Hampton Roads-based sailors participate in largest NATO exercise in decades in contested Arctic region

About 470 Hampton Roads-based Navy sailors are participating in the largest NATO exercise in decades as allied members flex collaborative capability in the contested Arctic region.

“We are all committed to peace, but we are ready to defend our allies and partners to make sure there is free and open access to maritime commerce and shipping,” Rear Adm. Benjamin Nicholson, commander of Virginia Beach-based Expeditionary Strike Group Two, said in a video call Tuesday.

The goal, Nicholson said, is to prevent conflict, solidify relationships and enhance force readiness through robust training. The exercise, running through May, includes NATO newcomers Finland and Sweden. The two Nordic states crowd NATO against Russia’s western border, bolstering deterrence efforts.

U.S. Second Fleet and Expeditionary Strike Group Two sent 150 sailors from Hampton Roads to Norway to manage the maritime operations center for Task Force North during the exercise. Nicholson is deputy commander of that task force.

Additionally, 320 sailors aboard the USS Gunston Hall departed from Norfolk and sailed 4,000 miles to arrive Feb. 21 in Norway. The amphibious transport dock ship, homeported at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, is playing a key role in the exercise.

Steadfast Defender 24 is the largest North Atlantic Treaty Organization military exercise in 36 years and involves roughly 90,000 service members across 31 allied nations. The training is stretched across the strategically important Arctic region, which NATO described in a December news release as a “pivotal area for global interests encompassing geopolitics, climate conservation, resource accessibility, and security concerns.”

Finland and Sweden abandoned longtime policies of military nonalignment and Nordic neutrality in 2022 when they simultaneously applied to join NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine. Finland was welcomed into NATO in April 2023, The Associated Press reported. Following a 20-month delay, Sweden’s application to join NATO was recently greenlit by Turkey and Hungary, the last approvals needed to move forward with ratifying the Nordic country as a NATO member.

“When the announcement comes in it’s official that Sweden is a member of NATO, the only difference is going to be those Swedish service members are going to put a NATO patch on their uniform,” Nicholson said. “I say that because we have been interoperable with the Swedes for quite some time, and the same with Finland.”

Sailors aboard the Gunston Hall are serving alongside Swedish and Finnish forces as well as French and Norwegian forces. Around 100 members of the allied forces embarked on the Gunston Hall. The forces are training together as the ship moves across Europe to above the Arctic Circle.

“It has given a chance for our U.S. sailors to connect on a very personal level with their NATO allied partners,” Nicholson said.

The multinational crew aboard the Gunston Hall, he said, is a testament to the interchangeability of NATO forces.

“There is no other organization that is going to use their ships to take forces from multiple other nations to do an amphibious assault,” Nicholson said.

The Gunston Hall, embarked with hovercraft, is designed to transport U.S. Marines, as well as their equipment and vehicles, to foreign shores. The ship is among roughly 50 NATO naval assets, 80 air platforms and 1,100 combat vehicles participating in Steadfast Defender.

Working to ensure each vessel has the fuel and parts necessary to maintain its readiness are logistics specialists such as Vanessa Barry.

Barry, a Hampton resident, works with a team of logistics specialists at the maritime operations command in Norway. They are tasked with organizing replenishments at sea for NATO ships in the region.

“Where we are now with Steadfast Defender is this is just a lot more broad. There is a lot more involvement and the capabilities that everybody brings to the table is so much bigger,” Barry said.

In the past month, Barry said her team has organized around 40 replenishments at sea for U.S. ships and partner nations.

Also supporting the exercise is Eric Koss, chief information systems technician. The Chesapeake resident works with his team to ensure the watch floor maintains communications with allied partners across the Arctic region, including ships at sea. Maintaining that communication, he said, is vital.

“It is so many different nations coming together, working together to integrate,” Koss said. “Without being able to talk to each other, either via text traffic or voice traffic, would just make that so much more difficult as far as navigation, safety, interoperability — all of those pieces.”

While the 150 sailors assigned to the maritime operations center are currently based in Norway, the Gunston Hall sailors have made port calls to Portsmouth, England, and Harstad, Norway. The 470 U.S. sailors, Nicholson said, are due to return to Hampton Roads in the coming weeks.

“It is very telling that at the same time we are here in the high north with snow and cold, we have ships in the Red Sea where it is hot, and they are defending maritime commerce there as well. The U.S. Navy, and in this case sailors based out of the Tidewater area, are covering a large swath of the globe with our forces to maintain that freedom around the world,” Nicholson said, referencing ongoing attacks on Hampton Roads-based warships and merchant vessels traveling through the Suez Canal.

Nicholson said he hopes the exercise sends a message of strength to the world.

“If anyone is thinking to take on NATO forces, today’s not the day to do that,” Nicholson said. “We are strong, we are united and we are ready.”

Caitlyn Burchett, caitlyn.burchett@virginiamedia.com