Drones Die and GPS Goes Haywire in the Arctic

 

“Sending drones and robots into battle, rather than humans, has become a tenet of modern warfare. Nowhere does that make more sense than in the frozen expanses of the Arctic.

 

But the closer you get to the North Pole, the less useful cutting-edge technology becomes. Magnetic storms distort satellite signals; frigid temperatures drain batteries or freeze equipment in minutes; navigation systems lack reference points on snowfields.

 

During a seven-nation polar exercise in Canada this year to test equipment worth millions of dollars, the U.S. military's all-terrain arctic vehicles broke down after 30 minutes because hydraulic fluids congealed in the cold. Swedish soldiers participating in the exercise were given $20,000 night-vision optics that broke because the aluminum in the goggles couldn't handle the minus-40-degree Fahrenheit conditions.

 

"The Arctic is the ultimate adversary," said Eric Slesinger, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who runs a venture-capital firm bankrolling defense startups, including some trying to master Arctic fighting.

 

Great-power competition is growing in the High North as climate change opens sea lanes and access to natural resources. Russia is militarily dominant there. Of the eight countries with Arctic territory, only Russia isn't in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Among NATO members, the U.S. and Canada's main worry is Russian missiles.

 

An Arctic conflict would force war planners back to basics. Extreme cold makes the most common components brittle. Low temperatures alter the physical properties of rubber, causing seals to lose their elasticity and leak. Traces of water or humidity freeze into ice crystals that can scratch pumps and create blockages. Wires should be insulated with silicone rather than PVC, which can crack.

 

Oil and other lubricants thicken and congeal. In most standard hydraulic systems, fluid becomes syrupy and can affect everything from aircraft controls to missile launchers and radar masts. A single freeze-up can knock out an entire weapons platform or immobilize a convoy.

 

One of the Arctic's great tourist attractions is, for military planners, one of its great irritants: the northern lights.

 

Aurora borealis are caused by charged sun particles interacting with the Earth's magnetic field, which is most intense at the poles. They interfere with radio communications and satellite-navigation systems that provide positioning and timing data.

 

Arctic weather itself means that a war there would look different from anywhere else. Ukrainian drone manufacturers have been churning out from piles of Chinese parts hundreds of thousands of inexpensive, agile quadcopters that rely on digital communications to find targets. They would fail in the Arctic, where drones must be equipped with deicing systems, robust propulsion to deal with strong winds, and run on jet fuel or diesel instead of batteries. They are usually so large they need a trailer or runway to launch.

 

In 2019, Norway's communications authority registered six GPS failures in the country's north bordering Russia. In 2022, the year of events in Ukraine, it recorded 122. Since late 2024, jamming has become so frequent that the regulator has stopped counting.” [1]

 

The last thing we need in brittle North ecology is war fighting there. Just stay home, enjoy nice weather. Don’t go, where other people live for ages. Their hydraulics don't freeze because it is wrapped in newspapers.

 

1. World News: Drones Die and GPS Goes Haywire in the Arctic. Sune Engel Rasmussen.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 31 Dec 2025: A7.