Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week that U.S. military capabilities in the Arctic Circle leave his government little choice but to maintain a strong foothold in the frigid north, where tensions between the former Cold War adversaries in recent years have heated up as the polar ice thawed. ...
"Experts know quite well that it takes U.S. missiles 15 to 16 minutes to reach Moscow from the Barents Sea," Putin said, according to the Associated Press.
Putin is shrewd! He knows that our expensive efforts to build long-range ballistic missiles for our Trident nuclear subs wasn't to allow them to launch way out at sea away from enemy anti-submarine assets, but to sneak in really close! The unused fuel that burns in the impact adds a mean 0.0000000015% blast effect on top of the nuclear detonation!
As if we'd bother to nuke Russia when they are doing a splendid job of screwing up their country on their own. Given time for Putin's crony capitalism to work its magic, China won't want the Far East back.
But I digress.
It is common to think that Russians naturally know how to fight in the cold. Napoleon and Hitler both struggled in the Russian winter when they invaded. So the Russians have that reputation.
But Arctic fighting is another animal altogether from winter fighting. Arctic operations take special skills and equipment to survive, let alone fight. Even in the Cold War, Soviet troops really weren't that good at Arctic fighting. I think I recall the Swedes mocking a Soviet vehicle supposedly an "over-snow vehicle" (one with ground pressure low enough not to sink into deep snow) as a "joke."
So if Putin wants his forces to be able to operate in the Arctic, he will have to invest in training and equipment meant for that environment. If he does that, then the party is jumping.
Whether the Russians actually train and equip Arctic-capable forces or simply deploy units north and deem them Arctic-capable is another question. If I was a betting man, I'd say the latter.
Still no mention of POLARCOM from our Pentagon.
