Military Review English Edition November-December 2014 | Page 58

steps to create or augment specialized ground-combat
units to meet emerging Arctic demands.4 Notably,
Canada, Norway, and Russia have realigned entire units
to focus on Arctic readiness and operations. However,
the United States has no specialized Arctic warfare
capability, despite Alaska holding a substantial portion
of valuable territory bordering Russia—which recently
has shown few qualms in seizing land with ambiguous
territorial boundaries elsewhere.5
Though the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)
published Arctic Strategy in 2013, the document is, at
best, a generalized approach to operations. Its content
illustrates the U.S. military’s lack of deep understanding regarding the Arctic problem set and is rife with
general tasks that, without significant attention, are
currently impossible to implement at the tactical and
operational levels.6
In subsequent and supporting publications to the
DOD’s Arctic Strategy, the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine
Corps, and U.S. Coast Guard have shown a focused and
serious approach to preparing for Arctic operations. In
contrast, the U.S. Army has thus far shown very little
interest 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 to
prepare for Arctic warfare, current force generation
structure and personnel management policies continue
to undermine building specialty skills in active duty
units needed to adequately defend U.S. interests in the
Arctic. Also, on-hand Arctic equipment is outdated
and inadequate for extended Arctic use. The United
States has, as Siemon Wezeman points out in his multicountry study on Arctic military capabilities, fallen
into the historical trap of confusing forces stationed in
cold climates with Arctic-capable forces.7
For example, the Army maintains two combat
brigades and multiple support units in Alaska that,
although stationed in the north, do not have specific
requirements to operate in the Arctic.8 Historically,
confusion between northern and Arctic warfare is a
recurring phenomenon. It nearly always results in a
large number of environmental and enemy-induced
casualties when a northern-trained force that thinks
itself well-suited to Arctic conditions confronts a true
Arctic specialty force.9
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Lessons Learned from Arctic
Training
Recent U.S. military experience tends to confirm
the misconception among Army personnel trained in
northern warfare that they are Arctic-warfare capable.
In February and March 2014, 14 soldiers from the 86th
Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Vermont and Maine
Army National Guard), the Army Mountain Warfare
School, the 10th Mountain Division Lightfighter
School, and the Asymmetric Warfare Group joined
the 35th Canadian Brigade Group’s Arctic response
company for Exercise Guerrier Nordique. The exercise, for which U.S. participation was in its fourth year,
occurred in the highest latitude in exercise history—the
vicinity of Iqaluit, Baffin Island, Nunavut Territory,
Canada. So impressed were the members of the U.S.
Guerrier Nordique team with the challenges of Arctic
warfare that they resolved to record their experiences in an effort to call the U.S. Army’s attention

November-December 2014  MILITARY REVIEW