The U.S. Navy’s Barents Sea patrol is the latest sojourn into an increasingly militarized Arctic, where questions of international law are proliferating.

For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Navy is making regular trips to the Arctic Circle, with the four-ship patrol sailing in the Barents Sea. Three of the four ships, which sailed alongside the British Royal Navy frigate Kent, were destroyers based in Rota, Spain, as part of an operation spearheaded by the U.S. Navy’s 6th Fleet.

The trip into Russia’s backyard was the latest in what the U.S. Navy has made clear will become a habit in the frigid waters of the Arctic. And that it was carried out by Europe-based destroyers could herald even more operations in the High North as the service plans to grow to six destroyers forward-deployed there from today’s four.

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