Ever ready for the moment (Semper Paratus<\/em>, Latin for \u201calways prepared,\u201d after all is its motto!) the United States Coast Guard proudly deployed its newest icebreaker \u2013 alongside its medium polar icebreaker Healy<\/em> and a cutter \u2013 the reconditioned Storis,<\/em> whose new name is Old Norse for \u201clarge ice,\u201d even though this newest member of America\u2019s icebreaker fleet is most famous for being swamped on its maiden voyage to Alaska in 2012 as the (formerly) private vessel Aiviq<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With a history this inglorious, our misguided top brass at US Coast Guard headquarters made a questionable decision. After sinking $2 billion into the much-delayed and much over-budget Polar Security Cutter (PSC) program \u2014 which built upon the 2012 launch of a USCG heavy polar icebreaker acquisition effort and the subsequent 2016 establishment of an integrated program office with the Navy \u2014 the goal was to \u201cBuild Back Better\u201d with a new fleet of American-made icebreakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If Washington seeks to assert a more mobile and persistent maritime presence off Alaska\u2019s shores, a fleet of my proposed Hickel Class subs could keep the Chinese in line. <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n This effort ended up spending more than the cost of an Ohio-class nuclear submarine, with (so far) nothing to show for this mini-Manhattan Project of American innovation other than a deepening pool of red ink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In response, the Coast Guard decided to buy the controversial Aiviq<\/em> and refurbish it, design flaws and all. This was intended as a quick fix to its growing PR problem: that America, the sovereign power that has possessed Alaska for almost 160 years, somehow has an inadequate \u201cArctic presence\u201d \u2014 and is so desperate to remedy this (mis)perception that even an ill-designed icebreaker with a dubious haunted history will do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Aiviq <\/em>is not just any icebreaker. It may well be the worst icebreaker for the job. A ProPublica <\/em>investigation<\/a> finds the troubled Aiviq<\/em> was infamous for its \u201ctroubled history\u201d starting a \u201cmaiden voyage to Alaska\u201d that \u201cended in a rescue at sea and a Coast Guard investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The report also notes an \u201cinfluential donor\u201d who \u201chas made more than $7 million in political contributions since 2012\u201d during which they \u201csought to sell or lease the ship,\u201d culminating in the \u201cCoast Guard\u2019s $125 million purchase of the Aiviq<\/em>, made under congressional pressure\u201d following \u201cthe service\u2019s failure to get its preferred, $1 billion model built.\u201d Asks ProPublica<\/em>, \u201cSo how would the U.S. Coast Guard use the Aiviq<\/em> beyond flag-<\/a>waving and general presence in the near Arctic<\/a>? According to [Lawson W.] Brigham, the former icebreaker captain and polar-shipping expert, \u2018No one that I know, no study that I\u2019ve seen, no one I\u2019ve talked to <\/a>really knows<\/a>.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n As Malte Humpert reported last year in High North News<\/em><\/a>, \u201cThe U.S. Polar Security Cutter program continues to face headwinds. Five years after signing a construction contract the vessel continues to exist only on the drawing board with the design still waiting to be finalized. Delivery will now occur no earlier than 2029.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n America is the undisputed sovereign of Alaska and need not counter Beijing\u2019s flotilla with its own.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n With Beijing\u2019s choreographed deployment of five icebreakers to polar waters America claims as part of its ECS, it is both ironic and potentially tragic that our leaders have embraced the controversial Storis<\/em> for our collective salvation. Humpert more recently reported in the pages of gCaptain<\/a><\/em>, citing Australian military scholar Elizabeth Buchanan, that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe U.S. might be an Arctic nation but decades of taking their eye off the prize are coming home to roost \u2013 and the next decade is certainly not going to be smooth sailing in the contested maritime domain. No matter the policy commitment<\/a>, Washington simply can\u2019t magic capability overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But rather than throw two billion dollars at the PSC program, or even $125 million for the Storis<\/em>, there are other paths to a more secure Arctic and a more robust, meaningful and sustained American Arctic presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since its inception, I have instead proposed America abandon the money-pit of the PSC program altogether and instead create a new class of \u201ccheap and quiet<\/a>\u201d diesel-electric submarines. These would be modeled on Sweden\u2019s Stirling engine (a quiet and enduring air-independent propulsion (AIP) system). They have run circles around our own carrier strike groups<\/a> (CSGs) in allied training missions and war games, during which the Swedes’ feisty $100 million diesel-electric sub easily dispatched our $6 billion aircraft carrier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I dub these new, nimble budget-friendly vessels \u201cHickel Class\u201d subs in tribute to Wally Hickel, the famed two-term Alaska Governor and former Secretary of the Interior in President Nixon\u2019s cabinet who famously promoted resource-rich Alaska as part of the global commons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why settle for tracking and monitoring icebreakers the way America does now, and the way the Russians did when America sent the Healy<\/em> two years ago through the Laptev Sea just north of the coastal shipping lanes of the Northern Sea Route, enroute to Tromso, Norway on a science mission that Russia closely tracked but otherwise did nothing to obstruct?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why be content with the misguided rivalry of the current \u201cicebreaker gap,\u201d reminiscent in all the worst ways of the (John F.) Kennedy-era \u201cmissile gap,\u201d which was predicated on a misperception (or outright fabrication) that the Russians were ahead of America in ICBMs, and which led to an expensive and dangerous proliferation of strategic nuclear weapons and their launching platforms \u2013 putting the world on a brittle hair-trigger one mistake away from World War III and, potentially, human extinction?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u201cicebreaker gap\u201d and the current race to restore balance in Arctic presence may not be nearly as dangerous as that was, and will likely never be as expensive or wasteful either. Icebreakers, as everyone acknowledges, are refreshingly dual use, of value not just for sovereign assertion and polar presence but a wide range of practical endeavors such as SAR, intel gathering, and science missions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But given the widening PSC hole into which the American taxpayer has already tossed $2 billion with nothing to show for it, enough to purchase a strategic nuclear sub with the capacity to not only deter aggression against America but to end the sovereign existence of any foe unwise enough to challenge America militarily. The program\u2019s capacity to waste money is already sadly well established. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Adding further doubt to the wisdom of investing any further funds is the dubious nature of the mission for which the PSC program was conceived: asserting an Arctic presence. That\u2019s because America owns Alaska, and the country that sold Alaska to the USA, Russia, has long acknowledged our sovereign possession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was no coincidence that President Trump\u2019s peace summit with Russian President Putin was hosted there, on an American military base, with American air supremacy on full display. America not only owns Alaska, but Russia fully endorses its ownership of its former Russian-American Company colony. Full stop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And yes, China can now deploy (as it recently did) a flotilla of five icebreakers into America\u2019s ECS adjacent to Alaska. But this is not the first time Beijing has deployed a flotilla to Alaskan waters. During President Obama\u2019s symbolic visit to the 49th state in 2015, Beijing choreographed another five-ship flotilla, this one comprised of warships, which were dispatched to the Aleutian Islands just in time for the President\u2019s arrival in Nome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Five is definitely Beijing\u2019s go-to number for dramatic flotillas. And while impressive, it\u2019s not that<\/em> impressive. Five because Beijing lacks ten assets to deploy at once. Five compares modestly to Russia\u2019s more robust 40. It\u2019s important to recall that Russia\u2019s vast, 2-million square mile Arctic region greatly dwarves America\u2019s own 663,000 square miles of Arctic, which itself infinitely exceeds China\u2019s zero square miles of Arctic territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If America had such a fleet of inexpensive Hickel Class subs, ideal for the noisy, ice-choked waters of the region, to assert our sovereign maritime Arctic presence on or beneath the surface, it could easily track Beijing\u2019s flotilla every inch of its journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Its dual use advantages would also multiply beyond surface research and diplomatic displays of Arctic maritime presence to include subsurface research as well as a wide variety of SAR and ASW missions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And if war ever did break out, these scrappy little subs could readily sink a rival icebreaker fleet (as well as a well-protected carrier strike group) from below without incriminating fingerprints, the sort of \u201cdual use\u201d America might really need one day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n America could, for the same amount of money blown on the much over-budget and long-delayed PSC program (which has yet to yield a single PSC), instead own 20 Hickel Class subs at a thrifty $100 million each. Instead of an IOU for a future heavy icebreaker that may or may not meet the promises of its ambitious marketing materials, America would instead have a fleet of useful dual-use polar subs with diverse mission potential, and a more muscular capacity to not just demonstrate presence but deter aggression. That\u2019s money better spent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some much-needed and welcome wisdom can be found up north across the 49th parallel from\u00a0which we can find helpful guidance to slow or even stop America\u2019s present-day icebreaker\u00a0madness. As\u00a0CBC<\/em>\u2019s senior defense writer Murray Brewster<\/a>\u00a0has reported, a \u201cformer top naval\u00a0commander and several defence experts have been left scratching their heads following the \u2026\u00a0recent embrace of the notion of giving the Royal Canadian Navy heavy, armed icebreakers to\u00a0defend the Arctic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n Brewster added: \u201cRetired vice-admiral Mark Norman told CBC News<\/em> the decision to build more icebreakers seems more political than practical<\/a>. \u2026 \u2018I\u2019m puzzled, because I don\u2019t know what it is we\u2019re trying to achieve other than the political objective of demonstrating a commitment to Arctic sovereignty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brewster also cites Canadian Arctic security expert Rob Huebert of the University of Calgary who suggested instead that \u201cCanada would be better served with investing in under-ice capable submarines. \u2018If you are actually in a shooting conflict, you\u2019re going to find out where the icebreaker is right away,\u2019 said Huebert. \u2018If you\u2019re going to be putting <\/a>money into something, put it into a submarine and give it some form of perhaps anti-missile <\/a>capability<\/a>.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n As Craig Hooper, another PSC program critic, has observed in Forbes<\/em>: \u201cOver the past several months, America\u2019s approach to Polar security has been a perplexing mix of future commitments <\/a>coupled with tough, near-term pull-backs<\/a>\u201d and, \u201c[d]espite a lot of White House attention, America\u2019s icebreaking fleet remains in a shambles<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, \u201cNo quick fixes are in sight<\/a>. Right now, America\u2019s icebreaker shipbuilding effort is offering more pomp than product<\/a>.\u201d What America really needs to dominate our warmer, faster paced world is not $2 billion of taxpayer funded \u201cpomp.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, it needs a new fleet of cheap (relative to our overpriced and as yet undelivered polar security cutters), quiet and impressively stealthy subs. It also needs swarms of far cheaper and more scalable long-range drones and a necklace of drone bases on Alaska’s vast coastal and insular territories, and inexpensive littoral patrol vessels to secure the always shifting interface between blue water and the ice edge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Arctic security expert Jeremy McKenzie has also shed an unflattering light on the troubled PSC\u00a0program: \u00a0\u201cI have long felt the USCG is focused on icebreakers at the\u00a0<\/a>cost of other much needed Federal investments in the Arctic\u00a0…\u00a0Instead we have focused on a large and vulnerable shiny new\u00a0command that has absorbed an incredible amount of the available resources and attention.\u201d (McKenzie\u00a0further refines his refreshing critique of the misguided PSC program in\u00a0this thoughtful analysis<\/a>\u00a0on West\u00a0Point\u2019s Modern War Institute blog.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s time, I believe, for America to truly \u201cBuild Back Better\u201d (as former President Biden aptly described, building upon the foundation established during the first Trump administration), and one might add, “Budget-wise” too \u2013 and not follow down the rabbit hole of hype and hysteria associated with the illogical and largely illusory \u201cicebreaker gap.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Russia may well need 40 icebreakers to keep its Northern Sea Route open for business. Canada may in time need that many \u2013 if Ottawa ever decides to open its own circuitous, shallow and largely uncharted Northwest Passage (still a big if).<\/p>\n\n\n\n And while China has done diplomatic wonders with its flotilla of five icebreakers in American polar waters, this is mostly smoke and mirrors, as China has no Arctic territory at all, so its feisty flotilla is<\/em> Beijing\u2019s Arctic presence. And as I explain above: America is the undisputed sovereign of Alaska and need not counter Beijing\u2019s flotilla with its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From Alaska\u2019s southeast archipelago to the dateline-crossing Aleutian Islands chain, to the infrastructure-rich North Slope (and a deepwater port forthcoming in the south Seward Peninsula community of Nome), America has plenty of Arctic presence. If Washington seeks to assert a more mobile and persistent maritime presence off Alaska\u2019s shores, a fleet of my proposed Hickel Class subs could keep the Chinese, or any polar interloper for that matter, in line. <\/p>\n\n\n\nDelays Mount as Rivals Surge Ahead<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Skip the Icebreaker Race\u2014Dive Deeper With Submarines<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Icebreaker Gap Is a Mirage, Not a Threat<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Submarines Over Icebreakers: More Presence, Less Cost<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Canada Questions Icebreakers : Submarines Make More Sense<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Explore Books Written by Our Contributors<\/strong><\/h2>
Less Pomp, More Power: Rethinking Arctic Strategy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s Time to Break Free From the Icebreaker Gap<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
America Doesn\u2019t Need More Icebreakers. It Needs Vision<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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