Norway. (February 1, 2025): The key to winning a war against Russia may lie in a series of caves that “preposition” vital military hardware on its border. In this photo by Corporal Nicholas Martinez, a Marine ground electronics transmission system maintainer with 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, inspects a radio set inside an up-armored Humvee at Marine Corps Prepositioning Program Norway (MCPP-N).
The MCPP-N is a Cold War era plan to preposition Marine Corps equipment in Europe to defend NATO against a Russian attack. The program uses eight built-for-the-purpose caves to store enough equipment to reinforce a Marine regimental combat team. To accomplish this, the MCPP-N created a network of climate-controlled caverns to store enough material to support roughly 15,000 Marines for 30 days.
The caves are designed to store and repair a variety of vehicles including armored amphibious vehicles, M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks, and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Additionally, earth-moving equipment, generators, bulk fuel, and water production systems are stockpiled. To fight in the arctic weather, the Marines are storing tents, skis, snowshoes, and ice chains for tactical vehicles. There is also room for equipment to facilitate aircraft operations including tow tractors, cranes, de-icing equipment, and arresting gear.
As host, Norway pays for physical infrastructure, transportation, security, and they do all the maintenance work at the sites. Some seventy Norwegian civilians, under military leadership, work on the vehicles while some U.S. personnel handle certain items due to security restrictions.
The MCPP-N is under the oversight of the Blount Island Command located in Jacksonville, Florida. The Command has a workforce of over 250 military and civilian employees reinforced by over a thousand defense contractors. Collectively, they are responsible for the planning, coordination, and logistics for the Marines worldwide.
The Marines will draw upon these prepositioned assets in this year’s Exercise Joint Viking 25 to be held in March. Joint Viking is one of the region’s largest winter warfare exercises hosted by Norway with participation from NATO allies. Expected to take part this year is the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, and Finland. During the event, Marines will engage in joint land and sea operations to evaluate their ability to operate in the harsh Nordic environment as a full-blown regimental-sized, trans-Atlantic deployment.