As the United States and Russia eye new shipping routes in the melting Arctic, political and military leaders in Washington are pointing to a crucial gap in the one type of vessel that can turn frozen waters into reliable lanes for commerce or national defense.
Icebreakers — the ships that smash through sea ice, opening routes for other craft and rescuing trapped vessels — are increasingly important to navigating in the far north. Russia has 40 of them, including nuclear-powered craft painted an intimidating red and black.
Meanwhile, the U.S. icebreaker fleet? Two.
It’s all about priorities.
“As the United States and Russia eye new shipping routes in the melting Arctic…”
Melting Arctic, eh? Politco is part of the problem and don’t even know it. The reason why Russia has 40 icebreakers and the U.S. only 2 is this “melting Arctic” meme isn’t being bought by the Russians.
To be fair, Russia has a significantly longer Arctic coastline than the US (I think it’s about seven times as long).
Still, in a bare-bones comparison, that should suggest the US ought to have about five or six icebreakers as a minimum.
Meanwhile CGCS Diefenbaker has been delayed by years and won’t be afloat until 2021. I believe that Russia just claimed the North Pole at the UN this past summer.
Nevermind the USA, what about Canada?
We cannot operate our best icebreaker in the arctic Winter.
Too small and too expensive to refuel.
Arctic sovereignty is babbled about by all our political types, but we have no way to enforce our claims.
We are so inept that we lost a Coastguard captain last year, when the only helicopter carried by the only icebreaker on Summer duty in the Arctic, crashed into the sea.
No way to rescue these men, coroner said hypothermia main cause of death.
We need serious longterm ice capacity, maybe it is time to buy them from the russians.
Also the absurd situation of freighting shiploads of fuel to northern communities , if we are such a technologically advanced, well educated society, why no nuclear power?
We denigrate the russians technological abilities, but we cannot equal them.
If these communities are with keeping in place, surely they are worth powering.
“Russia has a significantly longer Arctic coastline than the US”
~JJM
article: “one type of vessel that can turn frozen waters into reliable lanes for commerce or national defense.”
Hmmm, reliable lanes for commerce or national defense.
Nope, I don’t see the relevance of the length of coastline when the issue is open sea lanes.
Obviously the Russians know the Arctic is not melting and the U.S. thinks that it is.
Russia has used its Arctic sea lanes much more extensively because they are key
to reaching many of the abundant natural resources that it can exploit near the coast
or far up major navigable rivers.
Combine that with a much longer shipping season using monster ice breakers and it
is easy to justify the expense. Canada and Alaska have nothing to compare with it.
In our case the major economic incentive would involve keeping open shipping lanes
from the Port of Churchill and transpolar routes from the Orient to Europe. Not
really practical due to lack of business and the fact that Russia could eat our lunch
any day they choose to do so after we had spent huge sums on a larger icebreaker fleet.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2015/08/31/president-obama-appear-running-wild-bear-grylls/71454516/
“5 things Bear Grylls will eat, but Obama probably won’t”
================================
Well, two things that Obama eats no U.S. President should: Iranian and Russian crow.
Since Obama is in full panic mode over global warming, it leads to the question why he’s promising more ice breakers. Wouldn’t that be rather redundant ?
http://yidwithlid.blogspot.ca/2015/09/if-arctic-is-melting-why-is-president.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/NWlS+(YID+With+LID)
Could be, although Russia itself is huge and they haven’t even exploited their on-land resources to any real extent.
My guess is that many of the Russian icebreakers in that fleet of 40 are legacy ships from the Soviet era that were commissioned for primarily military reasons.
But, but, but the Russian ice breakers are “painted an intimidating red and black”. Now that’s scary! They should all be rainbow colored to show that they’re inclusive.
The article is total crap.
Russia has a very long sea coast in the arctic. And, if anyone is following the ice extent there, it is clear that the sea lanes which run from the Atlantic to the Pacific, which kind of (sort of) open in late August and early September, are all along the Russian coast. No sea lanes along Alaska coast. You can clearly see this for any month and year using this link:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/archives/image_select.html
The kerfuffle in the arctic is NOT about ice breakers but totally about which country claims what territorial water area. Canada has a FAR larger stake in this than the U.S. If there is a war over this, it will not be fought with ice breakers.
“If there is a war over this, it will not be fought with ice breakers.”
You got that right. All the icebreakers will be torpedoed/bombed with anti-ship missiles/sunk with sea mines in the first week they leave port.
somewhere I read that oblammer said that Alaska had a temperature rise of 13 degrees F. seems like 10 more years and there would be no ice.
New Orleans, Houston, Long Beach – none of these is likely to ice up any time soon. The US has plenty of warm water ports so they don’t need to ship from frozen wastelands. The Russians are not similarly blessed. Which is why they’d like to take back the Ukraine and the Baltics. The US doesn’t need a bunch of icebreakers. They need some decent aircraft. Ice breakers are nice, big, slow targets then. Even the F-35 should be up to that.
Not only does Russia have a long northern and eastern coast, but they require icebreakers for communication between the eastern half and the political half of their country. The US solved this problem a long time ago by building a canal. Russia built icebreakers and a long, long. long railroad. The US had multiple coast-to-coast railroads fifty years before Russia.
The GNP of the US is on the order of $18 trillion and that of Russia is on the order of $1.4 trillion, with Canada, Brazil, India, Australia, UK, France, Germany, etc. in between. Putin wants to stop using American Dollars and EUROS. Be still my heart! I am quaking in my boots. Russian oil was extracted by American companies under contract. Russian pipe lines were built by American pipeliners. The only other thing of significance the Russians have is a bunch of nuclear explosives with very questionable delivery systems.
This icebreaker thingy is directly tied to Putin’s invasion of the Crimea. Without the Crimea, Russia was almost effectively landlocked. The Black Sea outlet is effectively Russia’s Panama canal, except they have Suez as one outlet and Gib as the other. They still aren’t off the hook.
However, Putin’s most effective weapon is his personal useful idiot, obama.
why bother with a northern route? expansion of the panama canal and more significantly the construction of a nicaraugan canalhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_Canal make the idea moot.
For many years the USCG operated their four great Wind class icebreakers. One used to stop here in NewfieJohn twice a year on its way to and from supplying the SAC base at Thule. Now they are no more.
Probably the best way to obtain an icebreaker is to commission Wärtsilä in Helsinki to design and perhaps to build it. That’s what the Russians did, after all. For their nuclear icebreakers Wärtsilä would do everything but install the reactor. For that, the ship would be towed to Russia.
So rat Obama is going to Alaska. F*** rat Obama and f*** all his sycophants.
Well, the Arctic Ocean is bordered on about 150 degrees by Russia, and only about 30 degrees by the US, and maybe another 90 by Canada, so it’s only natural that Russia would have a bigger fleet of Arctic ships of any kind.
What was realy funny was when Greenpeace ship was trapped in the ice STUPID GREENPEACE
Oz,
You wrote “this melting Arctic ice meme isn’t being bought by the Russian.” You’re 100% correct … and more importantly it’s not being ‘bought’ by Gaia, or the Gods of Climate, or the facts of actual ice in the Arctic in recent years (the ice is INCREASING, not melting). But Oblahblah has spoken and THAT’S all that matters.
“The Black Sea outlet is effectively Russia’s Panama canal, except they have Suez as one outlet and Gib as the other.”
The Bosporus and Dardanelles are another two choke points they can’t get through without Turkish consent.
The lefty hacks who write for Politico can’t even give us 2 paragraphs without a lecture on the supposedly melting Arctic. Here is an interesting article about sea level rises:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/28/on-nasas-recent-sea-level-claim-science-isnt-broken-except-when-it-is/
They say that time is money. The distance from Japan and China (et al) to the east coast of North America and to Europe is much shorter over the arctic sea lane than through either the existing Panama Canal or the imaginary Nicaraguan Canal.
But Harper’s wish to exert Canada’s Sovereignty over its northern border is painted as war mongering militancy by the urinalist media
John, when I go through Helsinki next month I’ll give Wärtsilä a heads up:-))
For centuries Russia has wanted a reliable year-round trading port open to the sea. The Black Sea ports must thread through Turkey, and all others can and do freeze. Hence the ice-breakers.
China is better off, but not much. Granted the ice-free ports, but all ports must thread through potentially hostile coast-lines. Hence the busy-work in the South China Sea.
Contrast this with the New World. Loads of ice-free ports all opening directly onto clear ocean. We don’t know how good we’ve got it.
Amen. I suspect met Ruskies are deniers. Besides, Obammy does all his ice-breaking in Palestine and Tehran.
Canada has 7 icebreakers. Hope they’re all working!! Wonder if they’ll ever have a laser ice breaker?? As for the 40 Russian icebreakers, if they work anything like their tractors and combines, it’ll be a while before they get here?? (Canada.) An icebreaker is the easiest target in the world. This is one of dozens of missiles that can be launched from the air towards a floating target!!
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Y5XJbSqwriM?rel=0
Opps–sorry–that was the wrong link!! This is a video of a new Norwegian strike missile that can be carried by a fighter jet. Watch this baby off off a ship!
https://youtu.be/xJuoqu62K-4
> Since Obama is in full panic mode over global warming, it leads to the question why he’s promising more ice breakers. Wouldn’t that be rather redundant ?
I completely agree. Russia has a lot more icebreakers because they have a lot more need for them as most of their ports are not ice-free year round. Also the Northeast Passage/Northern Sea Route IS ice free for part of the year unlike the Northwest Passage so it does see marine traffic hence further demands for ice-breakers.