The meteorological outpost on Sornfelli mountain in the Faroe Islands, soon to turned back into a radar station
Credit: Roberto Moiola / Sysaworld /Moment RF
The golf ball-like structures are still visible on top of the Sornfelli mountain that looms above Torshavn, the Faroese capital. But since the end of the Cold War, when the Danish unit that ran the radar was disbanded, Russian planes and submarines have been able to pass undetected through this strategic gateway to the high contested Arctic Sea.
That is soon about to change.
Last month, Denmark’s political parties agreed to spend £170m re-establishing the radar station, whose buildings are currently used as the islands’ only prison — and on purchasing new drones to survey Greenland.
That is part of the reason why Jenis av Rana, foreign minister of the Faroes Islands, the smallest of the three nations under the Danish Realm, expects this week to meet Antony Blinken, his second meeting with a US Secretary of State in less than a year.
"Environmental changes in the Arctic are putting The Faroes more in the centre, and that has meant other countries, such as the US, China, and Russia, are giving us more attention," the 68-year-old — who combines his role with working as a neighbourhood doctor and heading a political party — tells The Telegraph.
"It’s a big opportunity and we are using that opportunity. We are a small, small nation, but we want to be part of the world."
The Faroe Islands sit far out in the middle of the Atlantic
Credit: Haitong Yu /Moment RF
The wind-swept archipelago of high basalt cliffs and low snow-covered peaks, sits far out in the middle of the Atlantic, 200 miles north-northwest of Scotland, and bang in the middle of the ‘GIUK gap’ between Greenland and the UK that the Pentagon has declared "a strategic corridor for naval operations between the Arctic and the North Atlantic".
President Donald Trump reacted to the region’s growing significance by trying to buy Greenland, while Mr Blinken’s predecessor Mike Pompeo stunned an Arctic Council meeting in 2019 with a bombastic speech announcing "a new age of strategic engagement in the Arctic, complete with new threats to Arctic interests and its real estate".
He pointed to the oil, gas, rare earth minerals, and gold made accessible by the melting ice, and attacked China for its Arctic ambitions, and Russia for its "aggressive" behavior in the region.
Behind the scenes, though, Mr Pompeo was engaged in quieter diplomacy, meeting Dr av Rana in July last year together with Jeppe Kofod, the foreign minister of Denmark, which handles most foreign and security policy for the Faroes. In November, the US signed a partnership agreement with the islands.
"The fact that the US Secretary of State spends time negotiating something like this tells you something about what’s going on," argues Mikkel Runge Olesen, an expert on Arctic security at the Danish Institute for International Relations. "The Faroese are back on the map. Faroese real estate value in geopolitical terms is going up."
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.
Soldiers inspect weapons designed for use in extremely cold environments ahead of Arctic exercises with the Russian National Guard
Credit: Yelena Afonina /TASS
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.
A map by the Royal Danish Defence College showing the radar gap around the Faroe Islands
Credit: Royal Danish Defence College
The US, he says, is also "considering whether they can use the Faroe Islands as a naval hub in some way".
The US is not alone in trying to influence this tiny nation of 18 islands.
In 2019, the Faroese opened a representative office in Beijing, which has become a major buyer of their fish, describes itself as a "Near-Arctic State", and aims to establish a "Polar Silk Road" using the new shipping lanes.
The same year, the Chinese began to put pressure on the islands to use Huawei to build a 5G network, a decision the Faroese have since delayed making.
In 2018, the Faroese signed a memorandum of understanding with the Moscow-controlled Eurasian Economic Union. With the Faroese economy entirely dependent on fishing and salmon farming, and Russia its biggest single market, the country is reluctant to get dragged into great power rivalry.
Tórshavn, the capital and largest city of the Faroe Islands
Credit: Julian Simmonds
"We are not seeing it as primarily military," Dr av Rana says of the radar station. "For us, it’s a natural method to protect the Faroe Islands, and we need it: there have been examples of foreign planes in Faroese areas without the radars in countries around us locating them."
He is even more resistant to moves to further militarise the islands.
"We don’t want to have military activities in the Faroe Islands. The people in the Faroe Islands won’t allow it," he asserts. "We have talked about making a maritime hub, but we are planning this for civilian ships. We have no intention of inviting military ships."
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