Nicholas Romanow
The U.S.S. GEORGE H.W. BUSH steamed due north at more than 30 knots, racing toward the last known location of a maritime distress signal associated with a sensitive research mission in the High North. As the American nuclear aircraft carrier continued north, the temperature dropped rapidly, which endangered the flight deck equipment that facilitated the launch and recovery of embarked fighter jets. Russian submarines were known to be in the area, making time a critical factor in reaching the research vessel. Due to changes in the water temperature and salinity due to climate change, tracking potentially hostile submarines was becoming more and more difficult.
Thankfully, a Canadian icebreaker conducting a routine patrol was simultaneously steaming to the same location, as was a British submarine and a Norwegian maritime patrol aircraft. Back on the continent, a newly established NATO Open-Source Fusion Center was combing through commercial overhead intelligence to attempt to geolocate the beacon. Together, on a state-of-the-art, low earth orbit-based tactical datalink, the platforms of these various allied countries were able to successfully locate and render aid to the vessel in distress.
The success of this High North operation was the result of a concerted shift in allied strategy from focusing on burden-sharing and meeting benchmarks in defense spending to devising mutually-supporting areas of specialization. Leaders in the Transatlantic community continued to grapple with limited resources as they struggled to meet rising defense spending thresholds and realized that much of this spending was needlessly duplicating capabilities that other allies already had. Instead, a new strategy focused on maximizing sources of competitive strategic advantage, making use of each country’s unique capabilities, thereby playing to the strengths of every NATO member’s military.
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