Having the right equipment, enough of it and maintaining it properly is critical, he added.Ĭommunication can also be a problem, as high latitudes are not covered by satellites in geostationary orbit, and disruptions can be caused by icing on radio antennas or by heavy seas.īeyond-line-of-sight comms can be challenging, noted Air Force Special Operations Command Commander Lt. Lubricants that work at normal temperatures, when you get to really extremely cold ones, can actually cause malfunctions because they kind of gunk up … and solidify.” “The whole lubrication challenge changes. “Weapons first and foremost,” Bucci said. “And if you’re … skiing or pulling Ahkios and all that stuff, that’s really tough.”Īdditionally, soldier equipment and platforms such as aircraft and ground vehicles might not function as well. Commandos will need to carry more equipment such as special cold weather survival gear, he noted. “The Arctic environment is going to be pretty tough on special operations units,” Bucci said. SOF might be told to “go in, blow up a radar site or something like that that might be hindering our more conventional brothers and sisters” in the armed forces, Bucci said.īut there are unique challenges in a region where temperatures can drop to more than 50 degrees below zero. While counterterrorism ops are unlikely, direct action missions aren’t off the table, he noted. “Or if they’re threatening it with some of their gray zone-type operations, we could put our guys in there to go in and do counterinsurgency or counter-unconventional warfare.” “If an adversary in the Arctic context, whether it be Russia or China, took over an area or was threatening an area that way, we could go and assist with unconventional warfare to help try and liberate” an area, Bucci said. They may also entail what the military calls “unconventional warfare,” a core capability of the Green Berets since their founding. Missions could include special reconnaissance, calling in fires against enemy forces, and training with foreign partners. “Pretty much all of the missions we can do anywhere else, we can do in the Arctic … we’ll just do it in a lot colder environment with a lot more challenge to get it done.” “We do a lot of stuff, and frankly, the majority of what we are assigned in the SOF community are missions that are in support of the general purpose forces, who obviously in the Arctic will … be the biggest chunk of the American activity there,” said Steve Bucci, a retired Special Forces officer and a defense analyst with the Heritage Foundation think tank. Special Operations Forces include Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Marine Raiders, Special Tactics airmen and other elements. But unless terrorist groups set up shop in the High North, SOF will play more of a supporting role in the Arctic using a wide range of skill sets, officials and analysts say. Special operators have played a central role in the post-9/11 wars conducting direct assault missions, the most famous being the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden. “The agile and expeditionary nature of SOF, combined with established allied and partner relations and interoperability, provides DoD a ready capability to compete below the level of armed conflict in the Arctic region, and across the spectrum of SOF core activities.” homeland is defended, and nations work cooperatively to address shared challenges,” the document said. national security interests are safeguarded, the U.S. “DoD’s desired end-state for the Arctic is a secure and stable region in which U.S. In 2019, the Defense Department released its latest Arctic Strategy, which noted the important role for special operators. With the Pentagon increasingly focused on great power competition, they may soon find themselves spending more time in a region that presents a unique set of challenges - the Arctic. Special Operations Forces have deployed to some of the most dangerous and inhospitable places on the planet to combat terrorist networks. Navy Photo by Visual Information Specialist Chris Desmondįor the past two decades, U.S.
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