Atlantic Bastion and the Lunna House Agreement underscore the rising importance of the High North within the UK’s strategic planning. Atlantic Bastion commits the UK to strengthening monitoring and defence in an increasingly contested North Atlantic. The Lunna House Agreement builds on that by deepening UK–Norway cooperation in air, maritime, and undersea deterrence across the High North and North Atlantic.
Together, they signal intent to sustain a persistent defence posture in these extreme environments. While major platform contracts (for example, the Type 26 frigate programme) will go mainly to prime contractors, industry has much to offer, especially in autonomy, sensing, networked systems, integration, and sustainment capabilities essential to making that posture credible in harsh, remote conditions.
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The High North market
The High North and Arctic fundamentally differ from other theatres. Extreme cold, ice, storms, and darkness shorten equipment lifecycles, limit human endurance, and strain sustainment. Compounding this, distance, not proximity, is a defining constraint. As demonstrated by operating areas such as the Barents Sea, forces must travel thousands of miles from forward bases in the UK, Norway, or allied Arctic states to points of interest, often across open and inhospitable oceans. In deteriorating security conditions—driven by climate change, Russian expansion, and intensifying great-power competition—the ability to sense, move, communicate, and sustain in austere Arctic conditions provides an advantage.
For industry, probable procurement priorities could focus on specialised C4ISR, autonomous and uncrewed systems with extended reach capabilities, optimised cold-weather logistics, and integration architectures that support long-range operations.
Lunna House and interoperability
Signed on 4 December 2025, the Lunna House Agreement between the UK and Norway emphasises “side-by-side” naval and undersea cooperation. It reflects not only a political partnership but, as outlined by the UK Ministry of Defence, the agreement focuses on operational integration through shared technology, maintenance, and training. Already, the Type 26 frigate programme illustrates this. Tore Sandvik, the Norwegian Defence Minister, has emphasised that British and Norwegian vessels are being designed “as identical as possible”.
When considering the opportunities arising from the agreement, notable firms with maritime or Arctic experience, such as Kongsberg, are ideally placed to secure contracts for technology that is compatible across both fleets. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) could also feature through systems integration, sensor suite development, Arctic sustainment provision, and/ or secure data and Command and Control (C2) platforms. Successful inclusion within procurement, however, will likely be conditional on the ability to deliver on common or harmonised standards under the UK-Norway framework.
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By GlobalDataAtlantic Bastion and enabling architecture
Atlantic Bastion marks a fundamental shift from treating the North Atlantic as a transit corridor, towards a defended space that will experience constant monitoring and persistent deterrence. Central to this is Project CABOT. According to Naval News, CABOT comprises two main phases: Atlantic Net and Bastion Atlantic.
As outlined in a Ministry of Defence pipeline notice published on gov.uk, Atlantic Net will implement a “Contractor Owned, Contractor Operated, Naval Oversight (COCONO) model”, demonstrating the integral importance of industry within the Atlantic Bastion concept. The same notice details that Atlantic Net will utilise uncrewed or remote systems, complemented by artificial intelligence / machine learning (AI/ML) algorithms to sift through acoustic data, which will then be sent for assessment by Royal Navy staff. Naval News notes that the Bastion Atlantic phase will then utilise Royal Navy-owned and operated forces, with crewed platforms, such as Type 26s, P-8 Poseidons, and Astute-class submarines, operating alongside large uncrewed underwater and surface vessels.
For industry, Atlantic Bastion not only invites industry to cooperate on missions through the COCONO model, but it also signals a procurement demand shift towards sensor technology, resilient and deployable autonomous platforms, along with greater integration and processing of data, all underpinned by architectures that can endure extreme cold in remote and contested environments. As specialised performance will seemingly matter just as much as platform size within the UK’s new systems-focused approaches to High North deterrence, there are growing opportunities for niche firms and SMEs to contribute where traditional primes may lack agility.
Summary
As the UK’s strategic posture in the High North and North Atlantic hardens, successful players will be those who recognise the region’s unique challenges and can optimise their products accordingly. Firms who can anticipate evolving standards from UK–Norway cooperation, and subsequently deliver solutions across sensing, autonomy, integration, and sustainment that are resilient to the operational challenges of the High North, are likely to increase the attractiveness of their proposals. While primes will capture headline platform contracts, meaningful value also lies in enabling technologies that support the performance, resilience, and interoperability of those platforms.
