The United States and the Russian Federation have long fought for supremacy in the Arctic Circle, with much of the news cycle favoring Moscow as the leader of the region so far.
I have
written extensively about Russias efforts to gain an advantage in the region for geographic and economic purposes. The Russians are militarizing the region and creating sub-zero super highways with its 40-plus ice breakers.
In comparison, the U.S. only has one and there is no telling when new ones will actually be laid down for construction. As far as on-the-ground tactical warfare, the Russian military is even training with reindeer and dogsleds, as
Foxtrot Alpha reported last year.
But the United States is not giving the Arctic up to the Russians without a fight. Under ICEX 2016 exercises, the U.S. went through five weeks of training to assess how well it could perform in the freezing conditions.
Two submarines, the
USS Hartford and
USS Hampton, conducted trips under the ice and broke through patches of it during exercises.
Congress has not shown much attention to the Arctic Circle over the years, but video of paratroopers practicing how to descend on to this chilly patch of earth shows that the Army isnt waiting on Washington to care.