Insight: In NATO’s new north, fresh chances to contain Moscow

Sweco AB (publ)

03/07/2023 07:00

By Anne Kauranen and Johan Ahlander
       TORNIO, Finland/KARLSKRONA, Sweden, July 3 (Reuters) -
H igh above a railway bridge spanning a foaming river just
outside the Arctic Circle, Finnish construction workers hammer
away at a project that will smooth the connections from NATO's
Atlantic coastline in Norway to its new border with Russia.
    "We will be removing some 1,200 of these one by one," says
site manager Mika Hakkarainen, holding up a rivet.
    Until February 2022, the 37-million euro ($41 million)
electrification of this short stretch of rail – the only rail
link between Sweden and Finland – simply promised locals a
chance to catch a night train down to the bright lights of
Stockholm. 
    After Russia invaded Ukraine, that changed.
    Now Finland is part of NATO, and Sweden hopes to join soon.
    As the alliance reshapes its strategy in response to
Russia's campaign, access to these new territories and their
infrastructure opens ways for allies to watch and contain
Moscow, and an unprecedented chance to treat the whole of
northwest Europe as one bloc, nearly two dozen diplomats and
military and security experts told Reuters.
    
    "PUT RUSSIA AT RISK"
    The Finnish rail improvements around Tornio on the Swedish
border are one example. Due for completion next year, they will
make it easier for allies to send reinforcements and equipment
from across the Atlantic to Kemijarvi, an hour's drive from the
Russian border and seven hours from Russia's nuclear bastion and
military bases near Murmansk in the Kola peninsula.
     Among forces based there, Russia's Northern Fleet includes
27 submarines, more than 40 warships, around 80 fighter planes
and stocks of nuclear warheads and missiles, data collected by
the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) shows.
     In a military conflict with NATO, the Fleet's main task
would be to secure control of the Barents Sea and stop ships
bringing reinforcements from North America to Europe through the
waters between Greenland, Iceland and the UK.
    That's something Finland can help NATO resist.
    "It's all about containing those kinds of capabilities from
the north," retired U.S. Major General Gordon B. Davis Jr. told
Reuters. 
    
    Besides opening its territory, Helsinki is buying the right
assets, particularly fighter jets, "to add value to (the)
northeastern defence and, frankly, in a conflict put Russia at
risk," he said. 
    Sweden's contribution will, by 2028, include a new
generation of submarines in the Baltic Sea that Fredrik Linden,
Commander of Sweden's First Submarine Flotilla, says will make a
big difference in protecting vulnerable seabed infrastructure
and preserving access –  currently major security headaches, as
the September 2022 destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N382024 showed.
     "With five submarines we can close the Baltic Sea," Linden
told Reuters. "We will cover the parts that are interesting with
our sensors and with our weapons." 
    Analysts say the change is not before time. Russia has been
actively developing its military and hybrid capabilities in the
Arctic against the West, partly under the cover of international
environmental and economic cooperation, the FIIA's Deputy
Director Samu Paukkunen told Reuters. Russia's defence ministry
did not respond to a request for comment. 
    Paukkunen's institute estimates Western armed forces are
militarily about 10 years behind Russia in the Arctic. 
    Even with the losses that Russia has sustained in Ukraine,
the naval component of the Northern Fleet and the strategic
bombers remain intact, Paukkunen said.
    NATO-member Denmark phased out its submarine fleet in 2004,
part of a move to scale back its military capabilities after the
end of the Cold War, and it has yet to decide on future
investments. Norway is also ordering four new submarines, with
delivery of the first due in 2029.
    "It seems to me that we have some catching up to do, because
we haven't done it properly for the last 25 years," said
Sebastian Bruns, a senior researcher into maritime security at
Kiel University's Institute for Security Policy.
    
    "A WHOLE PIECE"
    Both developments show how the expanded alliance will
reshape Europe's security map. The region from the Baltic in the
south to the high north may become almost an integrated
operating area for NATO.
    "For NATO it's quite important to have now the whole
northern part, to see it as a whole piece," Lieutenant Colonel
Michael Maus from NATO's Allied Command Transformation told
Reuters. He chaired the working group which led Finland's
military integration into NATO.
    "With (existing) NATO nations Norway and Denmark, now we
have a whole bloc. And thinking about potential defence plans,
it's for us a huge step forward, to consider it as a whole area
now."
    This became clear in May, when Finland hosted its first
Arctic military exercise as a NATO member at one of Europe's
largest artillery training grounds 25 km above the Arctic
Circle.
    The nearby town of Rovaniemi, known to tourists as the home
of Santa Claus, is also the base of Finland's Arctic air force
and would serve as a military hub for the region in case of a
conflict. Finland is investing some 150 million euros to renew
the base to be able to host half a new fleet of 64 F-35 fighter
jets, due to arrive from 2026.
    For the May manoeuvres, nearly 1,000 allied forces from the
United States, Britain, Norway and Sweden filled the sparse
motorways as they joined some 6,500 Finnish troops and 1,000
vehicles.
    Captain Kurt Rossi, Field Artillery Officer of the U.S.
Army, led a battery bringing in an M270 multiple rocket
launcher. 
    It was first shipped from Germany across the Baltic Sea,
then trucked nearly 900 km to the north.
    "We haven't been this close (to Russia) and been able to
train up in Finland before," Rossi said.
    If there was a conflict with Russia in the Baltic Sea area –
where Russia has significant military capabilities at St.
Petersburg and Kaliningrad – the shipping lane NATO used for
that exercise would be vulnerable. Finland relies heavily on
maritime freight for all its supplies – customs data shows
almost 96% of its foreign trade is carried across the Baltic.
    The east-west railway link across the high north will open
up an alternative, which could prove crucial.
     "I think the Russians can quite easily interrupt the cargo
transportation by sea so basically this northern route is the
only accessible route after that," said Tuomo Lamberg, manager
for cross border operations at Sweco, the Swedish company
designing the electrification.
    
    "NOTHING BEATS THEM"
    But that risk, too, may recede when Sweden joins NATO. 
    Down beneath the Baltic Sea waterline, the submarine
commander Linden shows a reporter the captain's quarters of the
Gotland, one of four submarines currently in Sweden's fleet,
which will bring NATO's total in the Baltic countries to 12 by
2028.  
    The Kiel institute expects Russia to add one to three
submarines in the coming years, to bring its Baltic submarine
total to four, along with its fleet of around six modern
warships. Its capabilities at Kaliningrad also include
medium-range ballistic missiles. 
    "This can be the loneliest place in the world," says Linden,
who captained the vessel for many years. On a typical mission,
which lasts two to three weeks, there is no communication with
headquarters, he said. 
    The Gotlands, like Germany's modern Type 212 submarines,
will be among NATO's most advanced non-nuclear submarines and
can stay out of port for significantly longer than most other
conventional models, the researcher Bruns said  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N38J2XO.
    "I would say, without a doubt, that the Gotland-class and
the German Type 212 are the most capable non-nuclear submarines
in the world," said Bruns.
     "There is nothing that beats them, quite literally. In
terms of how quiet they are, the engines they use, they are
particularly quiet and very maneuverable."
    In submarine warfare, Linden said, the primary question is
where the adversary is. A careless crew member dropping a wrench
or slamming a cupboard door can lead to detection. 
    "We talk quietly on board," Linden said. "You shouldn't
believe ... films where orders are shouted."
    The Gotland is based at Karlskrona, about 350 km across the
Baltic from Kaliningrad. With an average of 1,500 vessels per
day trafficking the Baltic according to the Commission on
Security and Cooperation In Europe, it is one of the world's
busiest seaways – and there is really only one way out, the
Kattegatt Sea between Denmark and Sweden.
     The shallow and crowded seaway can only be accessed through
three narrow straits that submarines can't pass through without
being detected. 
     
    LISTENING POWERS
    If any of the straits were to be closed, the sea freight
traffic to Sweden and Finland would be hit hard and the Baltic
states completely cut off. But with Sweden in the alliance, that
becomes more preventable, because Sweden's submarines will add
to NATO's listening powers.
    Linden says the Gotland's crew can sometimes hear Russia's
vessels. The range of sound travel varies partly depending on
the seasons. In winter, he said, you can hear as far as the
island of Oeland – just a bit further than the distance between
London and Birmingham in the UK.  
    "You can lie outside Stockholm and hear the chain rattling
on Oeland's northern buoy," Linden said. "In the summer you can
hear maybe 3,000 meters." 
    By 2028, once Sweden takes delivery of a new design of
vessel, this capacity will increase. The new design, known as
A26, will allow submarine crews to deploy remotely operated
vehicles (ROVs), combat divers or autonomous systems of some
sort without putting the submarine or crew at risk, Bruns said. 
    "Depending on the mission it could be an ROV that safeguards
a pipeline or data cable, it could be combat divers that go
ashore in the cover of darkness, it could be almost anything."
    That capacity will increase Sweden's scope to control
comings and goings through the Baltic.   
    "If you count all the forces, with Germany in the lead and
Sweden and Finland coming on board, all those have really
shifted the balance in the Baltic Sea quite significantly," said
Nick Childs, Senior Fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime
Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. 
    "It would make it very difficult for the Russian Baltic Sea
fleet to operate in a free way," he said. "But it could ...
still pose challenges for NATO."

    <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
NATO's potential railroad reach    https://tmsnrt.rs/3CQA2Yx
NATO's hold on the Baltic Sea    https://tmsnrt.rs/46pLEPM
More access to the Baltic Sea    https://tmsnrt.rs/3PzjBaQ
What Sweden's submarines bring to NATO     urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N38J2XO
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>
 (Anne Kauranen reported from Tornio, Johan Ahlander from
Karlskrona; additional reporting from Gwladys Fouche in Oslo,
Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Copenhagen and Sabine Siebold in
Brussels; Edited by Sara Ledwith)
 ((anne.kauranen@thomsonreuters.com))