The recent addition of Sweden and Finland to the NATO alliance is opening up new opportunities for members to better work together in the Arctic, where Russian activity has been increasing. That could mean a new combined air operations center, or CAOC \u201cfairly shortly,\u201d U.S. Air Forces Europe and NATO Allied Air Command Gen. James Hecker said Tuesday at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air Space & Cyber conference.<\/p>\n
Hecker said he has U.S. European Command head Gen. Chris Cavoli\u2019s approval to further explore the idea. \u201cWe\u2019ve thrown out the idea. Gen. Cavoli in principle agrees with it. That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s a done deal,\u201d he told\u00a0Defense One,<\/em>\u00a0noting that the proposal still has to make it through NATO leadership. The location of the potential CAOC is yet to be determined, he said.<\/p>\n During a panel discussion with representatives from the Swedish and Norwegian air forces, Hecker told them: \u201cWe’re going to exploit that close relationship between the Arctic nations and the knowledge that you bring to make that happen. So we’re going to use that, and we’re going to exploit it, and I think we’ll probably get a third CAOC up there fairly shortly.\u201d<\/p>\n Russian incursions into NATO airspace happen frequently in the Arctic, said Maj. Gen. \u00d8ivind Gunnerud, the chief of the Royal Norwegian Air Force. \u201cOn average, per year, we intercept Russians once or twice per week [and] their ships all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n Additionally, he said, there is more to consider for air operations there than at lower latitudes. \u201cYou will experience icing. Now, inland, dry, cold climate, it has its challenges. But what we see in Norway, we have a lot of the coastal climate, above and below the freezing level all the time. So you have slippery runways.\u00a0 And, of course, it’s night [operation] during the winter time. So you better add your night flying skills up there, that’s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n Said Hecker, the U.S. Air Force has been experimenting with MQ-9 Reaper and Global Hawk drones in the Arctic Circle to increase situational awareness, \u201cwhich we haven’t done in the past,\u201d as well as high-altitude balloons and other drones. But, he noted, Arctic conditions offer special challenges to unmanned systems as well, as many are powered via solar panels on the wings.<\/p>\n \u201cThat will work out in the summer, probably not so great in the winter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n If the proposal becomes a reality, the Arctic CAOC would be NATO\u2019s third, joining one in\u00a0Germany<\/a>\u00a0and another in\u00a0Spain.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The recent addition of Sweden and Finland to the NATO alliance is opening up new opportunities for members to better work together in the Arctic, where Russian activity has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[63,26],"class_list":["post-358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nato","tag-arctic","tag-nato"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/BATO-ARCTIC.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=358"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":409,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions\/409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}