NATO launches new military exercise

Trident Juncture 18 is a NATO-led military exercise to be held in Norway from the 13^thof  October to the 24rth of  November 2018. 

The main goals of Trident Juncture are to train the NATO Response Force and to test the alliance's defence capability. 

Background 

The North Atlantic Treaty, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 29 North American and European countries. The organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949. NATO constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party. NATO’s Headquarters are located in Haren, Brussels, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons, Belgium.

A military exercise or war game is the employment of military resources in training for military operations, either exploring the effects of warfare or testing strategies without actual combat. This also serves the purpose of ensuring the combat readiness of garrisoned or deployable forces prior to deployment from home base/home station. War games involving two or more countries allow for better training of military, observations of enemy's tactics, and shows the strength of each country.

Analysis 

The Arctic is becoming an arena for a fierce competition to control transportation routes & natural resources of global importance. The upcoming Trident Juncture exercise is NATO’s attempt to demonstrate dominance in the region.

NATO says that Russia has nothing to worry about, because the exercise – which will be held in Norway and Iceland between October 25 and November 23 – “doesn’t target” it. But during Trident Juncture the forces will model the situation when Article 5 (Collective Defense) of the NATO treaty is invoked, as a potential enemy is threatening one of the member states.    

“We have to ask ourselves then, who could potentially threaten NATO in the North-West,” says Lieutenant General Valery Zaparenko, a former deputy chief of Russia’s General Staff.

In his view, there is no other state, besides Russia, that could be this kind of a hypothetical threat to the alliance. “So, all this talk from NATO about Russia not being the target of Trident Juncture doesn’t hold water,” the general adds.

The upcoming exercise will be the largest of its kind since 1991. It will involve 50,000 troops, 150 aircraft, 60 vessels and over 10,000 vehicles. The interesting aspect of this training is that NATO will practice strategic relocation elements, meaning that the forces will be arriving from different parts of Europe and North America. Another goal is to test different elements of deploying top-priority strategic reserves. They will also focus on improving logistical support.   

As for the competition to control the Arctic, it is quickly spiralling, and NATO’s Trident Juncture confirms this fact. It now involves not just the Arctic countries, such the US, Canada, Norway, and Denmark, but also China, for example. Polar exploration is no longer a purely scientific agenda. It is now an economic issue which led to a fierce political debate between the Arctic states.

Another important resource that the Arctic could potentially offer is transportation lines. Because of the melting ice in the Arctic Ocean, more and more cargo is being shipped via the Northeast Passage (NEP), with the volume increasing rapidly every year. Lloyd's Register predicts that in 2021, 15 million tons of cargo will be transported via the NEP.

Counterpoint

This exercise will be the largest NATO exercise in Norway since the 1980s and is a shift away from the non-alignment of the Nordic states. Russia has accused the NATO of using its Freedom to Navigate rights under the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) as a pretext for the exercise. Moscow also claims that the NATO is looking to heavily militarise the Arctic circle, with the UK ready to send in 800 Marines over the next few months. 

Assessment 

Our assessment is that Trident Juncture is a response from NATO to the massive Russia-China wargames which were held in September 2018. We believe that with the rapid melting of ice in the arctic circle, commercial shipping lanes across the North Pole will become open for countries to use and NATO is staking its claim. We also feel that Russia will demonstrate its own naval capabilities in the region by commissioning a new under-sea drilling operation in the resource-rich Arctic circle.