NATO member to open new Arctic warfare base

Norway’s new hub in Sorreisa will help prepare the US-led military bloc’s troops for amphibious assaults, officials say

Norway plans to establish a new NATO Arctic and amphibious warfare center where US, British, and Dutch marines will be trained amid heightened tensions with Russia, the Defense Ministry in Oslo announced on Friday.

The new hub will be created in the municipality of Sorreisa north of Lofoten in Norway's Arctic, some several hundred kilometers, as the crow flies, from Russia's strategic port of Murmansk, which is a key military and naval base. 

The NATO member's facility will house several hundred soldiers and is expected to become fully operational in 2026.

“We must train together to be able to defend Norway, the Nordic countries and NATO in crisis and war,” Defense Minister Bjorn Arild Gram said, adding that his country is now “in a more serious security policy situation.”

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“We want an increased allied presence in Norway. More training and practice is good for Norwegian security. We need allies to be familiar with the Norwegian climate and weather conditions. We also need to practice together in case the need arises. So this is a desirable development,” he stated.

The new center will have close links with several nearby military facilities, which the minister claimed will be extremely useful for NATO.

The announcement comes after the Norwegian government presented a plan this spring for a historic increase in defense spending, with the aim of spending $54 billion on the military from 2024 to 2036.

As part of the package, Oslo also wants to acquire its first long-range air defense system and expand the army from one to three brigades, while boosting the size of the Home Guard to 45,000 troops.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov signaled this September that Moscow will check NATO’s expansionist ambitions in the region. “We see how NATO is stepping up exercises related to possible crises in the Arctic. Our country is fully prepared to defend its interests in military, political and military-technical terms,” he said at the time.