UK 'poking the bear'

UK Sending 800 Troops To The Arctic To Target Russia

Zero Hedge,

7 October, 2018

As AntiWar.com's Jason Ditz reports, UK troops will join Norway, US troops every winter...

 

The British Defense Secretary announced that 800 commandos are being deployed into Norway starting next year, and continuing every winter for at least a decade. The troops will join US and Dutch troops there, and are targeting Russia.

Speaking before travelling to Birmingham to make the speech, Mr Williamson said:

“We see Russian submarine activity very close to the level that it was at the Cold War, and it’s right that we start responding to that.

“If we could turn back the clock 10 years many people thought that the era of submarine activity in the High North, in the North Atlantic, and the threat that it posed did disappear with the fall of the Berlin Wall. This threat has really come back to the fore.”

The program is built around claims of Russian aggression, and the idea that global warming will lead Russia to stake out new claims in the far north, near where old Soviet-era bases exist, for natural resources.

Britain has no natural claims this far north, but that isn’t stopping them from throwing troops at the region with an eye on clashing with Russia, and officials say it is vital to “demonstrate we’re there” in the Arctic Circle.

There has long been speculation of a rush to claim resources in the north, but NATO nations have been sending more and more troops to every Russian frontier area for years now, always nominally to counter “aggression” that exists purely as a talking point to justify more military spending.