Germany to patrol Arctic to counter rising threats from Russia, China in region

By AFP and Global Watch | 2025-07-08

Germany has said it will begin sending navy ships to patrol Arctic waters amid a rising military buildup in the region by Russia and China.

"Maritime threats are mounting... To name but a few, Russia is militarizing the Arctic," German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told a press conference on June 30.

"We are seeing an increasing activity of Russian submarines operating in that area," the minister added, speaking alongside his Danish counterpart, Troels Lund Poulsen.

Therefore, "as early as this year, Germany will show its presence in the North Atlantic and the Arctic," Pistorius said.

The Danish government announced at the beginning of the year it would spend 14.6 billion DKK ($2.3 billion) on strengthening security in the area, in collaboration with Greenland and the Faroe Islands -- another autonomous Danish territory.

Pistorius said a German support ship, the Berlin, would go from Iceland to Greenland and then Canada as part of a deployment named "Atlantic Bear."

"Along the route, we will exercise with our allies in the region, and we have planned the first port call of a German navy ship to Nuuk in Greenland," Pistorius said.

'A strategic focus'

"We will then, for the first time, take part in the Canadian Arctic exercise, Nanook," the minister continued, adding that "we will deploy our maritime patrol aircraft, submarines and frigates to demonstrate our commitment to that region."

The announcement by German comes at a time when attention to security in the Arctic has risen.

The expanding presence of Russia and China in the region -- marked by joint military exercises and growing influence -- has prompted calls for a stronger US and allied military presence in the region.

A US-based military think tank is urging the Pentagon to establish an Arctic Combined Interagency Task Force to offset the two powers and safeguard the region's rising strategic importance.

"Such an interagency task force construct could bridge the seams of the theater and make the Arctic a strategic focus," William Woityra and Grant Thomas, both captains of the US Coast Guard, wrote in an article published in March by the US Naval Institute, a nonprofit military association that focuses on national security issues.

The US Defense Department has called for more resources to be spent in the Arctic to keep pace with China and Russia. A Pentagon strategy report issued in July 2024 called for more investment to upgrade sensors, communications and space-based technologies in the region.

NATO is beefing up its defenses in the Arctic region, including holding the largest military drills by the Western military alliance since the end of the Cold War. The exercises in March 2024 involved about 90,000 troops from all 32 NATO states and simulated an attack on the organization's frigid Arctic fringe.