FRIDAY FOTO (October 18, 2019)

Arctic Puma.

(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sergeant Justin Toledo)

A Marine launches an RQ-20 Puma unmanned aerial system (UAS), a tactical drone, in Setermoen, Norway, on October 10, 2019. Manufactured by California-based  AeroVironment, the Puma is a battery-powered, hand launched, small reconnaissance and surveillance drone. It weighs a little over 13 pounds and can stay aloft for two-and-a- half hours.

The Marine is part of a rotating contingent of Leathernecks based in Norway.

With a long history of service in the Asia-Pacific region from the mid-20th Century until now, the Marine Corps is looking to the future and gearing up for operations in Arctic conditions. Since 2017, a small force of 330 U.S. Marines, based near the town of Vaernes on Norway’s midwest coast, have been rotating in and out of the country every six months. Now with the agreement of the Norwegian government, that rotational deployment has more than doubled in size. “In times of crisis and war Norway will rely on U.S. and other allied military reinforcements. This is at the core of Norwegian security policy and is further emphasized by our NATO-membership,” Norwegian Minister of Defence Frank Bakke-Jensen said in June.

Melting Arctic sea ice, caused by climate change, has touched off a race to establish commercial sea lanes across the top of the world as well as accessing untapped fishing stocks and vast underwater petroleum and mineral stores.  Territorial disputes have also touched off a mini arms race in the polar region, with Russia, Norway, Canada and the United States all boosting their military presence at a rate not seen since the Cold War.

About 700 Marines took over the Corps’ mission in Norway on September 27, marking the latest troop rotation into a country where American forces have been focused on cold weather warfare tactics, according to the Stars and Stripes newspaper’s website.

Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment are now operating out of Setermoen — which is much farther North, above the Arctic Circle — as well as Vaernes,   where they will be training with NATO allies and other partners in the Nordic region. The unit replaced the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, which had been deployed to Norway for the previous  six months.

The 6th Marines are the sixth rotation to Norway. Known as the Marine Rotational Force-Europe, the unit’s headquarters is at Norway’s mountainous Setermoen Army base in the Troms region, which is closer to Russia’s Arctic territory on the Barents Sea.

That move hasn’t set well with Moscow, which has been beefing up its own Cold War-era bases and building new ones in the region — including a large base at Alexandra Island in the Franz Josef Land archipelago (see map below) about 160 miles east of Norway’s Svalbard island group.

In June the Russian Embassy in Norway warned of consequences.  Russia argues Oslo’s decision is in violation of agreements Norway made when it joined NATO in 1949. Norway agreed not to base permanent foreign forces in the country unless threatened or attacked, according to Defense News. But rising Russian belligerence from the Baltics to the Black Sea — especially its 2014 annexation of Crimea and incursion into eastern Ukraine — has unsettled all the militaries in Scandanavia.