Panel: NATO Needs to Take Russian Offensive, Defensive Advances in Arctic Seriously
By: John Grady
July 1, 2020 10:04 AM
Russia’s massive 70-warship Ocean Shield exercise in the Baltic Sea last year signaled the Kremlin’s intention to be the dominating Arctic power militarily and economically, two international security experts said Tuesday.
“The complexity of exercises has expanded significantly over the last twelve years†as Moscow has pushed conventional and nuclear military modernization programs forward to assert its dominance regionally, Katarzyna Zysk, head of the Centre for Security Policy at Norway’s Institute of Defence Studies, said in a Center for Strategic and International Studies online forum on June 30.
The exercises, often unannounced, are more sophisticated now than when they resumed following Russia’s moves against Georgia and later Ukraine. They involve joint land, air and naval forces in combined operations, “making it less predictable†to NATO planners in assessing the immediate and long-term goals of the Russian military.
https://news.usni.org/2020/07/01/panel-nato-needs-to-take-russian-offensive-defensive-advances-in-arctic-seriously
