Recommendation 54

Angus Lapsley, Assistant Secretary General for Defence Policy and Planning at NATO, told us that “there are relatively few obvious ways in which conflict would break out in the Arctic.” 55 The focus of NATO planning is therefore more on the role that High North and the Arctic might play in a broader conflict and, in particular, the strategic importance of the Kola Peninsula to Russia, both as the base for many of its nuclear forces, its submarines and many of its bombers, but also as the base for its conventional but nuclear-powered submarines and its Northern Fleet. 56