We believed that drones would dominate any war. The Arctic is proving just the opposite

For decades, drones occupied a secondary place in armed conflicts. They existed, they were used in very specific operations and almost always under centralized control, but they did not define the rhythm of a war. That changed with Ukraine. There, unmanned systems became an everyday, cheap and ubiquitous tool.integrated into the way of fighting. That experience has reinforced the idea that modern warfare will inevitably be a drone war. The problem is that this conclusion only works in certain scenarios. And the Arctic is beginning to demonstrate, quite forcefully, that not all battlefields accept the same technological rules.

The growing interest in the Arctic does not respond to a technological fad, but to a profound change in the geopolitical situation. The melting ice is opening sea routesfacilitating access to resources and altering natural barriers that for decades made it difficult to operate in that region. In that context, NATO military forces have intensified exercises and deployments in the High North, aware that Russia has a clear advantage in the region.

Cold that changes everything. The extreme temperatures of the Arctic impose different rules than other military scenarios. Components designed to function normally fail when the cold changes their physical properties. Rubber loses elasticity, aluminum and other metals become more brittle, and lubricants thicken to compromise the movement of key parts. It only takes one system freeze to knock out an entire platform or immobilize a convoy. It is not a specific problem, but a chain of effects that begins with the thermometer and ends with operation.

The sky also gets in the way. Added to the problems on land is another less visible, but equally decisive, factor. At extreme latitudes, magnetic storms and auroras interfere with radio signals and satellite navigation systems. It is not just about losing precision, but about seeing the positioning and synchronization data that support communications, sensors and modern weapons altered. In an environment where visual orientation is already complicated by snow and lack of landmarks, any additional distortion makes navigation an unstable task and, in some cases, directly impracticable.

When they are also bothering your signal. Added to this natural degradation is an additional problem: jamming and other interferences that are not always directed at the target that ends up suffering them. In the Arctic, the planet’s own geometry works against it, since from high latitudes there are fewer satellites available as part of them are hidden by the curvature of the Earth. That makes any interference have a greater impact. In northern Norway, regulator Nkom registered six GPS failures in 2019 and 122 in 2022, and since the end of 2024 it has stopped counting them due to their frequency.

These limitations are not theoretical. On a polar exercise in CanadaUS Army Arctic off-road vehicles broke down after 30 minutes because the hydraulic fluids had solidified in the cold. Under these same conditions, Swedish soldiers received night vision devices valued at $20,000 that failed because they could not withstand temperatures of -40°C. The lesson for planners is an uncomfortable one. Operating in the High North requires assuming sudden failures and that logistics, more than technology on paper, ends up setting the real pace of any deployment.

Rethink technology and procedures. Faced with this scenario, the response is not only to manufacture more resistant equipment, but to distinguish between technological limits and operational limits, a common separation in analyzes of the use of UAS in Arctic environments. Some problems can be mitigated with redesigns, from materials and power sources to more robust navigation alternatives. Others require changes in the way we operate: planning missions assuming signal losses, reducing external dependencies and training to work with incomplete information.

All of this explains why the Arctic does not support simple translations from other recent war theaters. In Ukraine, small and cheap drones, supported by constant digital linkshave shown their usefulness in an environment with infrastructure, human density and many more references. In the High North, that ecosystem does not exist. According to the approach included in the tests described, the drones there would have to incorporate de-icing systems, a more robust propulsion for the wind and operate with another type of fuel. Far from being a perfect laboratory for digital warfare, the Arctic is forcing us to rediscover physical limits that are not negotiated.

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