NATO and the High Arctic

Debate between Richard Foord and Al Pinkerton

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

As ever, Dr Huq, it is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I thank the hon. and gallant Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) for securing this geostrategically important debate and drawing this issue to the attention of the House.

At a moment when the world’s attention is understandably distracted and drawn to other parts of the world—whether to the brutal war in eastern Europe or the escalating tensions in the middle east—it would be all too easy to park an issue such as this and see it, perhaps, as something for the future rather than as something for immediate attention. I contend, however, that that would be an enormous strategic error; history, after all, has a terrible habit of punishing those who overlook the vital importance of geography.

The opening up of the Arctic is undoubtedly one of the most consequential geopolitical shifts of the 21st century. As we know, climate change is transforming the region at extraordinary speed. Retreating sea ice is opening new maritime routes and increasing access to energy resources and critical minerals, drawing renewed strategic interest from major powers.

At the same time, the co-operative governance structures that once defined the Arctic are under strain. For much of the post-cold war period, the region was described as “High North, low tension”. That description no longer holds. The era of Arctic exceptionalism seems to be over. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has fractured the Arctic Council and accelerated the wider geopolitical tensions that now shape the region. Strategic competition is returning to the High North—not as a distant possibility, but as a clear and present reality.

Although the United Kingdom is not an Arctic coastal state, we are undeniably a near-Arctic nation. We are geographically proximate, strategically exposed and directly affected by developments in the High North. Instability in the Arctic affects our maritime approaches, north Atlantic shipping lanes, subsea cables, offshore energy infrastructure, and ultimately the deterrent posture of the Royal Navy. For the United Kingdom, the Arctic is not a remote frontier; it is part of our immediate strategic environment.

A few weeks ago, I had the enormous privilege of visiting Greenland and Denmark, alongside my Liberal Democrat colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller). I can report that in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, life often appears outwardly calm. The harbour is busy and the cafés are full. The rhythms of daily life continue, despite the long Arctic winter and the limited daylight available in February, when I was there. However, anyone spending any time talking to Greenlanders will hear something quite different: a persistent and gnawing anxiety about what might be coming down the tracks from not Moscow or Beijing—nobody realistically thinks that either Russia or China pose an immediate threat to Greenland—but, extraordinarily, from Washington.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

My hon. Friend knows a great deal about this subject; I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) for securing this debate.

Yesterday, President Trump suggested that our current Prime Minister is no Churchill. Should we not add that the current President of the United States is no Franklin D. Roosevelt? FDR was a big supporter of the development of the United Nations and knew about the importance of sovereignty. Does my hon. Friend share my view—I think he will—that who governs their countries is a matter for the Danes and Greenlanders alone?

[Dr Pinkerton]

I am grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend for his intervention; the President of the United States is perhaps more Teddy Roosevelt than Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He seems to be living every day under the impression that his mission should be to expand US territory and to plant the US flag, no matter how loyal and allied the country in question has been in the past.

I clearly recall the deeply offensive remarks that the President of the United States made about both Britain and Denmark’s past military contributions to US international adventurism. I remember watching a film called “Armadillo” about the extraordinary work that Danish troops did on the frontline in Afghanistan. I agree with my hon. Friend’s comments wholeheartedly.

For Greenlanders, this is not a recent experience; they have been living with the threats of Donald Trump for the best part of 12 months. Over the past year, he has repeatedly suggested that the United States should “acquire” Greenland, presenting the idea as a matter of American national security. Sitting here in Westminster, it may be tempting to dismiss such remarks as rhetorical theatre, but in Nuuk they are experienced profoundly differently. Greenland is a self-governing Arctic society of 56,000 people. When the world’s most powerful country repeatedly discusses one’s homeland as though it were a strategic asset to be acquired, the effect is not abstract.

During my visit, we heard accounts of families stockpiling supplies. Some described moving savings abroad in case of financial disruption to their homeland and their lives. Others spoke of delaying vital, essential medical treatment in Denmark—treatment that many Greenlanders rely on—because they feared that further escalation would mean that they would not be able to return to their homeland afterwards.

Greenlandic commentators have described the psychological effect of the campaign from the United States as a form of “mental terror”. It is a striking phrase, but it captures an important truth: security in the Arctic is not solely about missiles, submarines and military installations; it is also about trust, stability and the ability of societies to live without fear.

There is also a profound strategic irony here. The United States already enjoys extensive rights in Greenland under the 1951 US-Denmark defence agreement, including the operation of the Pituffik space base—formerly, the Thule air base—and any other base that it may wish to re-establish in the present moment. Greenland sits inside NATO’s security architecture through Denmark and benefits from the protections of article 5. The idea that Greenland must somehow be owned to be defended simply does not withstand any scrutiny. What it challenges, however, is something far more fundamental: the principle that people are not property and that sovereignty cannot be negotiated away for strategic convenience.

Across Greenlandic politics, the response has therefore been consistent and unequivocal: Greenland is not for sale. For liberal democracies, that principle should not be negotiable. If western democracies cannot defend the idea that territories cannot be simply acquired by powerful states, then the rules-based order that we claim to uphold begins to look increasingly selective and fragile. Nowhere are those principles more important than in the wider strategic geography of the North Atlantic.

At the heart of that geography lies the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap: the naval corridor between Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom. During the cold war, NATO prioritised that corridor to detect and constrain the submarines of the Soviet northern fleet departing the Kola peninsula into the Atlantic. Today, it has again become central to NATO’s strategy. Russia’s northern fleet must transit through or around the GIUK gap to reach the north Atlantic.

Monitoring the corridor remains essential to tracking submarine activity and protecting the integrity of the north Atlantic. The corridor also safeguards the sealines of communication between North America and Europe. In any NATO contingency, the transatlantic reinforcement route would pass directly through those waters. If the GIUK gap were compromised, the United Kingdom’s western maritime flank would be exposed. Control and surveillance of the space are therefore fundamental to preventing adversaries from projecting power into the north Atlantic or threatening western Europe and North America.

Within the strategic geography, Greenland’s importance cannot be overstated. Its location makes it pivotal for missile early-warning systems, Arctic sea routes, access to the north Atlantic, and space-based infrastructure. Destabilising Greenland or undermining Danish sovereignty would fracture NATO cohesion, complicate security in the GIUK gap and weaken Arctic governance structures at precisely the moment when unity is most needed.

The Liberal Democrats are therefore clear: sovereignty and international law are not negotiable principles. I am deeply concerned that the Prime Minister has yet to state unequivocally that British soil, British bases and British facilities would never be used to propel American troops on to Greenlandic territory by force. The Government must put that matter beyond doubt.

Any suggestion that one NATO ally could coerce another would erode alliance cohesion, weaken deterrence and play directly into the hands of President Putin. Fragmentation in the Arctic theatre would directly benefit Russia’s northern fleet posture and its wider Arctic military strategy. Again, this is not about abstract diplomacy; it is about the credibility of collective defence. The UK must therefore deepen its commitment to Arctic security and north Atlantic resilience. That means strengthening anti-submarine warfare and maritime domain awareness, investing further in north Atlantic patrol and surveillance capabilities, and reinforcing defence co-operation with our Nordic and Baltic partners.

Crucially, the Government should invest further in the Joint Expeditionary Force, and convene a summit of JEF leaders here in the United Kingdom to address the rapidly evolving security environment in the High North. The reality is simple: the Arctic is no longer a peripheral concern; it is at the frontline of strategic competition, alliance solidarity and international law.

I leave the Minister with three questions. First, what concrete steps have the Government taken to ensure that the UK is prepared for the reality that I have just outlined? How is the UK strengthening defence co-operation with our Arctic allies, including considering enhanced diplomatic presence in Greenland and perhaps the establishment of a permanent consulate in Nuuk?

Finally, the strategic defence review mentions the High North as a space of geopolitical and geostrategic interest, but does not offer a defence strategy per se. Do the Government intend to bring one forward? How does the Government’s future procurement reflect that strategic concern?

Korean War: 75th Commemoration

Debate between Richard Foord and Al Pinkerton

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Twigg. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). I am reminded that it was only last month that we heard him pay tribute to the courage of his father in the battle of Britain. It is in the same spirit that we reflect on the Korean war, 75 years ago.

Seventy-five years on from the outbreak of the Korean war, we commemorate a conflict that is sometimes called the forgotten war. It is probably called that because it is in the shadow of world war two, which of course was so far-reaching that it affects everybody’s memory—it is very much in our memory today and will be next month, as we go into the period of remembrance. However, the Korean war is never forgotten by families who lost loves ones or by communities like those I represent, who sent their family members to serve.

Today’s debate marks the anniversary of the service of British forces who fought under the UN flag from 1950 to 1953. We remember it in particular because it was one of the first occasions when the newly constituted United Nations deployed a force under chapter 7 of the UN charter, which states that the UN can respond to

“any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression”.

It was the absence of the Soviet Union at the UN Security Council that made it possible to deploy a force under the UN flag, consistent with the intention of the authors of the UN charter. What a pity it is that we now have a representative of Russia on the UN Security Council vetoing the rational motions that the UK seeks to pass.

For east Devon, the history of this conflict is personal. In Sidmouth, there is a plaque at St Giles and St Nicholas church that remembers Private David Hamson, who fell in Korea aged just 20. His name anchors that distant war in Sidmouth’s own story, given that the plaque stands alongside those of fallen soldiers from the first and second world wars. David Hamson was born in Sidmouth in 1932. He was called up for national service and joined the Devonshire Regiment, which was first deployed in Malaya to combat the communist insurgency that was taking place there in the 1950s.

Soon afterwards, volunteers were sought to reinforce the British operation in Korea, and David stepped forward. He was transferred to the Gloucestershire Regiment. In April 1951, his battalion took up positions in the hills outside Seoul, in the battle that has been reflected on several times this afternoon. He was facing China’s 63rd army, about 27,000 strong, as it sought to capture the South Korean capital. The Glosters, numbering just 652 men, held their ground for four days and nights, buying crucial time for the defence of Seoul. One can only imagine what that experience must have been like.

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is right to pay tribute to the extraordinary bravery of British and international forces in the Korean war, as other right hon. and hon. Members have. Will he join me in also paying tribute to the extraordinary journalists who bravely sought to bring news of Korea to international and, indeed, Korean audiences? They include René Cutforth, for the BBC overseas services, who was one of the last journalists to leave Seoul in 1950, and Marguerite Higgins, an American journalist who won a Pulitzer prize—the first woman ever to do so—for the courage of her journalism in the Korean war. Will he also join me in paying tribute to the continuing work of the BBC World Service, which continues to broadcast in Korean to North Korean audiences today?

[Richard Foord]

We absolutely must pay tribute to journalists who continue to report in some of the most dangerous circumstances. Even this year, hundreds of journalists have lost their lives in conflict.

Private Hamson was among those who did not return from the famous battle of Imjin river. His courage and sacrifice embody the spirit of the Devonshire Regiment and the Glorious Glosters, to which he was transferred. His name is inscribed at the UN memorial cemetery at Busan, in South Korea.

In July 2023, a short service was held at St Giles and St Nicholas church to remember the Korean war. The Royal British Legion president, Ralph Hickman, and the Sidmouth Royal Naval Old Comrades association chair, Peter O’Brien, made speeches about the sacrifices made in a war that today has slipped from collective memory for some, perhaps, but not for us, and not for Sidmouth.

Ray Collins from Woolbrook, near Sidmouth, was present at that service two summers ago. A year after the 1953 armistice, he found himself in Korea with the Dorset Regiment. For nearly a year, his battalion was based along the 38th parallel—the tense frontier established at the truce. He says that there were occasional shoot-outs and a constant round of provocations from the north, but he said that it was the freezing conditions that proved the real enemy. When his national service ended, Ray became a leader of the Sidmouth army cadets, and served as its respected warrant officer for more than 30 years. His dedication and leadership earned him the British empire medal—a lifetime of service rooted in what he learned serving in Korea.

In total, 1,108 British servicemen lost their lives in Korea. Commemoration should sharpen our sense of the world that we face today. The Korean war was the first hot war of the cold war—a brutal struggle that asked whether free nations would stand firm against oppression and aggression, driven by a Soviet system prepared to gamble with lives while seeking to challenge democracy and liberty. Today, the Russian Federation is waging the largest land war in Europe since 1945. Its full-scale invasion of Ukraine has shattered peace on our continent. We cannot ignore the rhyme of history, with an authoritarian power once again testing the resolve of free nations. In remembering the Korean war, we honour those who fell, but we also reaffirm a simple truth: democratic nations must stand together against tyranny.