U.S. Marines and NATO’s Northern Flank

The U.S. Department of the Navy releasedA Strategic Blueprint for the Arcticon 5 January 2021. The Navy is focused on preparing for an Alaskan and “Blue” Arctic. Recognizing the changing landscape of the Arctic, the US Navy seeks to maintain a competitive edge, freedom of the seas, and deterrent eff...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Arctic Review on Law and Politics
Main Authors: Strauss, Lon, Gordinier, Ryan, Byrne, Michael
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: University of Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway, Faculty of Law 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arcticreview.no/index.php/arctic/article/view/3381
https://doi.org/10.23865/arctic.v13.3381
Description
Summary:The U.S. Department of the Navy releasedA Strategic Blueprint for the Arcticon 5 January 2021. The Navy is focused on preparing for an Alaskan and “Blue” Arctic. Recognizing the changing landscape of the Arctic, the US Navy seeks to maintain a competitive edge, freedom of the seas, and deterrent effect. For the Marine Corps, both the 2021 document and the previousAdvantage at Sea: Prevailing with Integrated All-Domain Naval Power, highlight the Marines’ mission to assist the Navy in sea control and sea denial. These strategic documents reflect the direction both the Navy and Marine Corps are taking to better engage in the Arctic, and, therefore on NATO’s northern flank and elsewhere in the world. The Marine Corps’ new concept for warfighting, represented inThe Tentative Manual for Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations(EABO) presumes that Marines are a “stand-in” force, i.e., they are already in areas within an adversary’s weapon’s engagement zone (WEZ). However, this is not the case on NATO’s northern flank, where Marines conduct training with NATO and under bilateral agreements. In order to better understand how these new concepts and strategic documents influence the USMC’s engagement on NATO’s northern flank, it is important to relate them to the overall strategic context in this region, as well as the possible gaps that exist down to include operational and some tactical levels implications.