Chokepoints Within Chokepoints: Submarine Warfare in the Arctic

There is a unique beauty in the Arctic; the ice, twisted and contorted by undercurrents and winds, made into irreplicable sculptures. The dark hues of the ocean and the lightness of the sky, tinged with northern lights. There is a beauty in the Arctic, for there is also a danger to it. The fatality of the air, the impossible cold of the churning water, the glacial pace of its movements, and its sudden, cascading collapses. The barren isolation of it. Much the same can be said of the cold steel alloy, which rests beneath the icy surface; which never glimpse the burning colors of the Northern lights. The only life for miles, but conscious life, human life. There is an elegance to the curvature of a glacier, of its shifting colors; such elegance is echoed in the streamlined body of a Borei-Class Russian submarine, powered by a nuclear reactor. Some of the hottest matter on Earth, in one of the coldest regions.

There is a beauty to a submarine, as well, because there is a distinct danger to it.

Nuclear capabilities, covert warfare, sitting above mineral deposits, undersea cables, rest within an arm's reach of such submarines; Russia has roughly 30 such submarines.¹ The United States, by contrast, rotates submarine usage in the Arctic, as seen in Operation ICE CAMP Boarfish, wherein a Virginia-class submarine was deployed in the Arctic as recently as March 2026.^{2 3},⁴ Despite these US movements, a concerning threat becomes obvious. US Intelligence Community's 2026 Annual Threat Assessment found that Russia concentrates two-thirds of it's sea-based nuclear second-strike capability in Arctic bastions near the Kola Peninsula.^{5 6} Therein lie seven nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) that can reach Barents Sea patrol zones, just northeast of Norway, Finland, and Sweden, in under 24 hours after leaving their stationed bastions.^{7 8}

NATO's response was Operation Arctic Dolphin, an annual Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) training exercise that specifically trains for combat in Arctic terrain, while certifying new submariners.⁹ Additionally, NATO hosts Operation Dynamic Mongoose, a second ASW training program- albeit one not specifically limited to the Arctic.^{10 11} While Arctic Dolphin takes place off Norway's coasts, particularly in Arctic littoral zones, Dynamic Mongoose occurs directly in the High North; the Norwegian Sea and Arctic Circle itself. Mongoose serves as a strategic exercise to establish a stronger Arctic base for NATO, while Dolphin acts as a certification, practical training and commanding exercise. Put in blunter terms, Arctic Dolphin is the micro training of individuals and their certification; Dynamic Mongoose is the training of the international coalition of NATO nations in coordination and cooperation. Both exercises are in part trained against Russian security threats, as well as to better defend the Greenland, Iceland, UK (and sometimes Norway) Gap (GIUK[-N]).^{12 13} The GIUK(-N) Gap serves as the Arctic's key chokepoint; given that the Arctic is an increasingly significant region of geopolitics, particularly due to the role of icemelt (the Arctic Circle reached a temperature of 100 F or 37 C this July),^{14 15} and critical minerals (of which there are 30-50 unique types in the Arctic),^{16 17} as well as the role of energy resources such as oil and liquified natural gas (LNG) - containing an estimated 22% of the world's untapped supply.¹⁸

Therefore, the GIUK(-N) serves as not only a chokepoint between the Arctic and Atlantic, but a chokepoint within the world's most significant chokepoint, the Arctic. A physical chokepoint, as the world is not connected as closely anywhere else; even the Antarctic, which has more landmass than the Arctic¹⁹ and therefore cannot run undersea cables, submarines, or ships, is farther from significant land outside of Australia. The Arctic, by contrast, is nearest to Europe, Asia, and North America, wherein the center of the modern world order lies. In terms of technology, the Arctic holds the necessary minerals for advancements; to power that technology, it requires the oil and LNG; to utilize that technology, it has the highest density of satellites above it, of anywhere in the world.²⁰ For trade, military movements, for minerals or energy, the Arctic is a critical chokepoint, most imperatively, because it is not yet claimed or constricted by any one nation. Furthermore, as the ice melts, it becomes more accessible to all nations, and not only the waters, but also the competition becomes increasingly heated in a more resource-scarce world.

The GIUK(-N) serves as the corridor from the Arctic to the Atlantic, serving as the primary point of movement for Russia's Northern Fleet. Naturally, NATO has strategic interest in defending and retaining this Gap, as it did initially in the Cold War, where it served as the line of defense against Russian submarine movements, tracking them utilizing a Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS)^{21 22} as well as maritime patrol aircraft. The Gap was also utilized to protect allied ships from World War II German U-boats attacking allied trade routes.²³

Clearly, the GIUK-(N) holds significance; correspondingly, NATO treats it as such, with such Arctic operations serving to better defend and train for such a specific reason.

Part of the reason the GIUK (-N) is so significant, though, is because it remains ice-free year-round. However, with rising global temperatures, three new chokepoints are slowly thawing into existence. First is the Northern Sea Route (NSR), which acts as Russia's path to the Pacific; increasingly ice-free summers allow this path, which connects the Barents Sea to the Bering Strait,²⁴ from Russia to the United States, with China acting as a support just south of the route. China holds a direct stake in the NSR, as it seeks to utilize it for its Polar Silk Road initiative,^{25 26 27} to expand trade to Europe, and so benefits from working with Russia to establish and secure such a route. Then there is the North West Passage (NWP), which acts as a bridge between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, just above Canada. As ice has been reduced over the summers in the NWP, access has been created between the two great oceans, resulting in direct access for Western powers, namely the United States, with interest in both the Atlantic and Pacific regions, to establish faster access from one to the other. This greatly reduces not only time but also dependence on southern routes; nonetheless, it is not as commercially viable as the NSR; and as such serves only as a military corridor,²⁸ and one that is not yet particularly useful so long as much of the ice remains, for most of the year. In such a way it serves as a unique kind of chokepoint- a time-sensitive one, a gate, occasionally swinging open and closed with the seasons, but which, each summer, opens a little longer than the last.

Additionally, there is the Transpolar Sea Route (TSR), a route directly across the Arctic Circle, which dances around the North Pole. It is a deep-water route which has historically been greatly inaccessible due to ice; however, like all other aforementioned routes, ice-free summers, potentially as soon as 2050,^{29 30} would allow direct passage across the smallest- and therefore fastest- route from Asia to North America to Europe. This is where the thaw would be most prominent; not only because the ice here is the thickest and oldest, but also because the area is entirely unclaimed. Exclusive economic zones (EEZs) for Arctic nations stretch across the Circle and Sea, but do not touch the North Pole.^{31 32} The center of the world, wherein more nations would be able to stake claim due to their proximity and its centrality, establishes a new ground for competition. The world has never before been connected at a centralized location, wherein East and West are bridged at the top of the globe. As the ice melts, the North Pole- and its route, the TSR- become just that. This route would also allow for a bypass of the GUIK(-N) gap entirely, putting Russia, Scandinavia, and the US and Canada closer than ever. Russia and the United States have long stood eye-to-eye, across the world. However, the thawing of the North shrinks this distance to mere miles.

Lastly, the route of Western Bypass rests, a bridge between Baffin Bay and the Davis Strait. The Western Bypass sits between Canada and Greenland, and historically has already been largely ice-free. However, as the rest of the region becomes more accessible, it becomes more viable. During the Cold War, Soviet attack submarines were able to bypass NATO's GIUK monitoring system by traveling north, over Greenland, and cutting through the Davis Strait into the Atlantic.³³ And so the fox found its way into the henhouse, as it were. Nuclear submarines sandwiched between the United States and Europe, ready and able to strike. As the waters around Greenland become more viable, naval planners must treat Greenland as an island that is not only threatened from the East by Russia, but can also be flanked from above on the West,^{34 35} through the Bypass. NATO would benefit, therefore, from expanding its maritime surveillance beyond the GUIK(-N) boundary line, and instead look up, where Russia has already shown it's able and willing to go.

How, therefore, is the Arctic to be defended- or attacked? What warfare takes place in one of the most hostile environments in the world, where little life exists? The answer lies not on the surfaces of the Arctic, with the ice and bitter wind, but instead beneath it, with Submarines, GIUK(-N) Gap patrols have persistently worked with ASW projects to defend against submarines, and has been explicitly framed by NATO as a vital gateway to the Atlantic. NATO's newly announced Arctic Sentry mirrors the alliance's expansion, seen in the Eastern Sentry and Baltic Sentry establishments elsewhere.^{36 37} The High North, in short, is formally elevated to the same vigilance category as NATO's eastern flank.^{38 39}

The Kola Bastion for Russian submarines hosts the Northern Fleet at Severomorsk, Gadzhiyevo and Zapadnaya Litsa;^{40 41},⁴² the platforms accommodate Delta-IV and Borei SSBNs, which are armed with ballistic missiles of Layner and Bulava class^{43 44} (submarine-launched ballistic missiles- SLBMs). These establish one arm of a nuclear triad, which is defended by layered air defense, coastal missile systems, aviation, and dense electronic warfare (EW) coverage.⁴⁵ The role of these tools is to restrict NATO's freedom of access near the patrol areas. This evidence, put in conjunction with the critical chokepoint of the Arctic, displays a clear Russian strategic logic. This is a multi-domain, rich defense system built around a strategic asset; there is a difference between a base which exists to project power, and a base which exists to defend it. Such a fortress around these submarines works not as additional firepower, but as insulation. The logic is as follows: If Russia's SSBNs are pinned in port, located and tracked leaving the base, or destroyed early in the crisis, Moscow's nuclear deterrent is lost. Instead, it becomes hostage to NATO escalation dominance. Nuclear powers work only if the weapons cannot be located and struck. The strategic basing and firepower accompanying the submarines exist to protect the nuclear warheads. Therefore, this bastion and its defense are not any other base in the Arctic, not to Russia; instead, it is an existential, vital piece of power which must remain protected. It is not a power project, then, so much as deterrence for survival.

Naturally, this is where NATO's ASW operations come into play. Arctic Dolphin patrols in the GIUK(-N), and Dynamic Mongoose serve large-scale, international efforts, based in Norway and Iceland, and involve standing NATO Maritime Group One.^{46 47} The Gap patrols act as a security measure for the Atlantic Ocean, while also enabling Russian Northern Fleet transit. War is not an idle game; Russia does not simply watch NATO's drills in the Arctic in ignorance or apathy; instead, it responds with innovation. Russia's GUGI acts as the main directorate on deep-sea research, and operates the Yantar-class special-purpose survey ship, designed for oceanographic research; nonetheless, Western navies assessed the unit as a seabed-warfare vessel, not a research submarine.^{48 49} This is largely due to the fact that Yantar is capable of deploying submersibles to 6,000 meters in depth, which is able to reach almost any transatlantic cable, armed with equipment for tapping, mapping, or pre-rigging infrastructure for future disruption.^{50 51} The warfare of the Arctic rests not only in the waters broken by icebreakers and the satellites mapping the world, but also on the floor of the sea. This potential tampering of cables has the capability to disrupt communication between the United States and its allies, as well as other access to the internet, across the Atlantic as a whole. Open-source tracking has marked Yantar departing Olenya Guba in the Russian Arctic; then appearing off Ireland and Scotland, not far from transatlantic cable routes.^{52 53} It is the Arctic and its geography which enables Russian interference in Western infrastructure. The naval threats of the Western world come not from the traditional routes of conflict and combat; no longer are there sea-battles and blockcades, but rather new domains, far below the surface and far above the equator. Baltic Sea cable-sabotage has already been conducted to apply pressure on a technological communication chokepoint; the Arctic is merely the expansion of an established principle of strategy.^{54 55}

Arctic Dolphin reflects NATO's deliberate exercising into the seabed-warfare section of strategy and combat, corresponding advancements with the Arctic Sentry's novel role in NATO.⁵⁶ Yet, such strategy does not come as striking or shocking; the publicity of Arctic Dolphin is not merely a way of projecting power by displaying it internationally, but also works as a normalization of seafloor combat. It seems as routine as any other naval exercise; as does Russian tampering with transatlantic cables.

The status quo has slowly shifted to accept undersea operations as classical warfare tactics, and the abuse of chokepoints, such as cable-tapping, as only an extension of existing strategy. What is changing is where these operations are conducted. The Baltic is no longer the center of pressure by Russian naval power; instead, it is an ever-expanding empire,^{57 58} claiming mile after mile, as ton after ton of ice dissipates into the salt water.

Ice is elegant, and dangerous. In the same way, Russian submarine systems pose elegant threats, slowly taking the place of the ice in the Arctic. New routes, new resources, and new technologies are becoming available to the world and to the great powers that battle over it; a new theater of war has opened. Potential growth is also potential power; expansion in the Arctic, in any capacity, breeds rivalry, with nations that, with history dating back to the Cold War, hold animosity and distrust. New frontiers, between Greenland and Canada, across the Northern Sea Route, through the Northwest Passage, and of course, resting directly above the North Pole in the Transpolar Sea Route, are emerging. The technology and combat strategy have been studied and ingrained, but merely for one region, directly West of Russia. Russia will not play into Western hands; it is unwise to strike where an opponent is strongest; it is much easier to approach silently, invisibly, from the other direction. Submarines drift just outside Alaska, having taken the NSR;⁵⁹ or resting between Canada and Greenland in the Western Bypass, or above Canada in the High North, having taken the Transpolar Route. As the ice of the Arctic Ocean thaws, Russia's potential for power expands, while NATO remains focused on a region becoming increasingly obsolete. The GUIK(-N) Gap is critical, no doubt, but its critical nature decreases as these other routes become available. The nature of submarines is to be the stealth force, to tamper with cables and disrupt communications, to drift with nuclear arms just a few hundred miles away from NATO soil, just in case.

Arctic pilots and icebreaker captains have a name for a specific kind of ice; growlers. These growlers rest just below the surface of the ice, small, floating pieces which are hidden to the ships, but are still capable of punching holes in hulls.⁶⁰ Shoal ice, by contrast, sits on the floor of the ocean, scraping the bottom of ships and sinking them.⁶¹

The Arctic is like the ice it holds; it is largely invisible, as is the undersea combat aspect. The world watches for icebreakers, for Coast Guard patrols and planes, all the while there is the subtle amassing of strength underneath the waves, which will act as the major actors of both offense and defense in the battle of the new, thawing front.

Notes & References

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