Military exercises in Alaska and Greenland test forces on operating in Arctic conditions

U.S. forces this week wrapped up their participation in an annual Arctic training exercise that, for the first time, took place in Alaska and Greenland. Arctic Edge, which began in 2018, includes training to respond to threats that Russia – and increasingly China – could pose to the United States.

The Greenland portion was coordinated with Denmark and involved American and Danish special forces. The long-planned exercise took place despite President Trump’s repeated threats this year to control of Greenlandwhich is an autonomous territory of Denmark.

According to NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, which organized the exercise, Denmark hosted the United States in Greenland for training focused on Arctic operations. Every two years, Arctic Edge takes place in winter and this year was the first time in recent years to take place in the middle of winter.

“Half the battle in Arctic winter exercises is just surviving,” Royal Canadian Air Force Lt. Gen. Iain Huddleston, deputy commander of NORAD, told reporters earlier this week.

The overall lesson of the exercise is that the military must prepare its units for the Arctic before it gets there, according to U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Robert Davis, who is the head of U.S. Alaska Command, Alaska NORAD region and commander of the 11th Air Force.

According to Davis, during the training exercise, aircraft are routinely damaged and require additional maintenance due to lack of familiarity with extreme cold practices, such as pre-warming hydraulic systems. Some soldiers try to open an airplane window too early and the window cracks.

“Now you can’t use the plane until you replace the window – so just some examples of some of the practical challenges of not operating on a regular basis and then all of a sudden arriving in the Arctic and having to do a little discovery learning,” Davis said.

Huddleston and Davis said the exercise had no theoretical adversary but included parts to defend against weapons, like cruise missiles, that only certain countries, like Russia and China, could potentially use to threaten the United States.

“We don’t have any intelligence to suggest that we’re actually at risk of them launching cruise missiles against Alaska,” Davis said. “Nevertheless, we believe we need to be sufficiently prepared to take the military capabilities that the U.S. government has given us from a defensive perspective and make sure we can bring them together.”

The drone is a smaller weapon that is of increasing concern to the military. During the exercise, the Army practiced responding to a drone incursion at Fort Greely in Alaska.

According to Davis, they tested scenarios including a single drone that could simply monitor the installation as well as a small swarm of about six drones, to see if the different systems Fort Greely has were capable of detecting and communicating information to Army soldiers.

“None of the drones were completely detected,” Davis said, adding that there are several types of sensors and that at least one of them detected each of the drones, and that none of the systems were negatively affected by the temperature, which can drop as low as -40 degrees Fahrenheit.

U.S. forces shot down one drone, according to Davis, but used an unmanned aerial system that throws a net over the drone and lowers it to the ground intact so the U.S. can inspect it.

Since Fort Greely’s anti-drone systems are mostly electronics-based and don’t necessarily require batteries, which can drain quickly in cold weather, the temperatures “haven’t really affected them in a negative way, which is a good thing,” Davis said.

He said the speed at which industry and commercial companies are modifying and changing drone technology makes it “really difficult” to maintain formal programs within the military. It’s a concern the Pentagon faces across the military, not just in the Arctic.