DHN0015

Written evidence submitted by Professor Caroline Kennedy-Pipe,  Professor Klaus Dodds, and Dr Duncan Depledge.

This evidence submission draws on the research of three academics who collectively bring deep and long-standing expertise on the changing geopolitics and security dynamics of the Arctic and High North and the implications for the UK and its NATO allies. All three contributors have published extensively on the topic and have previously served as special advisers to various select committees, as subject matter experts for NATO and the European Commission, and consultants to the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Summary

The Arctic region is a contested space with distinct North American, European, and Russo-Asian spheres of activity and influence. In the last 12 months, the Euro-Atlantic theatre has undergone further stress with the Trump Administration threatening the territorial integrity of both Canada and Greenland. The UK’s response has been to deepen its strategic relationship with Norway: Nordic states have linked with Canada in a manner designed to build a more robust and understanding of Arctic security. While much attention is currently occupied by the repercussions of the war with Iran and rising energy prices, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation exposed an “arc of conflict and competition’ from Ukraine through the Baltic Sea to the Northern Flank, including Svalbard. The European High North is an integral element of what has been described as a Wider North (also encompassing the North Atlantic and the Baltic). The UK must continue to recognise the Wider North’s primary importance to national security.

The Arctic in a Wider North

The Arctic, including the European High North, is now fractured between a North American Arctic, a European Arctic, and a Russo-Asian Arctic. Complicating matters further is the rift between allies in the Euro-Atlantic theatre, with the United States repeatedly threatening the territorial integrity of Canada and the Kingdom of Denmark.[1]

The EU’s Northern Dimension, which was championed by Finland in the late 1990s, is now markedly different because Sweden and Finland have joined Norway as NATO member states. The land border between Finland, Norway and Russia is now a live frontline.

Norwegian authorities have repeatedly warned of aggressive Russian activity, including sabotage, disinformation, and communication interference. The Russians, keenly aware of the vulnerabilities of the Kola peninsula, are and will continue to disperse forces, emphasising the Barents Sea and Bear Island.

It is necessary to view the Arctic/High North in relation to its adjacent areas. During the Cold War, the UK’s defence interests were defined by the need to protect North Atlantic and High North waters and ensure Norway and Iceland could be reinforced in a crisis. Notably, the MoD’s 2022 Arctic paper was titled “Defence Contribution in the High North”.

However, successive NATO enlargements mean that this ‘Northern Flank’ has widened to include the Baltic region. A security crisis in the Baltic will inevitably provoke a reaction among the Nordic nations seeking to bolster their own defences. Meanwhile, during any such crisis, we expect that both regions will look to the UK for simultaneous support.

In our view, the UK ought therefore to view the European High North as part of a Wider North encompassing the North Atlantic and the Baltics. These regions are inseparable in strategic and political terms, and remain of primary importance to UK security.

UK Defence and Security Interests in the Wider North

The UK’s defence and security interests in the Wider North are defined by the following:

• A requirement to ensure the British Isles and surrounding waters are protected from physical and digital attacks.
• A commitment to provide both credible deterrence and guarantees of reinforcement should NATO allies in the north come under attack and Article 5 be invoked.
• A responsibility to monitor emerging risks and threats as the geopolitical, commercial, and environmental (including climatic) conditions across the Wider North evolve.

Any UK approach to the Wider North will have to work with four fundamental facts:

First, the relationship with Russia will remain extremely poor with few prospects of a reset even in a post-Putin era. The threat posed by Russia ranges from hybrid threats, sabotage by the shadow fleet to the deepening long-range strike capabilities threatened by its land, sea, and air-based assets. Whatever the eventual outcome for Ukraine, and indeed the war in Iran, Russia poses a potent a threat to the UK. This will not alter.

Second, the special relationship with Norway has gained ever greater salience for the UK given shared interests in energy, defence, intelligence-sharing and critical infrastructure protection. The UK’s relationships with Denmark and Iceland are also strong but will require future enhancement to ensure credible surveillance of the G-I-UK gap continues. While Iceland has limited capability, Denmark does have the possibility of acquiring the P-8 Poseidon aircraft from the US. The Danish Air Force’s four CL-604 maritime patrol aircraft do not possess ASW capability and that means their capacity to monitor the waters around Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, is limited. The challenge is that the US may not supply such planes unless they are granted further concessions in Greenland.

Third, China and other ‘BRICS plus nations’, including India, UAE and Saudi Arabia, are interested parties with scientific, energy and strategic interests in the Russian North, including over shipping lanes such as the Northern Sea Route (NSR). These ‘newer’ parties will deepen their connections to, and activities in, the Arctic. Whether that poses new dangers for the UK remains to be seen. However, the UK should exercise caution about actions that might push these countries more firmly into the Russia ‘camp’. The US-Israeli assault on Iran is revealing yet again the complex relationships that exist between petro-monarchies, Russia, China, Israel, and the United States. Iran continues to receive military intelligence from Russia, and Ukrainian expertise is being used to help intercept hostile Iranian drones targeted towards the UAE and Bahrain.

Fourth, with the US under President Trump pivoting away from Europe towards western hemispheric defence and the Indo-Pacific, the UK faces further pressure to work effectively with other NATO and EU parties in the Wider North. Whilst currently distracted by its actions in the Middle East, the Trump administration will continue its ambition to acquire Greenland and perhaps other strategic islands such as Iceland, if Washington continues to believe that security would be enhanced by exclusive US control. The UK should work on the assumption that Trump’s quest for Western Hemisphere dominance could lead to further acquisitional pressures.

Clarity and Achievability of UK Defence and Security High North policies

The threat perception has altered markedly since the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In a speech to the International Sea Power Conference in December 2025, the First Sea Lord highlighted the need for the UK to have both war-fighting readiness alongside credible deterrence in the face of an upsurge in Russian incursions and activities in the High North.

UK activity to defend and deter against Russia in the High North has increased and this must continue. Key initiatives include:

• Atlantic Bastion addresses the threat posed by Russia and hostile third parties to the UK’s immediate and wider underwater environment. It envisages a fleet of underwater vehicles working closely with Type-26 frigates to create a layered network of crewed and uncrewed defence designed to track and trace enemy submarines, as well as protecting underwater infrastructure.
• Atlantic Strike focuses on maritime force projection using carrier strike groups, amphibious forces/Commando Force and drones operating from aircraft carriers.
• Atlantic Shield is the Royal Navy’s contribution to air and missile defence using uncrewed assets to generate advanced surveillance of third-party missiles and drones.

However, the implementation of the UK’s defence of the High and Wider North faces challenges:

First, the need for agility was emphasised repeatedly in that speech by the First Sea Lord while also recognising delays in procurement and uncertainty over funding envelopes. Innovation in autonomous technologies remains subject to rapid and repeated investment cycles.

Second, the UK is reliant on the maintenance of close relations with European NATO allies. The United States is now a volatile ally, creating significant uncertainty over the extent to which European strategic interests may be overridden by US national security concerns. The prospect of another US-Russia ‘reset’ (even though these have often failed) could pave the way for a bilateral rapprochement that enables US companies to return to the Russian energy and transport sector following any peace settlement over Ukraine. Such an outcome would pose a significant challenge to HMG’s position that Russia remains the most acute threat to the UK and its allies. While the US suggests that Russia is a manageable threat, it also recognises that for Europe the Kremlin poses considerable dangers.

Third, publics in the UK and allied countries need to better understand the geopolitical risks posed and the need for rapid investment in war-fighting and deterrent capabilities. This will require a far broader conversation which starts the transformation from the UK as welfare state to warfare state. The Arctic and High North is not a region of cooperation and peaceful engagement and the “pause” affecting the intergovernmental forum, the Arctic Council is likely to be long-term. This matters to the UK because it means that Russia should be assumed to be a near-permanent threat, with the US repositioned as a necessary but unreliable security partner – the future of the US in NATO is now being openly questioned by President Trump following the assault on Iran.

Alliances and partnerships

Norway is the UK’s closest European ally in the North, and the relationship has deepened. There have been repeated ministerial visits to Norway and regular traffic between senior British and Norwegian senior military officers, including the First Sea Lord, Sir Gwyn Jenkins. The 2025 Lunna House agreement notably stresses the principle of interchangeability of vessels, training, and a permanent UK military presence in Norway itself – with plans to station up to 2,000 Royal Marines there by 2028.

The two countries share important interests around critical infrastructure protection in the North Sea, joint maritime operations, regular training exercises including EX Nordic Response (formerly Cold Response), and a long-standing marine commando training partnership, resulting most recently in the establishment of Camp Viking in northern Norway. Norway supplies 70% of gas imports to the UK and this yet again has become even more important during the current conflict in the Middle East. Norway will in the future turn to the UK for support over its continued effective sovereignty of Svalbard, which has been challenged by Russia’s assertion of its rights on the archipelago and the continued importance of Bear Island and the Bear Gap.

Other Nordic allies such as Denmark and Iceland matter to the UK because Atlantic Bastion is focused on securing shipping lanes in and around the Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap and adjacent waters. But noting again, both Denmark and Iceland have limited ASW capabilities.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at Davos earlier this year signalled Ottawa’s determination to deepen the country’s relations with other middle-powers around the world and create a ‘third path’ for global influence. This is as relevant in the Arctic as it is anywhere else: at the recent Canada-Nordic Summit, leaders outlined a deepening partnership on a wide range of issues, including trade, technology, energy and defence and security. The UK and Canada have maintained close relations on Arctic-related issues, and in the years ahead, there are likely to be further opportunities to deepen cooperation, including on defence and security in the Wider North. This could include drawing Canada in some capacity into the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force: an arrangement indispensable to the security of the Wider North.

We note that the Committee’s call for evidence does not indicate whether the United States remains a durable ally in the Wider North, but this is surely one proverbial elephant in the room. As noted earlier, it should not be assumed that the US remains in NATO. It is critical that any assessment of the future reliability of Washington as a security ally recognises the asymmetrical nature of the relationship and critical dependencies. These include: the nuclear deterrent, signals intelligence sharing, and high-end technological-military capabilities, including underwater detection systems across the North Atlantic region. It is hard to under-estimate how important the US remains for software updates and continued access to precision weapons and key components. The UK will need to be clear on what capabilities require sovereign control (and when and if that can be achieved) and then streamline procurement and innovation to deliver them while recognising that there will remain critical dependencies.

The threats to invade its NATO ally, Greenland, however, remain potent, while the US’s National Security Strategy has reordered military priorities away from Europe towards homeland security and western hemispheric dominance, the Indo-Pacific and most latterly the Middle East. The question of Russia and its war in Ukraine, wider European security and Polar politics have less immediate urgency in Washington: this may be understandable given the urgency of energy prices and the unpredictability of the widening war in the Middle East, but in our view, it demands that the UK exercises sustained leadership in the High North.

In any post-US departure from NATO, the US might simply look to negotiate local arrangements with European states to maintain access to key zones such as the Mediterranean or develop new facilities in central and eastern Europe.

Capabilities

While the focus on uncrewed/drone-based technologies is understandable as part of developing a hybrid navy, it is important to note that the UK does lack polar-capable platforms. HMS Protector, the ice-strengthened patrol vessel, is prone to breakdown and expected to continue into the 2030s. Its primary function is in the Antarctic and South Atlantic, where we have a series of overseas territories to protect and serve. The UK has limited amphibious capability, so much of what we are able to mobilise is limited to Royal Marine Commandos, limited air assets such as Typhoon fighter jets, P-8 Poseidon aircraft, and surface vessels such as Type-26 with some drone capability. Working with Norway, the ambition is to have a joint 13-strong Type-26 fleet.

One area we do expect to receive a boost is the UK defence industrial sector around drone technologies. In March 2026, the British company Kraken Technology received a £12 million contract to supply the Royal Navy and Royal Marines with twenty uncrewed K3 drone boats as part of Operation Beehive, which is designed to advance hybrid naval technologies.

Atlantic Bastion, as a strategic project, should facilitate further exportable technologies and build on UK technological capabilities. The Kraken deal has already been described as a “proving ground” for such capabilities, with the possibility that they will be used by Coastal Forces Squadron and 47 Commando Royal Marines for “operations, training and development activities to help set the foundation for further uses of autonomous and uncrewed technology”.

Other companies, such as US-owned Teledyne, have a UK subsidiary, and their marine division will be working with the Royal Navy to develop further autonomous detection systems for anti-submarine warfare purposes. Alongside the UK-Norway Type 26 frigate project, there are opportunities to build capacity and export autonomous technologies and platforms to other Nordic and NATO partner countries.

In the context of the operational challenges pertinent to the High North, we would expect to see further investment and development in uncrewed aerial and underwater systems for GPS-denied or compromised environments; swarm robotics and intelligence gathering; uncrewed vehicles and logistics drones operating in contested regions; counter-UAS technology; and predictive maintenance, given the high stress on equipment and platforms.

All the above will take time, long-term funding commitments, and collaboration with industry and international partners. Maintaining a working relationship with the US is essential, as the UK’s ability to develop a war-fighting defence industrial base will not be realised in one electoral cycle. Political leaders will need to be prepared to have a welfare-warfare reset.

Alignment between the UK’s High North defence and security strategy and the wider government

Evolving UK defence and security interest across the Wider North requires an updating of the MoD’s “Defence Contribution in the High North” in a way that draws together the issues and challenges facing the defence and security of the nation from the North Atlantic to Baltics.

To ensure alignment with wider government strategy, policies and priorities, this work ought to be done in tandem with the next refresh of the Arctic Policy Framework, which is now due. There remains a requirement for cross-government attention to the Arctic: whatever happens geopolitically, the Arctic as a region will continue to warm rapidly, leading to swift changes in the ice-covered areas.

If there is to be a fourth Arctic policy framework – and a refreshed Defence ‘contribution’ – launched in 2027, then it will have to grapple with the following:

• Expectation from Washington that Europe will take the lead in Euro-Atlantic defence, while at the same time acquiescing to US national security priorities in the region (including vis-à-vis Greenland) – potentially leading to further ‘ruptures’ within NATO.
• The prospect of a bilateral rapprochement between the US and Russia which will increase pressure on European NATO states to take responsibility for their collective defence. The US might have departed NATO by that stage.
• Ongoing China and other BRICS plus partner interest in maximising access to the Arctic for reasons related to defence, science, resource exploitation (food as well as mineral), commerce.
• Growing calls in Scotland (and possibly also Northern Ireland) for additional investment in search and rescue, as well as capabilities to respond to the growing risk of environmental hazards associated with increased maritime activity north of the British and Irish Isles.
• Implications for the recently signed MoU on bilateral defence cooperation between the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

Amid all this the UK must prioritise:

• Deterring Russian aggression and disruptive behaviour in the Wider North (including electronic warfare, hypersonic weapon testing, mischief-making on Svalbard and underwater sabotage).
• Partnership and collaboration with Canada and the Nordics in the Wider North. At the same time extend this to include deeper engagement with East Asian partners with shared interests in maintaining the security, resilience, and openness of the Arctic region amid geopolitical ruptures elsewhere.
• Additional investment in capabilities (e.g. drones and sonobuoy technology) for enhancement of anti-submarine warfare capabilities fortification of key bases such as RAF Lossiemouth, which houses the P-8 Poseidon aircraft, and A2/AD capability to defend against missiles/drone incursions from the north.

23rd March 2026