that degrade our national advantage and, if allowed to escalate unchecked, could be just as lethal as any conventional strike. Our posture must evolve accordingly—not to wait and react, but to anticipate, adapt, and act preemptively within the gray zone. To accomplish this, we must reframe our Arctic narratives.

Arctic Narratives

Over the past 15 years, the United States’ Arctic narrative has been hijacked—not only by adversaries abroad, but by vested interests at home. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Alaska-centric economic development model that has shaped federal engagement in the region. Under the guise of strategic necessity, Alaska has positioned itself as both gatekeeper and beneficiary of Arctic defense policy, siphoning federal dollars into state-level projects that serve more parochial than national interests.⁶

In 2023, Alaska received USD 6.3 billion in federal transfers—nearly 29 percent of its total state revenue. This equates to a staggering USD 8,628 per capita, the highest in the nation and 26.5 percent above the second-highest recipient, Rhode Island.⁷ The DOD alone contributed USD 4.7 billion, roughly 7 percent of Alaska’s gross domestic product.⁸ Nearly 30,000 personnel—4 percent of the population—reside there under defense auspices, propping up local economies with federal salaries, benefits, and support services.

Yet these figures tell a deeper story: Alaska has monetized its strategic geography. The state’s political leadership, supported by sympathetic think tanks, media echo chambers, and a new DOD regional center, continues to promote an Arctic narrative tailored to ensure the uninterrupted flow of federal appropriations. This narrative leans heavily on existential alarmism over Russia, climate change, and marginalized native communities, not because it reflects battlefield realities, but because it secures budgetary largesse.

Across the Atlantic, the European High North follows a parallel script. NATO member states, especially in the Nordic region, have amplified the “Russian threat” since the onset of the Ukraine conflict.⁹ This rhetorical surge, though not without justification, often obscures the inconvenient truth that many of these same nations maintain robust academic and technological ties with China. From Arctic engineering initiatives to joint university labs, Beijing enjoys preferential access to dual-use infrastructure and sensitive research across Europe—courtesy of the very allies now calling for greater US military commitments.

The fiscal asymmetry in Arctic security speaks volumes. The United States shoulders a full 94 percent of total defense and security expenditures among its Arctic partners (fig. 1).^{10, 11} Even adjusted for gross domestic product, Washington still outpaces the field—devoting 3.4 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to defense, compared to Finland’s 2.4 percent and Canada’s paltry 1.3 percent.¹² Yet the United States directly controls only 10 to 15 percent of the Arctic region, while Russia commands over half, and Canada claims another 20 to 25 percent.

This disconnect—between financial contribution and operational leverage—exposes a critical vulnerability. American taxpayers are underwriting an Arctic security architecture that increasingly serves divergent interests. Allies court China. Domestic actors chase subsidies. And the defense enterprise risks confusing regional development with deterrence. Strategic clarity demands a course correction: one that prioritizes threats over theater, force posture over pork, and national security over local patronage.

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Figure 1. Fiscal disparities. Despite owning or controlling only a small percentage of the Arctic, the United States is the source of almost all funding for defense and security.

In the United States, Arctic expertise has become a closed loop. A small cadre of institutions—among them the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute, Harvard’s Belfer Center, “Project 6633,” and the DOD regional centers act as an echo chamber, reiterating outmoded narratives that are not based on the scientific, technological, and operational realities that ought to underpin national defense planning.

The result is an Arctic narrative that is dangerously homogenous. It reflects the biases of its architects—narrative entrepreneurs who trade analytical rigor for policy outcomes aligned with predetermined agendas. These organizations operate with remarkable influence, shaping both public perception and federal appropriations. Their intellectual inertia ensures the money keeps flowing to well-connected stakeholders, while genuine innovation—especially from smaller, nontraditional defense organizations—is left to starve.¹³

Even North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and US Northern Command (NORTHCOM) have struggled to break free from this gravitational pull. Their assessments routinely fail to incorporate the very tools—real-time environmental sensing, machine learning, geospatial analytics—that are now standard in other domains. Instead, they echo the dominant Alaska-centric threat model, one that casts every Russian patrol as an “escalation” while overlooking the far more insidious competition unfolding beneath the surface: China’s gray-zone campaign.

At the heart of this distortion lies Alaskan Command (ALCOM), a unique anomaly within the unified command structure. ALCOM is the only subordinate unified command that resides wholly within a US state, and it has become a vehicle for the Alaskan Congressional delegation’s strategic ambitions. Its posture exaggerates Russian proximity while largely ignoring the asymmetric threat China poses through economic, academic, and technological infiltration. Consider the facts: Chinese-manufactured drones have operated near sensitive US installations; Chinese researchers affiliated with state institutions gain access to American Arctic infrastructure via memoranda of understanding and academic exchanges; and nearly every major university in the Arctic zone maintains formal ties to Chinese counterparts.¹⁴

Despite being invoked as “science diplomacy,” this is not diplomacy—it is strategic encroachment masquerading as scholarly collaboration. And it is happening under the nose of US defense institutions that should know better.

Political pressure from the Alaska delegation has engineered an Arctic mythology.¹⁵ This narrative emphasizes climate volatility and geopolitical instability, not as strategic considerations, but as justifications for infrastructure investment. It promotes federal reinvestment in projects that have already proven ineffective, so long as they generate revenue for the state. In doing so, it commits the cardinal sin of defense planning: building capability without regard for utility.

The DOD has further compounded the problem by bypassing the very companies capable of adapting to the Arctic’s unique complexity. Instead of leveraging agile private-sector innovators, it continues to recycle legacy solutions—cold-weather variants of outdated platforms, off-the-shelf assessments unsuited to nonlinear environmental change, and static logistics models that collapse under Arctic variability.

Even the economic narrative—touted as evidence of Arctic awakening—crumbles under scrutiny. Between 2023 and 2024, the Russian Federation reported a 50 percent increase in cargo transits along the NSR.¹⁶ The Arctic Council claimed a 37-percent rise in shipping activity between 2013 and 2023.¹⁷ Yet the raw numbers are sobering: just 97 vessels used the NSR in 2023. Forty-one percent of Arctic Council vessel traffic comprised fishing boats. Only 1,122 vessels entered the entire Polar Code area that year.¹⁸

These increases are statistical mirages. They reflect the growing cargo capacity of individual vessels—not a revolution in Arctic shipping. The sea lanes remain treacherous, the infrastructure sparse, and the economics fragile.¹⁹ The Arctic is not becoming a new Suez. It is becoming a region of strategic ambiguity, where perception diverges wildly from reality—and where American policy continues to invest in China’s climate-change narrative.

Many Arctics: The Diverse Arctic Operating Environment

To speak of the Arctic as a singular entity is a strategic fallacy. In reality, there are at least three Arctics—each defined by distinct geographies, cryospheric conditions, ecological realities, and human infrastructure. These are: the North American Arctic, the European High North, and the Russian Arctic. Any defense strategy that fails to recognize this tripartite structure is not merely oversimplified—it is operationally irresponsible.

The North American Arctic is marked by vast distances, minimal infrastructure, and logistical choke points. Its terrain is austere, its population sparse, and its climate erratic. Military mobility here is constrained not by adversaries, but by the environment itself. The European High North, by contrast, is densely networked—crisscrossed with roads, fiber-optic lines, and established dual-use ports. It hosts NATO’s most forward-leaning posture, supported by interoperable forces and political alignment. Then there is the Russian Arctic: militarized, expansive, and deteriorating. Moscow has poured resources into reviving Soviet-era outposts and fielding dual-use capabilities across its northern frontier, even as permafrost thaw rapidly undermines their physical foundations.

Each of these regions presents a radically different operational environment (OE). From satellite coverage to ground force survivability, from logistics chains to gray-zone vulnerabilities, the variables diverge at every level—physical, geopolitical, and temporal. There is no “standard Arctic OE.” There are only layered complexities that demand tailored responses. This is why modularity, adaptability, and scientific precision must replace legacy parochial assumptions in Arctic defense planning.

The Multinational Capabilities Development Campaign (MCDC) Multinational Military Operational Science & Technology Framework (MMOST)

In 2021–22 the DOD Joint Staff J7 NATO-aligned MCDC was tasked with tackling a military challenge: the absence of a coherent operational understanding of the Arctic. The task was unambiguous and urgent:²⁰

• Analyze how environmental volatility affects strategic competition in the Arctic;

• Develop adaptive approaches that enable effective military operations under extreme and variable conditions;

• Ensure the resulting frameworks are applicable across global theaters, not Arctic-exclusive; and

• Lay the groundwork for a permanent Joint Force Arctic Technical Requirements Group capable of institutionalizing science-based Arctic defense planning.

In response, the MCDC chartered a working group to address a deceptively simple military problem: the Joint Operating Environment (OE) lacks a unified, actionable framework for the Arctic. Despite decades of Arctic research, reliable equipment, and field-tested cold-weather doctrine, defense planning remains fragmented. What exists in stovepipes—Indigenous knowledge, climate modeling, off-the-shelf kit—is rarely fused into operational practice.

At its core, MMOST treats the Arctic OE as a highly variable, complex OE whose unpredictability is its defining strategic feature. The method applies a structured, evidence-based methodology to Arctic defense planning. It recognizes that environmental change in the region is not new—it is cyclical. What complicates military operations today is not the fact of change, but the intensification of inherent variability. The Arctic has always oscillated between warmer and colder phases. What now confronts planners is the increasingly volatile nature of that oscillation: diurnal, seasonal, and subregional fluctuations that outpace traditional models of forecasting and force deployment.

This variability directly affects military operations across socio-environmental systems (SES)—the interdependent interactions between ecological processes and human decision making.²¹ SES is not an academic abstraction; it is the operational reality in which climate, terrain, infrastructure, and adversarial activity co-evolve. In such a system, environmental perturbations do not act in isolation. They interact with social, technological, and strategic inputs to produce emergent behaviors that defy linear planning.

Among MMOST’s key contributions was the ability to generate high-resolution variability maps of the Arctic using military science, environmental modeling, geospatial intelligence and artificial intelligence tools. It captures and interprets real-time changes in cryosphere dynamics, hydrological systems, vegetation, landforms, and atmospheric behavior. These are then analyzed in relation to infrastructure readiness, local population density, and threat actor activity—creating a real-time, evolving operational picture.

It identifies areas that are more or less stable across kilometer-scale segments. This enables military planners to calibrate their concepts of operation, logistics, and basing strategies according to environmental stability. It supports modular innovation: the tailored deployment of platforms, personnel, and materiel in ways that are resilient to surprise and optimized for mission flexibility.

In short, MMOST offers a means of anticipating fine-scale locations across the Arctic which exhibit higher overall stability. These stable zones are just that: areas that behave consistently and predictably in a sea of change. The utility of such areas to defense planning is immense. They provide a road map for where logistics can be connected, where infrastructure can be located, and where operators can maneuver.

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Figure 2. MMOST Workflow (Alessa and Valentine, 2023).

MMOST employs three iterative and mutually reinforcing phases, each designed to integrate complex environmental realities with actionable defense planning. These phases iteratively yield operational outputs that equip commanders to confront—and outmaneuver—the most unforgiving theater on Earth (fig. 2):

Phase 1: Analyze Biogeophysical Terrain

In the Arctic, it is often the terrain itself that becomes the enemy. In this first phase, MMOST initiates a systematic analysis of the Arctic’s biogeophysical landscape. This includes quantifiable physical changes—melting multi-year sea ice, degrading permafrost, destabilized coastlines—as well as geopolitical pressures such as territorial claims, resource extraction races, and adversarial posture shifts.

Unlike conventional definitions that narrowly fixate on the Arctic Circle, MMOST adopts a functional geostrategic lens, identifying the “Arctic” as all terrain above 50°N latitude. This broader scope reflects operational reality: threat vectors, governance regimes (e.g., the Arctic Council), and military accessibility do not adhere to latitudinal dogma. They evolve based on shifting strategic imperatives.

A critical component of this phase is the use of spatial autocorrelation—the statistical principle that environmental variables in adjacent regions often move together. In military terms, this means that what happens in one fjord, ice shelf, or coastal corridor cannot be isolated. For instance, the retreat of multi-year sea ice improves maritime access, but the pattern of its retreat—shaped by oceanic currents and prevailing winds—creates fleeting, unpredictable windows of opportunity. One week’s navigable water may become the next week’s logistical trap.

Phase 2: Identify Operational Needs

The second phase shifts focus to the Joint Force’s capability gaps—areas where current doctrine, equipment, or posture fall short. Crucially, this process does not rely on think-tank recommendations or recycled policy frameworks. Instead, it places operational military leaders and scientific practitioners at the center of requirements generation.

By identifying specific “pain points”—the operational seams where plans fail under Arctic conditions—issues such as unreliable fuel supply chains, degraded GPS coverage near the magnetic pole, or insufficient survivability of cold-weather gear under diurnal freeze-thaw cycles can be tied to a specific geographic location. The result is a prioritized list of mission-essential gaps—with their proximities to more or less stable zones. These gaps are more precise than standing doctrinal defense requirements.

Phase 3: Adapt Materiel, Personnel, and Logistics

MMOST’s final phase closes the loop. It takes those identified gaps and translates them into field-ready solutions—validated through simulation, experimentation, and iteration. Leveraging artificial intelligence tools to match emerging techniques that meet MMOST requirements of modularity, maintainability, and redundancy. Personnel training shifts from generic cold-weather exposure to domain-specific operations that take advantage of the environment, instead of fighting it.

More importantly, MMOST generates a spatio-temporal complexity index—a composite metric that captures the variability of key terrain and environmental attributes across both space and time. This index quantifies operational unpredictability by integrating temporal volatility (e.g., freeze-thaw cycles, seasonal shifts) with spatial heterogeneity (e.g., ice distribution, terrain roughness) at the kilometer scale, enabling planners to identify where rapid environmental change is most likely to disrupt military operations (fig. 3).²² This ensures that adaptations are not built around average conditions or static assumptions but are resilient across the full range of Arctic variability. MMOST does not prepare for a single future. It prepares for all plausible futures and their trade-offs simultaneously—equipping the Joint Force to adapt faster than the environment changes.

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Figure 3. Human terrain spatial complexity map for the Arctic and High North. Source: (Alessa and Valentine, 2023).

The Operational Environment (OE) Complexity Mapping tool operationalizes the principle of emergent behavior—where the interaction of subsystems such as geopolitical dynamics, environmental flux, and operational conditions yields outcomes that cannot be predicted from any single input. It harnesses artificial intelligence and machine learning—specifically unsupervised classification algorithms—to generate a dynamic, real-time decision aid that enables military planners to anticipate zones of relative stability and identify emerging risk areas before they become operational liabilities.

MMOST Assessment of Arctic Heterogeneity

The Arctic has never been a uniform battlespace. It has always been a region of extreme variability—topographically, climatically, and geologically. Today, that variability is intensifying. Yet crucially, the changes occurring in the biophysical environment are not occurring evenly. They manifest heterogeneously across the region, demanding a level of precision in assessment that exceeds traditional theater-level planning.

Even in its land-only classification model—excluding maritime and freshwater domains—MMOST revealed the full extent of this complexity. Using geospatial analysis at a 5 × 5 kilometer resolution, it identified key physical attributes relevant to military operations: bioclimate, lithology (bedrock and surface composition), landform, and landcover. When combined, these variables form ecophysiographic land units (ELU)—unique environmental configurations that define how forces can move, sustain, and survive in a given zone.

Table 1. Classification of Arctic Region Physical Environmental Properties - Land Only, 5 x 5 km Resolution. Source: Multinational Capability Development Campaign report, The Multinational Military Operational Science & Technology Framework (MMOST).²³

The operational takeaway is unequivocal: uniformity is the exception, not the rule.

There are two strategic implications. First, the tools, tactics, and technologies that produce success in one location may fail just kilometers away. Second, even when a given solution works in a specific place, it may not work again at a different time. The inverse is also true—what fails in one setting may succeed in another due to shifting variables. In conventional planning, environmental conditions are treated as background constants. In the Arctic, that assumption is a liability.

Defense planning must internalize this reality. Arctic operations cannot rely on fixed-pattern thinking. Instead, success demands adaptive systems capable of learning, reconfiguring, and recalibrating in real time. In this battlespace, heterogeneity is not just a feature—it is a strategic constraint that must be mastered, not ignored.

Arctic Heterogeneity: Implications to Defense and Security

Arctic defense and security operations must abandon conventional assumptions of uniformity. Instead, they must embrace a new paradigm—one rooted in smaller fixed footprints, increased lethality, localized adaptation, modular capability design, and continuous environmental sensing. In a theater where yesterday’s success can become tomorrow’s liability, resilience lies in flexibility, and superiority belongs to the side that masters these skills first. Our current Arctic narrative fails to accommodate both heterogeneity and rates of change in multiple areas where precision is key to defense planning:

Permafrost

Permafrost thaw is not new. It has been a persistent feature of polar dynamics since the earliest scientific observations of the cryosphere. What has changed is the framing. Increased solar irradiance, driven by natural cycles such as the Milankovitch Cycle, contributes to planetary warming and regional transformations.²⁴ Yet despite the popular narrative of widespread Arctic catastrophe, the United States and Canada are weathering permafrost degradation with relative resilience.²⁵

In North America, the impact is largely localized. Communities such as Kotzebue and Shishmaref, Alaska, have experienced measurable infrastructure degradation. However, iconic media portrayals—like images of the “village falling into the ocean” —fail to disclose an essential fact: these settlements were historically constructed on unstable coastal features already subject to erosion and dynamic landform shifts. The resulting damage is less a climate-induced collapse and more a consequence of poor planning and inadequate risk assessment.

This reality stands in stark contrast to alarmist discourse, which treats isolated events as proxies for systemic collapse. Per capita harm remains significantly lower in the US and Canadian Arctic than in other parts of the world experiencing more direct and sustained environmental stress. It is, in short, a narrative inflation—politically expedient but strategically misleading.

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Figure 4. Despite the commonly held narrative that the US and Canadian Arctic is experiencing “catastrophic climate change” it is actually the Russian Federation that bears the brunt of this. This conveys an advantage to both the North American and European High North. Source: Multinational Capability Development Campaign report, The Multinational Military Operational Science & Technology Framework (MMOST) (Alessa and Valentine, 2023).

The Russian Arctic, by contrast, is in structural retreat. Along the Siberian coastline—where Moscow has placed significant military and commercial assets—permafrost degradation is occurring at far greater rates.²⁶

This environmental fragility fundamentally undermines the Kremlin’s long-term strategic calculus. The Russian Federation is heavily invested—financially, politically, and militarily—in the viability of the NSR as both a commercial artery and a geopolitical lever. But this bet is increasingly compromised by ground-fast cryosphere degradation—the rapid thawing and destabilization of permafrost and sea ice that anchor critical Arctic infrastructure. Nowhere is this more acute than along Russia’s Arctic coastal margin, where critical infrastructure, including forward operating bases, airstrips, and ports along the NSR, is increasingly compromised by thaw-induced subsidence and hydrological instability. In short: the Russian Federation is building on ground that is literally disappearing beneath it (fig. 4).

Projections of an “ice-free Arctic” range wildly—from as little as five years to several decades—revealing not only the volatility of the environment but also the fragility of Russian assumptions.²⁷ Forecasting in highly dynamic OEs is inherently unreliable. Despite advances in modeling, the Arctic Ocean continues to behave less like an opening shipping lane and more like a chaotic system—defined by nonlinear feedback loops, abrupt atmospheric shifts, and the unpredictable consequences of cryosphere degradation across multiple domains. While some models predicted navigational improvement, the reality has been a decline in reliability and access. The emerging picture is not one of opportunity—but of operational entropy.

Sea Ice

The Arctic Ocean—once a shallow tropical sea, now covered in ice for over 2.7 million years—is entering a new geophysical phase.²⁸ Net annual reductions in sea ice have led to a surge in interest around trans-Arctic shipping corridors, such as the NSR and the Northwest Passage. But here again, reality diverges sharply from narrative.

Reduced sea ice coverage does not translate to a reliably ice-free passage. The Arctic remains a meteorologically volatile region. Polar amplification intensifies cyclone formation, temperature gradients frequently plunge below negative 30°C, and wind speeds routinely exceed 20 m/s.²⁹ These variables severely impact vessel performance and crew safety, mandating ice-strengthened hulls, advanced meteorological forecasting, and hardened navigation systems.³⁰

Shallow bathymetry remains a fundamental constraint on Arctic maritime viability. Much of the region’s seafloor, particularly along the Siberian Shelf, offers neither the depth nor the predictability required for efficient large-scale transit. As a result, sea-state conditions are rarely optimal—especially for vessels under 300 gross tons—driving up operational costs and increasing the risk of grounding, rerouting, or delay.³¹

The International Maritime Organization’s Polar Code, mandatory under both the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) and the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL), governs vessel safety and environmental compliance in these regions. It applies to all SOLAS-certified ships of 300 gross tons or greater operating in the polar zones. While this regulatory regime enhances safety and environmental oversight, it also raises the technical and financial thresholds for commercial participation—especially for smaller operators.

Contrary to popular claims of inadequate infrastructure, current maritime facilities in the Arctic are sufficient to support three times the present volume of traffic.³² Calls for aggressive port expansion miss the point: in shallow seas, the cost of building and maintaining deep-water ports is prohibitive.³³ Dredging and depth maintenance are perpetual burdens, and any infrastructure development must be justified by actual demand—of which there is little.

From a defense perspective, much of this geography offers limited strategic value in the current threat environment. The area north of the Aleutians, though historically relevant during World War II, presents more liabilities than advantages today. Infrastructure here is not only expensive to establish—it is nearly impossible to sustain without extraordinary logistical effort. The region’s environmental volatility—icing conditions, frequent storms, and long logistics tails—degrades the reliability of missile defense systems, limits intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) persistence, and exposes forward-deployed assets to asymmetric vulnerability in a conflict scenario.

For commercial shipping, the Arctic remains viable only to a select class of vessels designed to operate with minimal resupply and sparse emergency services. Those transiting the NSR do so at significant risk. Mechanical failure or navigational incidents in this austere corridor often result in delays that stretch for days—especially in winter, when assistance is limited or entirely unavailable. In a time-sensitive global logistics system, such delays impose unacceptable costs.³⁴

Navigational hazards remain omnipresent. While multi-year ice has declined, first-year ice, icebergs, and mobile floes still dominate the operational picture. Driven by erratic wind patterns and powerful ocean currents, these ice features shift rapidly and unpredictably. Much of the Arctic seafloor remains unmapped—particularly in Russian waters—further compounding the risk of grounding and hull breach. Bathymetric data shows that the Siberian Shelf averages just 50 to 100 meters in depth, sharply restricting draft and maneuverability.

Successful transit demands more than political will. It requires ice-class vessels—rated Polar Class PC1 through PC7—with reinforced hulls, redundant power systems, and hardened navigation platforms. Real-time satellite ice monitoring is nonnegotiable, and even then, escort by state-operated icebreakers is often necessary—yet access remains both limited and prohibitively expensive.³⁵

In short, the Arctic may be changing—but it is not opening. It remains a hostile, high-cost, high-risk environment, and any assumptions of reliable commercial or defense access should be tempered by the operational facts.

Atmospheric Moisture

Atmospheric dynamics in the Arctic are far more complex than commonly portrayed. Large-scale, low-frequency circulation regimes—such as the Arctic oscillation and shifts in the polar jet stream—regulate the intensity and direction of atmospheric rivers. These long, narrow corridors of concentrated moisture are increasingly active in a warming Arctic, delivering vast quantities of water vapor and precipitation.

As sea ice recedes and areas of ocean become ice-free, they absorb more solar radiation, raising surface temperatures and elevating humidity.³⁶ This increased atmospheric moisture amplifies precipitation events across the region—fueling river flows, destabilizing ice margins, and producing heavy snowfall and blizzard activity along the Greenland and Canadian ice sheets. The net result is not an “open Arctic” ideal for free-flowing trade, but an increasingly turbulent environment where visibility, logistics, and asset survivability are degraded by unpredictable and extreme weather events. The notion of a reliably navigable Arctic is not supported by atmospheric data—it is confounded by it.

Freshwater

Surface waters in the Arctic Ocean are markedly fresher than those of any other ocean basin. This is primarily due to massive riverine input from Eurasian and North American drainage systems, combined with glacial melt and increased precipitation. While this freshwater lens plays a critical role in regional ocean stratification and ice formation, its broader influence—especially on trans-oceanic systems like the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC)—is often overstated.³⁷

Recent policy narratives, particularly those promoting transatlantic scientific collaboration, have fixated on the idea of “catastrophic” saline freshening and its alleged capacity to destabilize the AMOC.³⁸ These claims often rest on simplified assumptions and worst-case projections, rather than the actual dynamics of oceanographic systems. The reality is more complex. Freshwater enters the North Atlantic through multiple vectors—ice sheet melt, river discharge, and atmospheric moisture—none of which act in isolation. Moreover, wind-driven currents, thermohaline mixing, and compensatory feedback mechanisms provide resilience against sudden shifts in circulation.

To suggest that the AMOC is on the brink of collapse due to Arctic freshening is both scientifically unsubstantiated and strategically misleading.³⁹ It diverts attention from more immediate defense concerns in the Arctic OE and misallocates focus to highly uncertain global climate linkages. Defense planning must remain grounded in empirically validated models—not speculative climatology driven by advocacy.

Geopolitical Stability

Contrary to alarmist rhetoric, the Arctic remains one of the most geopolitically stable regions on Earth. Except for three minor and long-standing disputes—the Northwest Passage (since 1969), the Beaufort Sea boundary (since 2004), and overlapping claims to the Lomonosov Ridge (since 2014)—the region is largely uncontested. A fourth dispute, over Hans Island, was amicably resolved in 2022, further reinforcing the region’s cooperative tenor.

Unlike Antarctica, the Arctic lacks a single unifying treaty. Yet despite this legal patchwork, a robust web of bilateral and multilateral agreements governs day-to-day coordination across search and rescue, humanitarian assistance and disaster response, and environmental protection. The International Maritime Organization’s Polar Code imposes strict operational standards—mandating low-sulfur fuels, ballast water treatment, spill contingency planning, and crew certification. These compliance measures raise the cost of entry, but they also reinforce a shared commitment to protecting the region’s sensitive ecosystems.

Even in cases where not all Arctic states are signatories to foundational treaties—such as the United States’ nonratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)—cooperation remains the prevailing norm. The Arctic Council, despite being paralyzed during the COVID-19 pandemic and following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, continues to endure. It shows signs of revival under Denmark’s 2025–2027 chairship.⁴⁰ Other operationally focused bodies, like the Arctic Coast Guard Forum, remain active, informal, and functional—demonstrating that Arctic security, in practice, is still shaped by shared interests rather than zero-sum competition.

Among the eight Arctic nations—Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark (via Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States—there exists a common aspiration for regional stability, territorial respect, and predictability. However, their pathways diverge. The seven democracies generally support a liberal institutionalist framework: cooperative governance, adherence to international legal norms, and reliance on multilateral fora like the Arctic Council to address shared concerns. These states prioritize consensus, transparency, and rule-based order in Arctic affairs.

Russia stands apart. Its strategic worldview remains rooted in suspicion. NATO, in Russian military doctrine, is not a political alliance but an existential threat. This perception drives the Russian Federation’s defense posture in the Arctic—not merely as economic opportunism, but as an assertion of sovereignty, status, and deterrence.⁴¹ As a result, Russia’s infrastructure investments and military activities—many of which are dual-use—are increasingly interpreted through a Western lens as escalation or strategic build-up.

This divergence has been politically useful for proponents of the “Alaskan narrative,” who have leveraged Russian behavior to frame the Arctic as a contested frontier. But the data tells a more nuanced story: the Arctic remains geopolitically homogeneous, legally stable, and—at least for now—cooperative by default. It is not a flashpoint. It is a frontier held in fragile equilibrium, shaped more by environmental constraints than adversarial maneuvering.

Russian Military Build-Up

Russia is not simply a participant in Arctic affairs—it is an Arctic power by geography, population, and strategic necessity. While the United States maintains a narrow strip of Arctic coastline in Alaska, a substantial proportion of the Russian population resides at or above the Arctic Circle (fig. 5). Russia’s economic architecture—a fusion of military-industrial capacity, energy extraction, and regional logistics—relies heavily on infrastructure concentrated along its northern coastal margin. This infrastructure, as previously discussed, is acutely vulnerable to ground-fast cryosphere degradation, further magnifying the stakes of its Arctic strategy.

Despite persistent assertions from ALCOM, the Alaska congressional delegation, and several European think tanks, the prevailing narrative—that the Russian Federation is engaged in an aggressive Arctic military build-up—is overstated and strategically misleading.⁴² What is often described as expansion is more accurately the selective modernization of legacy capabilities, shaped by new strategic imperatives but limited in scale and scope compared to Cold War–era deployments.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union treated the Arctic as a primary theater of strategic deterrence. The Soviet Northern Fleet, based in Murmansk, was the centerpiece of this posture. By 1983, it boasted over 200 submarines—many nuclear-armed—and operated from a network of airbases, radar facilities, and hardened submarine pens stretching across the Kola Peninsula. Long-range bomber regiments trained to penetrate North American airspace. The Arctic was, in every sense, a launchpad for global conflict.⁴³

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Figure 5. Population distribution in the circumpolar Arctic by country (including Indigenous populations). As a point of comparison, the State of Louisiana had more residents in 2024—some 4.6 million—than the entire circumpolar region combined. (Source: Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal, used under creative commons BY-NC-SA 4.0. license https://www.grida.no/.)

In contrast, today’s Russian Arctic posture reflects a very different strategic environment. The Northern Fleet remains the cornerstone of Russia’s Arctic presence, but its scale has been significantly reduced. The fleet now includes approximately 30–35 submarines—only eight of which are armed with nuclear ballistic missiles—and a complement of 40–50 icebreakers, many of which are dual-use civilian-military platforms. New bases, such as Nagurskoye and Northern Clover, serve both symbolic and functional roles but do not represent a return to Soviet-era saturation.

Since 2014, Russia has reactivated or upgraded roughly 50 former Soviet installations, including 13 airfields, 10 radar sites, and a number of integrated air and missile defense systems. It has introduced advanced weapons like the Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile and the Poseidon nuclear-powered autonomous torpedo.⁴⁴ But these deployments—however headline-grabbing—do not equate to force projection beyond the Arctic. Rather, they reflect a defensive fortification of what Russia sees as its last uncontested maritime bastion.

Geography matters here. The Arctic is one of the only regions where Russia can conduct large-scale naval operations beyond the line of contact with NATO-controlled straits. The Oresund, Bosporus, and Bering Straits are all chokepoints where Western influence is dominant. Vladivostok, though nominally a Pacific outlet, is logistically constrained and vulnerable to blockade. With the Black Sea effectively closed to meaningful naval maneuver due to the war in Ukraine, the Arctic has emerged as Russia’s strategic fallback—a maritime redoubt where it can train, deploy, and sustain forces without direct NATO obstruction.

In this context, what may appear as expansion is in fact containment—bounded by geography, history, and infrastructure decay. Russia’s Arctic posture is not built for global aggression. It is built to hold its ground where it still can.

Annual Russian exercises like Ocean Shield are often cited as evidence of heightened military activity in the Arctic. While these exercises showcase combined arms operations and joint command integration, their scale is modest by historical comparison. For instance, the Cold War–era Zapad-81 exercise mobilized over 100,000 personnel—a level of mobilization unmatched by any contemporary Russian drill. Today’s Arctic exercises are measured in the low thousands and remain well below thresholds that would indicate massed force posturing.

Moreover, most of Russia’s Arctic infrastructure—despite frequent references to “revived Soviet bases”—remains underdeveloped or functionally questionable. Open-source satellite imagery reveals many facilities to be skeletal or dormant. Under the Vienna Document of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Russia is obligated to invite foreign observers, including NATO representatives, to any exercise involving more than 13,000 troops.⁴⁵ The absence of such invitations—alongside the relatively small footprint of exercises—reinforces the argument that Russia’s Arctic activity is more rhetorical than operational.

Russia’s subsurface capabilities have also diminished. The submarine force of the Soviet Union was nearly three times the size of Russia’s current fleet. Today’s Northern Fleet maintains just a fraction of the Cold War’s force structure. Likewise, Arctic airpower has contracted significantly. Where once hundreds of long-range bombers and interceptors were stationed along Russia’s northern perimeter, current deployments include only a handful of MiG-31 and Su-34 aircraft.

The broader infrastructure tells the same story. At its Cold War peak, the Soviet Union operated over 400 military facilities across the Arctic. Today, Russia maintains between 50 and 100 active sites—many of which serve dual-use civilian or logistical functions. Much of what is now labeled as a “military build-up” is in fact a hybrid strategy focused on commercial protection of the NSR and force survivability, not preparation for total war.⁴⁶

Compounding these constraints are persistent economic limitations. Western sanctions, global energy market volatility, and chronic underinvestment have left Russia unable to replicate Soviet-era defense expenditures. The war in Ukraine has only deepened this deficit. By 2023, open-source assessments indicated that up to 75 percent of Russia’s Arctic-capable brigades had been redeployed to the Ukrainian front, depleting the manpower available for Arctic defense or expansion.⁴⁷

Despite these material constraints, the Alaska narrative persists—a narrative that depicts Russia’s Arctic proximity as an immediate operational threat to the US homeland. This perspective assumes the viability of long-range offensive operations across the Bering Sea or through the High North, portraying Russia’s posture as both aggressive and expeditionary. But this assumption is strategically unsound.

Russia’s Eastern Military District faces severe limitations in force projection capacity. Geographic isolation, sparse population centers, and a brittle logistics network constrain its reach. Rail infrastructure is sparse and increasingly vulnerable to permafrost degradation, while maritime resupply routes are exposed to environmental volatility and adversary interdiction. Sustaining large-scale combat operations east of the Urals—let alone across the Arctic—is not just logistically challenging; it is operationally implausible.

Russia has exploited Western threat perceptions to its advantage. By maintaining a visible—but strategically constrained—Arctic presence, it has prompted disproportionate US resource allocation, forcing Washington to absorb self-imposed costs in response to a manageable risk. In this sense, Russia’s Arctic strategy is not one of brute force, but of strategic leverage—turning perception into deterrent power without the burden of actual escalation.

Space—The Arctic Frontier

The space domain is fast becoming the decisive frontier for Arctic security. High-latitude regions such as Greenland and Northern Canada are strategically positioned to host critical enablers: satellite ground stations, missile warning infrastructure, and polar launch platforms. Their proximity to potential intercontinental flight paths and their value for persistent sensing make them indispensable to both missile detection and anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) strategies—especially as threats converge across the Arctic and Indo-Pacific theaters.⁴⁸

Traditional geostationary satellites offer limited utility in polar regions due to oblique coverage angles and communication dropouts. As a result, Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations have become operational necessities. The United States has leaned into this advantage through assets like the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) in HEO and the Space Development Agency’s proliferated LEO architectures, providing continuous infrared surveillance across the Arctic expanse. These satellites support every facet of Joint Force maneuver, while also enabling the detection of hypersonic glide vehicles (HGV) and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM)—many of which exploit polar trajectories to bypass traditional defense networks.

Equally vital are Arctic-based ground stations, particularly those located in Greenland and other high-latitude geographies. These assets dramatically reduce data latency, improve redundancy, and enable rapid data relay—key requirements for maintaining a responsive early warning architecture across the Northern Hemisphere.

Yet orbital dominance alone will not suffice. Ionospheric variability—the highly dynamic behavior of Earth’s upper atmosphere—poses an underappreciated vulnerability in Arctic and space operations. This region governs electromagnetic propagation, influencing satellite communications, GPS integrity, over-the-horizon radar, and space-based missile warning fidelity. Adversaries, most notably China, are rapidly mapping the ionosphere and are exploring its manipulation to degrade or deny space-enabled services without resorting to kinetic satellite strikes. In this context, control of the electromagnetic spectrum is as decisive as orbital access.

Integrating space power into missile defense demands a seamless, real-time command and control (C2) architecture, capable of fusing inputs from satellites, terrestrial radars, and allied platforms.⁴⁹ The United States is building this integration under the Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) initiative, which aims to deliver a unified battlespace picture across domains. In the Arctic, this requires synchronized data flows from SBIRS, Aegis Ashore, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries, NORAD/Five Eyes networks, and forthcoming systems like the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (NG-OPIR) and the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) constellations. These space-based systems are engineered to track HGVs throughout their glide phase, overcoming one of the most significant limitations of current missile defense architectures.

China, meanwhile, is rapidly accelerating its capabilities across both conventional and irregular domains. Its estimated daily acquisition of over 10 terabytes of technical and operational data—nearly one-third greater than that of the United States—underscores the scale of its strategic ambition and the persistence of its gray-zone operations. These activities blend cyber exploitation, academic partnerships, commercial cover, and electromagnetic experimentation to quietly erode the current US dominance in detecting hypersonic missiles, particularly in the glide phase, in a region where oversight remains fragmented and satellite-enabling infrastructure limited.⁵⁰

It is in these dynamics that China has engaged in perhaps the most coordinated and pervasive set of gray-zone operations, and it is here that MMOST offers a powerful approach to deter and deny any further advancements. By identifying geophysically stable zones in the Arctic with more predictable environmental conditions and reduced space weather volatility MMOST enables planners to site critical space infrastructure, design reliable satellite-ground architectures, and develop research and deterrence strategies that are both cost-effective and survivable. In a domain where milliseconds and meters define success, precision scientific knowledge and military planning is not optional—it is existential.

China and the Art of Irregular Warfare

China’s Arctic strategy is not defined by carrier strike groups or forward-deployed submarines—it is defined by achieving placement and access throughout the Western and European institutions. Over the past two decades China has managed to build a network of scientific research capabilities to study the Arctic space domain through a combination of high‑latitude ground stations, dedicated space‑weather networks, and advanced simulation tools, mostly leveraged and rapidly advanced through shared research with the United States and her allies. They have accomplished this through narratives of shared concern for the emerging “climate crisis,” notably by initiating and advancing the “third pole” concept and a desire to maintain a “stable, peaceful, rules-based order” in the Arctic.⁵¹

This quiet infiltration, and sustained presence not only enables influence operations beneath the threshold of armed conflict but also allows for rapid data and knowledge acquisition in one of the world’s most complex and strategically vital regions. Beijing has embedded itself in academic institutions, infrastructure partnerships, and multilateral diplomatic platforms, with a particular focus on Nordic and Alaskan universities, think tanks, and regional centers involved in “climate change” research—a label that conveniently includes the space domain. By investing in joint ionospheric research—through ground-based arrays, unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles, sounding rockets, and AI-enhanced predictive modeling—China has successfully co-opted global climate science to advance their own interests in space operations. The result: a decisive and growing advantage in the Arctic space domain, subsidized in no small part by American and allied funding, researchers, and infrastructure.

One particularly well known example is the Yellow River Station in Svalbard (76.24° N). Since 2003, this Chinese facility has operated multi-wavelength all-sky imagers (427.8 nm, 557.7 nm, 630.0 nm) to observe auroral emissions, along with magnetometers and riometers to capture ionospheric conductivity changes. These capabilities support real-time diagnostics of space weather and particle precipitation in the E-region—critical data for space-based communications, missile tracking, and electromagnetic warfare. Much of this infrastructure was enabled through memoranda of understanding with European universities and the University of the Arctic, leveraging allied access and resources.

Using Global Positioning System Total Electron Content (GPS TEC) receivers co-located at the Yellow River Station, Chinese researchers are now approaching a critical threshold: the ability to map electromagnetic zones of stability within an otherwise chaotic upper atmosphere. These “islands” of coherence—where communications, positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT), and all-domain awareness can be achieved covertly—offer Beijing a decisive operational edge.⁵²

Another major component of this architecture is the Chinese Meridian Project (CMP), augmented by integration with the Dual Auroral Radar Network (DARN). Led by the National Space Science Center (NSSC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the CMP includes a constellation of high-latitude ground stations and dual auroral radar installations. In 2018–2019, China completed one such coherent radar site near Longyearbyen, Svalbard, capable of sustaining encrypted communications despite intense magnetic interference. These systems were built under the guise of scientific collaboration, but they clearly serve strategic denial and resilience functions.⁵³

What enabled this expansion? The answer lies in the uncritical trust embedded in joint climate modeling and simulation programs between the United States and China. Framed around Arctic “climate crisis” mitigation, these projects facilitated data-sharing arrangements built on goodwill and strong, cohesive support by Western and European scientists and policy makers—absent any verification. Notably, the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP/CAS) leveraged this access to develop methods for stabilizing communications under volatile solar wind conditions—a breakthrough achieved independently of, but funded and technically enabled by, US and allied research partnerships. This is far more than scientific progress—it is a quiet advance in A2/AD capabilities within the Arctic battlespace.

In short, China is achieving superior all-domain awareness in the Arctic by cloaking its operations in the legitimacy of climate science. Through a vertically integrated architecture of regional observatories, polar radar sites, space-based sensors, and advanced numerical modeling, Beijing is rapidly expanding its decision space while constraining ours.⁵⁴ The strategic implications are stark: a nation capable of detecting our movements while concealing its own, and worse, of manipulating or corrupting the very data on which we base our campaign plans and operational decisions, holds the initiative.

Arctic Conferences and the Gray Zone

One of China’s most effective Arctic instruments in its gray-zone operations to date is the Arctic Circle Assembly. Billed as a “big tent” forum for regional dialogue, this relatively new venue has been quietly co-opted by Beijing to legitimize its growing influence in Arctic governance. Through sustained participation and strategic engagement, China has transformed a nonbinding diplomatic space into a de facto platform for advancing its narrative of being a “near-Arctic State.” Likewise, China’s permanent observer status in the Arctic Council—the region’s primary civilian governance body—has provided another foothold from which it shapes agendas and influences outcomes from behind the scenes.⁵⁵

While China’s official Arctic Policy cloaks its interests in the language of climate research, global trade, and peaceful infrastructure development, its actions reveal a calculated strategy of gray-zone expansion.⁵⁶ Through academic partnerships, cyberinfrastructure access, and multilateral scientific projects, China has normalized its operational footprint across nearly every sector of the circumpolar North. Beneath the cooperative veneer, its efforts are clearly oriented toward ISR, ADA, and space-based dominance.

These asymmetric activities are camouflaged as collaboration but function as strategic enablers. Nowhere is this more evident than in the widespread Western adoption of two key concepts: The first is the so-called “Third Pole” narrative, which frames China as an indispensable partner in Arctic science. That narrative has been amplified and legitimized by Western scientists, think tanks, and even DOD regional centers, creating an illusion of mutual benefit while masking the transfer of critical knowledge to a geopolitical competitor through known gray-zone tactics. The second is the concept of “science diplomacy” which has been rapidly advanced by think tanks such as the Wilson Center Polar Institute.⁵⁷ Science diplomacy conflates two important and necessary elements of information sharing for scientific progress, that of the need for broad collaboration built on trust and that of the need for savvy diplomacy that is clear-eyed about the consequences of losing control of information dominance. China has effectively co-opted both, leveraging venues such as the Arctic Circle Assembly, and other international fora, to gain widespread support.⁵⁸

The result is sobering: through both the “third pole” and “science diplomacy” narratives China’s ubiquitous footprint has allowed them to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the Arctic’s high heterogeneity—from bathymetry and magnetic anomalies to sea state variability and atmospheric dynamics—alongside intimate awareness of the sentiments across regional institutions and US defense postures, all without deploying a single battalion.⁵⁹

What makes this approach especially effective is its strategic return on investment. While the United States has committed billions to Arctic infrastructure—often misaligned with operational requirements—China has gained far greater advantage through low-cost, high-impact initiatives: port access, digital networks, research station integration, and personnel pipelines connected directly to US national security infrastructure. This is no accident. It is a deliberate consequence of China’s irregular warfare doctrine, enabled by democratic sentiment through shared narratives that privilege nearly unfettered incremental access, knowledge acquisition, and cognitive domain superiority over open confrontation.

China now holds more than two decades of Arctic space domain data, gathered under the auspices of peaceful cooperation, but strategically redirected toward gray-zone dominance and space-enabled military advantage.⁶⁰ All of this occurs within the boundaries of China’s domestic legal architecture. Under the National Intelligence Law (Chapter I, Article 7), “all organizations and citizens shall support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts.” The National Security Law (Chapter VI, Articles 77.4 and 77.7) further mandates the provision of assistance to safeguard state security. This means that every Chinese researcher, technician, or engineer operating in the Arctic—regardless of affiliation—is functionally an extension of the state security apparatus.

Ultimately, China’s Arctic posture is not a military build-up—it is a gray-zone infiltration so pervasive that it has penetrated the very heart of our knowledge enterprise. This knowledge underlies every defense and security capability we develop and deploy. Since it is low visibility and fully nested within a legal framework that blurs the line between civilian engagement and state-directed espionage, it is nearly impossible to deter and deny and yields high payoff to China in increasingly shorter timeframes. It is time we found the will, within our authorities and permissions, to counter China’s irregular warfare campaign in the Arctic through targeted deterrence.

The Arctic Military Problem: Conducting Deterrence in the Gray Zone

The MCDC MMOST assessment delivered a blunt truth: the Arctic's greatest defense and security challenges do not lie in open warfare, but in the ambiguous space between peace and conflict—the gray-zone, an area that DOD is poorly equipped to counter. This is where strategic competition unfolds through covert influence, legal manipulation, and the exploitation of normative and institutional gaps. It is warfare without formal declaration, where adversaries accrue advantage not by crossing red lines, but by erasing them. China’s deep knowledge of our own authorities, their placement at almost every level of our society and their co-optation of Arctic narratives and sentiment means that we currently have few mechanisms to defend ourselves.

Despite the overwhelming evidence of gray-zone activities in the Arctic, the dominant narrative—shaped by domestic political interests in Alaska, conventional military thinkers, and defense-adjacent industrial complexes—continues to frame the Arctic as an imminent kinetic theater.⁶¹ This misconception is fueled by doctrine such as the US Army’s peace-to-war conflict continuum, which privileges conventional combat operations while marginalizing the irregular, hybrid, and informational tactics that define contemporary competition.⁶² The model’s fixation on linear escalation blinds us to the fact that deterrence in the Arctic has already begun—and we are not postured to win it.

Despite growing evidence of gray-zone encroachment, acknowledgment of these activities is frequently bureaucratized—handed off to civilian agencies as a legal or budgetary concern, rather than treated as a matter of national defense. This siloed approach guarantees delay, diffusion, and, as a consequence, a higher likelihood of failure. Despite significant actions between 2016-2020 that were taken to deny China’s gray-zone activities such as the closure of most of the Confucius Institutes (CI) in the United States, there has been little progress since.⁶³ In 2022, a report by the National Association of Scholars found that many of the CIs had re-opened under different names, strengthening relationships with universities in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). It has only been in the last few months that US federal agencies have taken firm steps to deny China’s activities across academic, civil and military functions.⁶⁴

The 2024 DOD Arctic Strategy misses nearly the entirety of the gray-zone implications to defense readiness. Instead, it gestures toward flexibility in its call for a “monitor and respond” posture, with a heavy focus on kinetic events. Yet even this posture remains hollow without the ability to anticipate threats well before they manifest and ensure force structures tailored to the OE. For example, the 11th Airborne Division, branded as the Army’s Arctic force, is emblematic of this disconnect. It is conventionally organized, lacking both the airlift capacity and cold-weather sustainment capabilities essential for Arctic missions. Its two infantry brigades prioritize lethality over survivability, and its operational orientation—subordinated under US Army Pacific (USARPAC)—ties it to Indo-Pacific conventional planning rather than the unique demands of Arctic domain awareness and gray-zone deterrence.

Meanwhile, ALCOM continues to push for increased federal presence—troops, infrastructure, and spending—under the rubric of “protection.” But these proposals often reflect state-level economic incentives more than strategic necessity, which remains unclear. ALCOM’s fixation on Russian proximity ignores a more dangerous long-term competitor: a methodical, adaptive China operating below the threshold of conflict with an emphasis on penetrating R&D related to ISR, navigation, timing and communications by outpacing us in space-based capabilities.

In this context, deterrence is not only achieved through overwhelming firepower or conventional deterrence by punishment. It is achieved through anticipatory defense—the ability to detect, understand, and counter adversary moves in institutions such as academia before they manifest as defense vulnerabilities. That requires a doctrinal pivot, away from preparing to fight the last war and toward mastering the emerging operational gray-zone battlespace between peace and war where influence on, and placement and access to, scientific knowledge is power. Achieving this will require a level of coordination across our authorities and permissions that we have previously not exercised.

Outcomes of the MMOST Assessment

MMOST focused on identifying and understanding areas of stability and chaos in the Arctic operating environment. The implications are profound: if we can establish coordinated capabilities, from seafloor to space, within a network of stable zones we can establish C2 that prevails despite the high variability of the overall region. The MMOST team developed consensus variables identified through field interviews, expert consultations, and operational assessments. The MCDC MMOST working group articulated seven core operating requirements essential for effective planning and mission success in the Arctic (fig. 6). These are not aspirational guidelines; they are operational imperatives shaped by the region’s volatility and complexity.⁶⁵ MMOST concluded that the current approaches to Arctic defense failed to address the tangible, gray-zone-generated risks to defense readiness and lethality for multiple reasons:

First, Arctic heterogeneity demands real-time, high-resolution environmental awareness from data sources that are not corrupted by China’s efforts in academic research. The OE varies dramatically at fine spatial and temporal scales. Local knowledge—particularly from place-based operators, Arctic-based industry professionals, and community practitioners—must be leveraged as a strategic asset in addition to ISR from space-based capabilities.⁶⁶ Local, trusted actors possess persistent presence, nuanced situational awareness, and context-specific insight that national systems often miss. Their inputs are not ancillary; they are essential to converting data into operationally relevant knowledge and require inviolable communications. Such networks have already been developed, deployed, and proven.⁶⁷

Second, given the enormous risks of sustained investment in large-scale infrastructure, force packages must be modular, scalable, and interoperable across domains. Arctic readiness cannot hinge on permanent installations. Instead, military forces must field “mix-and-match” configurations tailored to mission objectives, deployable rapidly, and supportable in austere conditions. This is especially vital in a region where logistical chains are brittle, and infrastructure gaps are vast.

Third, knowledge integration must be continuous and adaptive. Capturing, sharing, and acting on lessons learned is not a procedural luxury—it is a survival requirement. The Arctic OE will always shift with changing weather, geopolitical dynamics, and adversary behavior. Gaining knowledge and experience in and about stable zones requires that forces must continuously fold new data into doctrine, training, and operations.

Fourth, the Arctic’s human terrain is as complex as its physical one. The defense space must extend into the gray zone: academia, think tanks, regional centers and key vulnerabilities must be addressed and denied. Access to such institutions is powerful, providing situational awareness, and operational flexibility that no centralized planning effort can replicate.

Fifth, the future of Arctic operations lies in small, agile, “Arctic Ready” force packages that can operate independently or as part of distributed, networked campaigns. The ability to deliver or sustain these units in remote zones is paramount. This model prioritizes maneuverability, speed, and environmental mastery over mass, static footprints and sunk costs.

The 1939–40 Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union was presented by one of the working group members as a prescient case study. Finnish forces, though numerically inferior, exploited their intimate understanding of the terrain, decentralized command structures, and high mobility to confound a larger, mechanized adversary. Their victory was not technological—it was environmental. Arctic conflict rewards adaptability-through-knowledge, not brute strength.

Finally, the Arctic must be approached as a system of systems: a tightly coupled, feedback-driven battlespace where environmental, technological, geopolitical, and human factors co-evolve in real time. In such an environment, traditional wargaming for large-scale operations alone are not only impractical—they are strategically self-defeating. Operational success depends on scaling down, sensing more, and acting faster. This requires that a new class of wargaming emerge, one that accurately incorporates the vast data on gray-zone activities, across all sectors, into Joint Force operational planning.

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Figure 6. Critical operating requirements ranked in terms of collapsed “high” and “moderately high” importance. (Alessa and Valentine, 2023)

With this in mind, the MMOST working group surveyed operators and practitioners to assess the relative importance of key military requirements for Arctic operations. Each category was rated on a scale from “high” to “low,” with an additional option for “not applicable/do not know.” When responses were normalized by collapsing the “high” and “moderately high” ratings, a clear divergence emerged—highlighting a recalibrated prioritization of operational needs. Despite minor shifts in relative ranking, one requirement stood unequivocally above the rest: the need to develop a comprehensive and timely understanding of the OE (fig. 6). This insight—coupled with the necessity of stable ISR and resilient communications to support joint and distributed operations—remains foundational. In the Arctic, where conditions evolve rapidly and situational awareness is constrained by time, terrain, and connectivity, information dominance is not a supporting function—it is the main effort.

Using Stable Zones in a Sea of Chaos

When Arctic regional security and defense requirements were examined through the lens of high environmental variability, one reality became unambiguous: heterogeneity is not a peripheral consideration—it is the central constraint on planning and execution. The MCDC MMOST assessment validated this conclusion by engaging a diverse array of subject-matter experts across military, scientific, and policy domains. Their perspectives—grounded in national operational realities—were integrated with spatio-temporal complexity mapping to yield actionable insights at both strategic and tactical levels.

The MMOST workflow is neither expensive nor technically overwhelming and it enables planners to conduct a suite of discrete assessments—ranging from human terrain complexity and socio-environmental volatility to localized thermal amplification—without relying on opaque, or proprietary modeling tools. These outputs are not theoretical. They are designed for real-time deployment, whether generated in the field or via centralized analytical cells. For logisticians and planners, they offer the capacity to visualize stability zones and friction points before they materialize. For policy makers, they allow resources to be aligned with operational necessity rather than a narrative co-opted and driven by China and those who buy into it.

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Figure 7. Local amplification of global mean temperature increase (ºC per decade). (Source: Alessa and Valentine, 2023).

The maps shown here are purposefully incomplete but serve as examples of operational overlays—translating scientific data into military planning tools. They inform concepts of operations (CONOPS), operations plans (OPLAN), and contingency plans (CONPLAN) by embedding granular knowledge into decision frameworks. For instance, Figure 3 (referenced earlier) illustrates human terrain complexity, integrating variables such as language diversity, recognized Indigenous land claims, and sovereign boundaries. The color gradient reflects spatial complexity: the darkest areas host one distinguishing feature per 15×15 km square; the brightest, up to 25. Such data allows commanders to anticipate where population dynamics will facilitate or constrain mission success—something no satellite or ISR feed alone can provide.

At the same time, the assessment identified a troubling pattern: many of the perceived challenges in Arctic defense planning are self-inflicted artifacts of politicized narratives and institutional inertia. These narratives divert attention away from actual operational conditions and reinforce outdated mental models ill-suited for the modern Arctic theater where China’s gray-zone wins in scientific knowledge present tangible constraints on defense readiness.

Figure 7 underscores the magnitude of local temperature amplification, revealing zones where warming rates are up to seven times the global average. These regions demand localized expertise, persistent surveillance, and flexible doctrine. Notably, the assessment concludes that the North American Arctic and the European High North currently possess a relative operational advantage, while the Russian Federation is increasingly encumbered by environmental degradation and infrastructure vulnerability. In this light, environmental change should not be treated solely as a threat—it is also a strategic variable that can be leveraged to shape competitive advantage.

Figure 8 integrates all variables to reflect areas of stability. Of note is Greenland which has low complexity overall. Greenland plays a critical strategic role in Arctic surveillance and space-based monitoring because of its geographic position and potential as a host for ground stations, especially for satellites in polar and near-polar orbits. Satellite Enabling Infrastructure (SEI) in Greenland provides an enormous tactical advantage in ADA, ISR and communications

LEO satellites with polar orbits pass over or near the poles on every revolution. Ground stations located in high-latitude areas like Greenland can communicate with these satellites frequently, enabling rapid data downlink and command uplink, which remains a challenge. By building a robust and modular SEI network anchored in Greenland, allied nations can rapidly scale high-impact space-based capabilities—missile warning, ISR integration, satellite telemetry, and resilient communications—while avoiding continued sunk costs of legacy infrastructure misaligned with emerging threats and operational realities.

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Figure 8. Summary map of socio-environmental complexity in the Arctic/High North. Includes meteorological volatility, human terrain, and dynamic physical features to guide defense and security investment decisions across allied and partner regions. (Source: Alessa and Valentine, 2023).

Conclusion

Our nearly two-year assessment revealed that the prevailing narratives of an impending Arctic crisis are not supported by either operational realities or empirical data. What passes for conventional wisdom—propelled by special interests influenced by China, legacy defense paradigms, and a narrow Alaskan-centric lens—fails to incorporate the true operational consequences of Arctic gray-zone activities. The Arctic is not a battlespace on the verge of ignition; it is an active theater of gray-zone conflict, strategic ambiguity, and profound heterogeneity. To regain and maintain our advantage, we must have the discipline—and courage—to reframe our assumptions and our approaches to planning. The United States and its allies already have the mechanisms to accomplish this, but it requires policies that incorporate the following tenets:

• Prioritize gray-zone activities and their consequences in military planning, particularly in ISR, logistics and communications for C2. Large-scale, kinetic conflict in the circumpolar North remains exceedingly unlikely. The North American Arctic and the European High North are, geopolitically and militarily, stable zones. However, they remain acutely vulnerable to gray-zone competition. China has embedded itself deeply within the Arctic knowledge enterprise—through academic partnerships, think tanks, defense-affiliated regional centers, and conferences like the Arctic Circle Assembly. These incursions, while legal on paper, are operationally consequential. They constitute a deliberate campaign of elite capture, data exfiltration, and influence operations—all executed under the cover of cooperation and fueled by the fear of an Arctic climate crisis. Small-footprint operations will require tailored precision planning leveraging known stable zones in the Arctic that rely on uncorrupted data, not broad-spectrum deterrence. To accomplish this, activities such as wargaming must fully incorporate gray-zone activities with precise translation to their operational consequences across the civilian-military spectrum.

• Identify “stable Arctic zones”—those areas with low environmental variability that provide staging grounds for scalable logistics and sustained presence and prioritize them in planning. High heterogeneity, while a challenge, is also a deterrent—one that adversaries must overcome just as we must. Over-investing in high-variability regions at the expense of precision opens the door to strategic overreach. Our adversaries benefit when we expend resources without clear operational return. Decentralizing our Arctic footprint into more predictable, quiescent zones increases defense resilience, minimizes risk and is more cost-effective. Importantly, we must move beyond Arctic narratives shaped by state-level lobbying efforts. Alaska’s push for greater federal investment and autonomy has, at times, distorted threat assessments and inhibited a truly adaptive, integrated and more agile defense posture.

• Understand Russia’s environmental vulnerabilities. The Russian Federation faces a deteriorating strategic position in the Arctic. Environmental degradation—particularly cryosphere degradation and permafrost thaw—will impose disproportionate infrastructure and logistics costs on Russian operations. Combined with the fiscal and materiel attrition from its ongoing war in Ukraine, Russia's Arctic capabilities will remain under pressure. This degradation opens potential diplomatic space: where direct confrontation fails, environmental and economic leverage may succeed in nudging Russian behavior closer to compliance with international norms.

• Decentralize Arctic logistics. Traditional logistics models—built for large-scale, kinetic campaigns—are unsuitable for an OE defined by spatial fragmentation and infrastructural scarcity. Multimodal approaches must be paired with in-situ resource use, such as modular energy sources and pre-positioned caches. Logistics must become as adaptive as the environment they support, for example, by identifying Arctic stable zones and incorporate them into defense planning. Leveraging technologies that pack a punch with smaller footprints allows us to move away from rigid, vulnerable sunk costs and into less visible, more powerful operations.

• Reduce or cease investments in legacy infrastructure such as Arctic ports of questionable defense utility. These systems are expensive, brittle, and misaligned with current threat profiles. The Arctic cannot sustain sustained conventional operations inside the OE; instead, it demands small, mobile, digitally resilient force packages capable of surviving without continuous satellite access or GPS reliability. Polar magnetic interference, space weather, and extreme environmental conditions will degrade sophisticated systems. Thus, defense planning must simplify, localize, and adapt, rather than escalate technological complexity. Advantage will come from scientifically understanding the operating environment and working with it, not against it.

• Enable NORTHCOM to fully execute its homeland defense mission. NORTHCOM remains the most logical combatant command for leading Arctic operations but is structurally ill-equipped to address the scientifically complex, technologically dynamic gray-zone threats now defining the region due to central influence of the NORAD. Its near-exclusive focus on missile defense—a legacy of Cold War–era deterrence—has left it unable to adapt to irregular, nonkinetic challenges such as electromagnetic spectrum exploitation, cognitive domain infiltration, and data-driven influence operations. This blind spot could prove strategically fatal to sustained US dominance in the circumpolar North.

Although NORTHCOM possesses the mandate to defend the homeland against both conventional and irregular threats—and has the authority to integrate efforts across domestic agencies (e.g., Department of Homeland Security, FBI) and functional commands (e.g., USSOCOM)—it remains constrained by NORAD’s antiquated mission of detecting ballistic missile launches. In effect, NORTHCOM’s powerful, broader defense role is shackled by NORAD’s limited scope.

Moreover, the continued operation of ALCOM raises critical questions of cost and efficacy. The financial burden of maintaining ALCOM does not appear justified, particularly given the emerging strategic value of alternative Arctic geographies such as Greenland, which offer lower operational complexity and higher return on more agile, modular defense investment.

Rebalancing NORTHCOM’s posture by thoughtfully reducing NORAD’s footprint and empowering NORTHCOM to fully execute its authorities would allow the command to focus on anticipatory defense and gray-zone denial, rather than legacy missile tracking paradigms. Strengthening operational synergies with USSPACECOM and the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) would further enhance NORTHCOM’s ability to fuse scientific, technical, and operational tradecraft—a critical step in regaining the initiative.

Using a broad suite of tools, coordinated across existing authorities and interagency permissions, the United States can begin to systematically deny China access to our most sensitive knowledge—the very foundation of twenty-first–century warfare. This means aligning our Arctic posture not with co-opted narratives or outdated force models, but with the actual conditions of the OE, identifying zones of stability across the circumpolar North.

A revised National Strategy for the Arctic Region (NSAR) and a new DOD Arctic Strategy must reflect this shift. They must explicitly prioritize domain denial, cognitive security from co-opted narratives, and adaptive basing, treating the Arctic not as a crisis zone but as a strategic frontier where precision, resilience, and scientific fluency—not scale—will determine who prevails in the decades to come. ♦

CDR Sean Moon, USCG, Ret.

Mr. Moon is a retired civil servant and US Coast Guard officer. His final federal position was Chief of Global Strategies in the Department of Homeland Security Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans. Prior to that, he served as the Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Borders, Immigration, and Trade, as the Director, Transportation and Cargo Security, and as a Senior Policy Advisor (Maritime). Between 2011 and 2016, he chaired the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Sub-group for Maritime Security, both developing US policies and facilitating global and regional integration among the 21 member economies. Between 2021 and 2022 he served on a rotational assignment to the Department of Defense as a Special Advisor to the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. Mr. Moon is an Excellence in Government Senior Fellow and a Certified Port Executive/member of the International Association of Maritime & Port Executives.

Dr. Andrew Kliskey

Dr. Kliskey is President’s Professor and Co-Director of the University of Idaho Center for Resilient Communities (CRC). Kliskey is also the Idaho EPSCoR Project Director (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research). He is a social-ecological systems scientist and behavioral geographer with training, teaching and research experience in landscape ecology, behavioral and perceptual geography, geographic information systems (GIS), planning, policy analysis, and surveying. Andy has spent the last 20 years working with remote communities in Alaska, British Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, New Zealand, and the Yukon on security issues with an emphasis on wildfire and freshwater. His teaching and research are interdisciplinary in nature and directed at integrated methodologies in social-ecological systems that combine local knowledge, scenario analysis, and geospatial modeling. Kliskey has been a project lead on multiple NSF awards addressing food, energy, and water system security.

Funding Details

The MCDC effort was conducted under the authority of the Joint Staff J7 Allies & Partners Force Development Division and is a stand-alone report. Work on the permafrost dynamics and place-based observing networks portions of this article was supported by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), under grant #1642897 (EyesNorth Research Coordination Network) and #1927713 (Navigating the New Arctic). The views and findings expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF, the Department of Defense or any other federal agency.

Notes