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Should NATO opt to embrace horizontal escalation in the event of a conflict with Russia, it may well find the Arctic and High North a region in which it enjoys significant opportunities. The impact of climate change, coupled with the resurgence of great power competition in Europe, will have a significant impact on the geopolitics of the Arctic and the High North - an area typically defined as including both the Arctic and the seas surrounding Scandinavia. These capabilities will allow Moscow to escalate its dominance early on in a conflict with NATO, if it spreads to the high north coastline of Russia. [Extracted from the article]

If NATO has sufficient warning times to build up to the force levels seen during Exercise I Trident Juncture i and demanded by the NRI, by contrast, the balance of power is more contested, the Alliance enjoying offensive advantages but struggling when Russian forces take the operational initiative. The paper was structured to achieve two subordinate objectives: assess the present Russia-NATO balance of power in the Arctic; and analyse the level of ambition that Russian investment in the region can support. The emerging balance of power in the High North and Arctic, then, ought to be a key concern for NATO, which will need to consider how to both reinforce its peacetime posture and how to leverage its military opportunities in wartime without provoking undesirable escalation. [Extracted from the article]

The subsequent Defence Command Paper (DCP) was supposed to set out how the Ministry of Defence (MoD) would structure the armed forces to meet the policy demands in the Integrated Review.[2] It failed to do so coherently. In March 2021, the UK published its most far-reaching reassessment of its foreign and defence policy since 1997. Both UK civilians and military personnel have been killed by Iranian actions.[4] The consequence of this behaviour has been to massively increase force protection requirements, and to fix scarce naval assets to protecting shipping. [Extracted from the article]

The second scenario, in which Russia attempts to both deny NATO access to the Arctic in a conflict and to use it as a springboard for operations in the Atlantic, could materialise in the context of a Russia-NATO clash that began beyond the region. See NATO, 'Press Conference by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Following the Meeting of NATO Defence Ministers', 24 October 2019, < https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions%5f169936.htm>, accessed 28 November 2021. Russia would likely attempt to sortie some of its submarines from the region to threaten NATO shipping in the wider Atlantic and, perhaps, other critical infrastructure. [Extracted from the article]

NATO is the most successful political and military alliance in recent history. While NATO is designed for US leadership, all constituent members have a voice in shaping NATO decisions. Future NATO It is within this space - between NATO's proud past and the unpredictable and, in many ways, daunting future - that we offer this Whitehall Paper, in which eminent experts explore themes that are central to how NATO must adapt to new realities to stay relevant. [Extracted from the article]

This Whitehall Paper argues that there is an increasing divergence between the pace and trajectory of airpower capability development in the US and the rest of the NATO Alliance. While the US has held an overwhelming capability lead for decades, the emerging focus on countering Chinese capabilities at scale in the Pacific theatre, coupled with a continuing resource imbalance, is further eroding the ability of other NATO air forces to keep pace. Since the 1990s, the introduction of fighter platforms with extremely low radar signatures and excellent situational awareness which can be gathered and shared without alerting hostile forces has enabled the US to achieve an even greater leap in airpower capabilities, not only compared to rival powers but also to other NATO member states. [Extracted from the article]

An introduction to the paper "Whitehall Papers" in which the editor discusses the issues arising from the change of the Arctic Ocean from sea-ice cap to seasonally ice-free sea is presented.

The liberation of Mosul and recapture of Raqqa from the Islamic State were two of the most costly and fiercely contested battles of the 21 SP st sp century so far. To this end, the services are developing new concepts of operation and creating new force structures to enable these operations - from the Future Commando Force,[11] to the new Army Operating Concept and the formation of 6 (UK) Division,[12] which incorporates the Specialised Infantry Group (Spec Inf Gp), tasked with generating long-term training missions. In terms of the UK alone, the authors considered cases of training in 58 countries that were active during the course of the research. For example, records in the UK National Archives detail attempts to provide training to the police forces of the Yemen Arab Republic in the 1980s, but the authors' attempts to find participants in this case were unsuccessful and so they were limited to official UK government records. [Extracted from the article]