U.S. Troops Train for War In the Arctic --- A Journal reporter spent 10 days with a Green Berets during a grueling exercise

“KALIX, Sweden -- A dozen highly trained U.S. Army Green Berets lumbered through a northern Swedish pine forest, struggling not to fall on their brand new skis as they dragged sleds over hills and frozen creeks.

 

Veterans of the global war on terror, the special forces were retraining for Arctic warfare. And the extreme cold was proving as hostile as any human enemy.

 

Near the Arctic Circle, temperatures constantly hovered around minus-30 degrees Fahrenheit. Days into the training, one team member -- who had spent years in the jungles and deserts of the Middle East and Asia -- was dismissed from the course with a boil on his finger the size of a cherry after spending the night outside in the cold. A European soldier from another team was hospitalized and risked losing parts of two toes. Instructors suspected he had failed to change out of his sweaty socks.

 

A Wall Street Journal reporter embedded and trained for 10 days with the 12-man team of U.S. Green Berets. Known as an A-Team, they were among nearly 100 soldiers sent by North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies to participate in this three-week grueling winter-warfare training.

 

Most of them had at least a decade of experience, including combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Journal agreed not to disclose the soldiers' identities because of the sensitive nature of their work.

 

The strategic importance of the High North is growing, but as the A-Team discovered, the climate is so hostile that even battle-hardened soldiers struggle to survive -- let alone fight.

 

"Just like we agreed not to fight with chemical weapons, let's just agree to not fight up here," the team sergeant said. During a pause, the soldiers flexed their wrists and pumped their stretched arms to keep their fingers warm. "Maybe all the countries come together and we just decide that above this line, we're not fighting here. We're not doing that," the team medic added.

 

The U.S. is playing catch-up in the Arctic. As global warming opens shipping lanes and trade routes, China and Russia are pushing to master the polar regions. Russia has been expanding its military footprint in the Arctic for decades, as Western militaries were either disarming after the Cold War or focused on fighting terrorists.

 

"We have been the experts on counterinsurgency, on conventional and unconventional warfare, for the past 25 years. That is not the case in the Arctic," said Ryan P. Burke, professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy and author of a book on great-power competition in the polar regions.

 

"We simply don't have the institutional knowledge that our Nordic and Scandinavian partners do, and that's a hard reality to confront," he said. "People don't understand how absolutely absurd it is to operate up there."

 

NATO military planners worry that Europe's tensions with President Trump over Greenland, Ukraine and trade have increased the risk of a Russian incursion, or outright invasion, of a member state.

 

The High North likely would play a central role in a potential conflict between NATO and Russia.

 

Most of Russia's fleet of nuclear submarines and icebreakers is located on the Arctic Kola Peninsula. The shortest route for Russian surface-launched ballistic missiles to North America is over the Arctic. For Northern Europe, the concern is a land invasion, as Russia shares nearly 1,000 miles of border with Finland and Norway. In the event of an invasion, NATO allies, including the U.S., would move north to help defend the icy expanses.

 

"The Arctic is becoming increasingly important for our collective security, and with seven of the eight Arctic states being NATO allies, our shared interest in stability and cooperation in the region is clear," said Lt. Gen. Richard E. Angle, commander of the Allied Special Operations Forces Command, which coordinates special-forces operations across Europe.

 

Swedish instructors here say the hardest thing to teach students is to admit when they are hungry, cold or in pain. Enduring hardship can make it worse, and put an entire mission at risk because the cold is so unforgiving.

 

"That's a learning curve for a lot of guys on the team. It takes a certain type of person to get to [the team], and a lot of that is grit and determination and pushing through lots of pain," said one of the Special Forces' communications specialists.

 

"'Suck it up and move on' is how we do," the team sergeant said. "But 'suck it up' doesn't cut it here."

 

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A Sinking Feeling in the Deep Snow

 

Operating in the frigid High North environment is extremely laborious. Step off your skis in the woods and you sink to your knees in snow. Drop an item, such as a knife, into the powder and it is lost.

 

On a recent exercise, a student touched his freezing-cold gun's magazine with his bare hands for a few minutes. Two days later, all his fingers were covered in blisters so bad he needed medical attention.

 

Every hour or so during cross-country ski exercises, when the team took five-minute breaks, they layered-up with puffer jackets to trap the body heat generated from skiing. Once they started moving, they removed layers again. In minus -30 degrees Fahrenheit, sweating is dangerous.

 

"In the jungle, everything is trying to kill you, but you can also eat most things," the team sergeant said, as the special forces sat down amid pine trees to boil snow to cook lunch.

 

In the Arctic wilderness, there is nothing to eat.” [1]

 

1. World News: U.S. Troops Train for War In the Arctic --- A Journal reporter spent 10 days with a Green Berets during a grueling exercise. Sune Engel Rasmussen.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 26 Feb 2026: A8.