Originally Posted by
Not_a_boffin
Is that one day a week? Or one week per month?
Well spotted. I was not referring to the Thursday War.
This article from the Daily Telegraph is interesting, but it seems to think the the main reason for the significance of the Faroe Islands is due to the Arctic:
Mr Olesen puts this down to increased general tension between Russia and Nato more generally, and more specifically, to increased Russian activity in the Arctic since 2014, when it created a new Arctic Strategic Command based around the Northern Fleet.In the past five years, Russian activity in the Northern Atlantic has returned to Cold War levels, with the country's long-range nuclear submarines and jets constantly testing Nato surveillance capabilities.
The British Royal Navy is reportedly planning to establish a regular presence in the Arctic Circle amid growing concerns that climate change melting ice caps could allow Russia and China to exploit strategic new shipping lanes there.
Once up and running, the reestablished Faroes radar station will help to close the gap in radar coverage left after the UK reactivated a radar station on Unst in the Shetland Islands in 2018.
"If you take a look at the radar coverage of the Nato countries in the northern Atlantic area and in the Arctic, and pop them onto a map, you can see these big holes over Greenland and over the Faroe Islands," Mr Olesen explains.