The $30 million toe in the water

Norway is strengthening its military presence in the far north, creating its first new army brigade since the Cold War and expanding both artillery and air defence systems in Finnmark, the northernmost county in the country.

The region's geography also gives NATO an advantage, with the seabed dropping sharply from the relatively shallow Barents Sea into deeper Atlantic waters, creating favourable conditions for monitoring submarine traffic.

Norwegian Defence Minister Tore Sandvik noted that this is the easiest place we can control and monitor and keep track of the submarines because of shallow waters.

There, we can see them and we can also do the early warnings and follow them.

Why 4,000 unsold units became the prize

The Bear Gap, a roughly 400-mile-wide gateway, serves as Russia's access route from the Arctic into the North Atlantic.

It lies on the western flank of the Kola Peninsula, where much of Russia's nuclear arsenal is based and where the Kremlin's Northern Fleet is concentrated.

Norwegian officials have cited the Zircon hypersonic cruise missile, which can reportedly travel more than 600 miles and carry nuclear warheads, and Poseidon, a nuclear-powered underwater drone designed to deliver atomic payloads.

The Poseidon is said to be 20 metres long and nearly two metres wide,weighing 100 tons and capable of travelling up to 6,200 miles with a speed of 115 mph deep underwater.

An echo of Sydney's 2024 institutional buy-up

NATO already controls two other major maritime chokepoints that affect Russian naval movements: the Bosphorus Strait, which provides access from the Black Sea , and the Danish straits connecting the Baltic Sea to the wider Atlantic.

That leaves the Arctic corridor as one of Moscow's most viable routes for projecting naval power beyond its immediate coaastline.

Russia views this maritime area as integral to its so-called Bastion Defence strategy, said Kristian Atland, a senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment.

Although the corridor lies within an area dominated by NATO members Norway, Canada and other allied states, Russia maintains significant military capabilities close by.

Who is the unnamed buyer?

The Kremlin's propaganda machine has repeatedly claimed that the Poseidon could sink Britain under radioactive tidal waves.

Sandvik argued that the Bear Gap now occupies a role similar to that played by the Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap during the Cold War.

NATO's ability to monitor and counter threats in this region becomes paramount for the alliance as Russia continues to modernize its nuclear forces and develop new delivery systems .