Survivability, Sustainability, And Maneuverability

Survivability,Sustainability, andManeuverabilityThe Need for Joint Unity ofEffort in Implementing the DODArctic Strategy at the Tacticaland Operational LevelsCapt. Nathan Fry, U.S. Army National Guard54November-December 2014MILITARY REVIEW

ARCTIC STRATEGYMembers from Canada’s Arctic Response Company Group and the U.S. National Guard move to a preparatory training area 2 March2014 to acclimatize their equipment during Exercise Guerrier Nordique 2014 in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada.(Photo Cpl. Valérie Villeneuve, 35th Canadian Brigade Group)As tensions between the United States and theSoviet Union developed in the years following World War II, United States militaryplanners and strategists focused substantial effort andresources on the challenge of Arctic and cold weatherwarfare, in large part because of potential territorialdisputes in areas where Russia bordered Alaska as wellas the northern frontier of U.S. ally Canada. Challengedby operational and tactical difficulties in Korea’s coldand mountainous environments as well as the threatof the Soviets’ assumed superiority in cold weather operations, the U.S. Army conducted a series of exercisesthroughout the 1950s with names such as Ice Cap, LodeStar, Nanook, and Deep Freeze. It produced reports detailing experience and requirements relative to Arcticand sub-Arctic operations well into the late 1970s.1However, by the 1980s, competing military andpolitical demands forced Arctic operations strategyand planning into a dormant state that continued intothe first decade of the new millennium. This decline instrategic interest reflected predictions that the Arcticwould not become truly important again to strategicMILITARY REVIEWNovember-December 2014planners until “valuable deposits of critical war minerals should be discovered” and made critical by “worldwide scarcity” in more accessible regions.2The Need for a Viable ArcticStrategyToday, as war in Iraq and Afghanistan assumes alower priority in NATO members’ national defensestrategies, and as the majority of forces are withdrawnfrom those countries, strategic planners are beginningto anticipate other plausible future conflicts of significant interest. Given that the previous decade has seenthe opening of the Northwest Passage, resulting inan increase in commercial and recreational maritimetraffic and a significant influx of business interests inthe region, one can convincingly argue that an area ofemerging strategic concern to the United States shouldbe the Arctic.3Of the world’s current and aspiring Arctic powers,four of the five countries whose physical borders or territories cross the Arctic Circle seem to be recognizingthe need to adjust defense capabilities and to be taking55

steps to create or augment specialized ground-combatunits to meet emerging Arctic demands.4 Notably,Canada, Norway, and Russia have realigned entire unitsto focus on Arctic readiness and operations. However,the United States has no specialized Arctic warfarecapability, despite Alaska holding a substantial portionof valuable territory bordering Russia—which recentlyhas shown few qualms in seizing land with ambiguousterritorial boundaries elsewhere.5Though the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)published Arctic Strategy in 2013, the document is, atbest, a generalized approach to operations. Its contentillustrates the U.S. military’s lack of deep understanding regarding the Arctic problem set and is rife withgeneral tasks that, without significant attention, arecurrently impossible to implement at the tactical andoperational levels.6In subsequent and supporting publications to theDOD’s Arctic Strategy, the U.S. Navy, U.S. MarineCorps, and U.S. Coast Guard have shown a focused andserious approach to preparing for Arctic operations. Incontrast, the U.S. Army has thus far shown very littleinterest in the Arctic at the strategic level. This translates into a lack of readiness to respond to any contingencies that might arise for Arctic warfare.Since there is no formal requirement for U.S. Army,Army Reserve, or Army National Guard units toprepare for Arctic warfare, current force generationstructure and personnel management policies continueto undermine building specialty skills in active dutyunits needed to adequately defend U.S. interests in theArctic. Also, on-hand Arctic equipment is outdatedand inadequate for extended Arctic use. The UnitedStates has, as Siemon Wezeman points out in his multicountry study on Arctic military capabilities, falleninto the historical trap of confusing forces stationed incold climates with Arctic-capable forces.7For example, the Army maintains two combatbrigades and multiple support units in Alaska that,although stationed in the north, do not have specificrequirements to operate in the Arctic.8 Historically,confusion between northern and Arctic warfare is arecurring phenomenon. It nearly always results in alarge number of environmental and enemy-inducedcasualties when a northern-trained force that thinksitself well-suited to Arctic conditions confronts a trueArctic specialty force.956Lessons Learned from ArcticTrainingRecent U.S. military experience tends to confirmthe misconception among Army personnel trained innorthern warfare that they are Arctic-warfare capable.In February and March 2014, 14 soldiers from the 86thInfantry Brigade Combat Team (Vermont and MaineArmy National Guard), the Army Mountain WarfareSchool, the 10th Mountain Division LightfighterSchool, and the Asymmetric Warfare Group joinedthe 35th Canadian Brigade Group’s Arctic responsecompany for Exercise Guerrier Nordique. The exercise, for which U.S. participation was in its fourth year,occurred in the highest latitude in exercise history—thevicinity of Iqaluit, Baffin Island, Nunavut Territory,Canada. So impressed were the members of the U.S.Guerrier Nordique team with the challenges of Arcticwarfare that they resolved to record their experiences in an effort to call the U.S. Army’s attentionNovember-December 2014MILITARY REVIEW

ARCTIC STRATEGYto its critical lack of ability to operate in Arcticenvironments.As the members of the U.S. element learned duringparticipation in Operation Guerrier Nordique, whentemperatures drop to extreme lows, tasks become exponentially more difficult and in some cases impossibleto perform using standard cold-weather techniques—such as those that may work at Fort Drum, New Yorkor Camp Ethan Allen, Vermont. The level of cold inArctic environments, especially when exacerbatedby wind and physical terrain, requires a significantlydifferent operational mentality and equipment designmethodology than for northern warfare.Put simply, despite the recent steps DOD hastaken toward articulating an Arctic strategy and someincreased military attention on the challenges of Arcticoperations, current defense efforts do not fully recognize or appreciate the need for a joint ground presenceand therefore fail to address the logistical, educational,and operational infrastructure required for successfultactical ground operations in the Arctic.Attaining the strategic goals outlined in DOD’sArctic Strategy will require the Army and joint groundwarfighting community to focus major attention at thetactical and operational levels on survivability, sustainability, and maneuverability as applied specifically toArctic environments.It is vital to emphasize that the foundation of all operations in the Arctic is having human and material resources that can properly function in the extreme coldof the Arctic environment and provide a basic level ofsurvivability. For example, if a person, vehicle, or flashlight fails as soon as it is exposed to a temperature of 50degrees below zero Fahrenheit, it fails the survivabilitytest and is therefore useless in Arctic operations.10To illustrate, the author of this article observed,while interacting with the Canadian Rangers (comprised mostly of native peoples whose home and natural environment are the Arctic and sub-Arctic) thateverything they used ward establishing the tactical and operational capacity to fulfill the tenets of the DOD’s ArcticStrategy. This begins with the failure to establish “acommon philosophy, a common language, a common purpose” in the form of universal joint task listtasks that address Arctic and mountain operationalrequirements.27The Northern Warfare Training Center in Alaska,the Mountain Warfare School and the associated86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Mountain)in Vermont, U.S. Army-Alaska, the Marine CorpsMountain Warfare Center, and various elements ofspecial operations forces all maintain independentsmall cadres of personnel with the requisite skill basefor operating in Arctic environments. However, thedistance and lack of a formal requirement to operatetogether results in an ad hoc and informal networkingNovember-December 2014MILITARY REVIEW

ARCTIC STRATEGYMembers of the Arctic Response Company Group face intense cold and prepare for a possible displacement 3 March 2014 duringExercise Guerrier Nordique in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada.(Photo by Cpl. Valérie Villeneuve, 35th Canadian Brigade Group)relationship that undermines our military’s ability tomake substantial headway in developing a joint Arcticwarfare capability.ConclusionAs Chad Briggs observed, “changing environmentalconditions create new security risks where noneexisted before.”28 He goes on to say that military threatslikewise shift, demand a new strategic focus, and, insome extreme cases, require an entirely new tacticalapproach to maneuver warfare.The Arctic region requires just such a shift in strategic focus. The time may well be coming when countriescollide over their interests in the Arctic and sub-Arcticregions. Although we hope for peaceful expansion ofbusiness interests and governance into the Arctic, wemust also prudently prepare to defend national interests at the top of the world against those who wouldoppose us or seek to exert control over the region. Atpresent, we are not prepared for such a contingency.In the face of such a clear and plausible danger,strategic-level leaders and planners should be awarethat despite having articulated a formal Arcticstrategy for DOD, current capabilities at the jointtactical and operational levels do not include adequately trained and equipped ground combat unitswho could perform successful Arctic operations.Furthermore, while a small contingent of leaders andinstructors in various U.S. military units maintain acertain depth of knowledge in Arctic operations andthe associated skills, the Army and joint communitylack the critical institutional knowledge and thetrained and experienced personnel necessary toquickly create and employ enough units capable ofaccomplishing the kinds of major operations that maybe needed in the Arctic region. As the Arctic becomesindisputably more important and other nations withArctic borders move toward increased operationalcapability in the region, every year of delay puts theU.S. military at further risk of being unprepared todefend its own interests or those of its NATO allies inthe region. As Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefanssonwrote in his treatise The Northward Course of Empire,“There is no northern boundary beyond whichproductive enterprise cannot go until North meetsNorth on opposite shores of the Arctic Ocean.”29Capt. Nathan Fry, U.S. Army National Guard, is the intelligence officer for 3rd Battalion, 172nd Infantry Regiment(Mountain), of the Vermont National Guard’s 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Mountain). He holds a B.A.in Russian from Dickinson College and is currently completing his M.S. in environmental and natural resources atthe University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School. Fry is also pursuing certification as an alpine, rock, and ski guidefrom the International Federation of Mountain Guides Association. He led the U.S. Guerrier Nordique 2014 teamon Baffin Island.MILITARY REVIEWNovember-December 201461