Depleted Arctic ice, evident in satellite images from 1979 (left) and 2005 (right), is opening lanes for shipping in the Arctic Ocean. The United States ignores this development at its peril.
Free-drifting icebergs, shifting boundaries of pack ice, 24-hour darkness, sub-zero temperatures, icing on ships' equipment and superstructures, and a lack of dependable logistical support can make Arctic operations extremely dangerous for surface ships. Nevertheless, naval strategists should start planning for Arctic operations to prepare for what may soon become a new challenge to U.S. sovereignty and freedom of navigation.
What is prompting this need? A team of more than 300 scientists recently confirmed unprecedented changes occurring north of the Arctic Circle. The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment released in November 2004 describes these changes, including a 3% per decade northerly retreat of the ice line or extent. Ice is also getting younger. At the rate of 7% per decade, persistent or multiyear ice is disappearing.1 Four decades of U.S. submarine Arctic transits and under-ice surveys confirm that ice thinned by 40% in just the last 20 years.2
While these changes may not appear immediately relevant to U.S. national interests, significant reductions in ice coverage may soon begin to hit home. Changing global commercial shipping transit lanes and increased energy exploration will make the Arctic highly important in coming years. Given these dramatic changes, the Navy must review its strategic policy in the Arctic.
U.S. Arctic Strategic Policy 1940s-1990s
Interest in the Arctic as a theater of operations and critical supply line is not new. As part of the Lend-Lease Act of 1941, U.S. Arctic convoys began supplying the Russian ports of Archangel and Murmansk with critical aircraft and military replenishments. These convoys endured harsh Arctic weather conditions as well as frequent attacks by German submarines and battleships.3
In addition, the U.S. Coast Guard was charged with patrolling the east coast of Greenland during World War II. The importance of Greenland to the fight against Germany lay in its strategic geographic location, its supplies of cryolite for the aluminum industry, and weather stations that could be used for European weather forecasts.4 The 1940s proved to be a critical time for learning the strategic advantage of Arctic surface operations.
After World War II, the Cold War brought the Arctic to the front lines as the only barrier between the Soviet Union and the United States. During this period, the Navy"s role in the region steadily increased, and the Coast Guard maintained a strategic presence. Navy submarines learned the strategic advantage of ice cover, as both high and low sound frequencies suffer great propagation losses when acoustic energy bounces off the rough underside of ice.5
Surface ships played a critical role in Arctic strategic operations after World War II, with both the Navy and Coast Guard supporting icebreaker assets until 1965. The Coast Guard maintained seven deep-water icebreaking-capable vessels through the 1980s. These vessels were used for logistical support to high-latitude ports, science missions, and to support national defense interests. In the 1990s Coast Guard polar icebreaking assets decreased to two, with their mission remaining instrumental to scientific research and maintaining an Arctic-rescue and environmental-protection capability.
Historically, the Arctic has been a mainstay of U.S. maritime strategy, but since the end of the Cold War, this focus has weakened. A changed focus could be expected with the fundamental geopolitical shift from a bipolar Cold War strategic environment to the uncertainty of the Global War on Terrorism. However, with predictions of decreasing ice, this strategic and tactical environment could change dramatically.
Arctic Transits and Security
Diminishing ice over the Arctic poses new commercial shipping opportunities and hence, a U.S. strategic interest. The Northern Sea Route (NSR) and Northwest Passage are two potential trans-oceanic shipping routes that are predicted by some to become routinely navigable as sea ice recedes.6 These transit routes are claimed by Russia and Canada, respectively, and commercial shipping companies are likely to begin exploring the economy of using these passages in the near future.
For the past decade, Russian ship captains have transited NSR waters on a regional basis, but few ships have attempted to use the full extent of these routes, which incidentally include the Bering Strait between Alaska and Siberia. Overall, transit length savings for commercial ships choosing northern routes over the mid-latitudes are speculated to be around 40%. For ships too large for the Panama Canal using the route around Africa, the distance is reduced by 6,770 miles or 15 to 20 days.7 Added to this shortened distance would be the significant saving of fees required for transiting the Suez and Panama canals. Clearly, these numbers are piquing the interest of the world's top container-ship companies.
On the other hand, Dr. Franklyn Griffiths, professor emeritus of Political Science and George Ignatieff Chair of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto, has argued that ship captains would encounter prohibitive insurance costs and unpredictable ice conditions in the Northwest Passage that would make it an unfeasible transit opportunity.8 However, despite the current prohibitive risk level, diminishing ice will alter the Arctic environment and change these fundamental risk assessments.
Arctic Territorial Claims
While enormous economic gains could result from seasonally navigable Arctic sea routes, they could be a source of future economic and political tensions. Russian commercial producers expect the volume of oil flowing through the NSR to increase from one million to a hundred million tons per year by 2015.9
Currently, Europe and the United States do not recognize Russian and Canadian claims that the Northwest Passage and NSR sea lanes are internal waters.10 In addition, the abundant northwestern Russian fisheries in the NSR region have proved to be a source of tension with Norway.11 The current small disputes over Arctic transit claims could escalate if this region becomes more navigable and thus more economically important.
Disputed international claims do not end at transits and straits through the Arctic. Since 1999, the United Nations Convention's Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) Article 76 has allowed coastal nations ten years from the date they ratify the treaty to make claims over the ocean floor apart from their 200-mile exclusive economic exclusion zone and beyond the limits of their continental shelves.
Denmark just launched a $25 million surveying project to prove that Greenland is geologically connected to the Lomonosov Ridge.12 If proved correct, the Danes may be entitled to claim a large chunk of the Arctic Ocean all the way to the North Pole under Article 76. Using this same geological connection with Siberia and the UNCLOS provision, Russia also submitted a claim in the Arctic to the North Pole, which covers nearly 45% of the Arctic Basin.13 Norway, Canada, and the United States have questioned Russian territorial claims but are also pushing forward their own bathymetric surveying efforts.
Arctic Energy Exploration and Strategic Concerns
The economic and transportation benefits the Russians have already realized are directly linked to discovered oil and gas reserves under the ice cap. According to Professor Alexander Granberg, advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, "Because of the Northern Sea Route, the Arctic is the leading economic region of Russia. The Arctic will develop much more quickly than all of the rest of Russia."14
Specifically, Russia currently uses the NSR regionally and will use it more extensively to bring oil and gas out of the Arctic. These plans are materializing through the current contract of the Finnish Ship builder, Aker Finyards, Inc., for construction of 20 ice-strengthened tankers to move oil and gas out of Murmansk.15
Russia is not the only country to gain from Arctic oil- and gas-rich continental shelves. Multinational oil companies continue to conduct exploratory drilling and seismic surveying in numerous Arctic locations in Alaska's North Slope and the Beaufort Sea. The U.S. Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service recently announced the sale of leases to 9.4 million acres offshore of Alaska's northern coast in the Beaufort Sea.16
Asian Energy Demand
The world's growing need for energy is driving the link between economic and transportation benefits of receding ice in the Arctic and U.S. security concerns. Specifically, demand for oil in China and India is expected to grow by an average annual rate of 4% per year until 2020. This demand, combined with declining production elsewhere, will make Asia's foreign oil dependence grow from 69% in 1997 to 87% in 2020.17 This, combined with Middle East volatility, could increase oil prices and make Arctic oil reserves more economically attractive. China's need for the natural gas produced in Siberian gas fields may provide new energy cooperative agreements between Russia and China, or a source of instability, as China's energy insecurity grows.
China's energy demand could fundamentally alter shipping patterns as well as contribute to future Sino-Russian tensions. According to an intelligence report prepared for U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, "China is building strategic relationships along the sea lanes from the Middle East to the South China Sea in ways that suggest defensive and offensive positioning to protect China's energy interests, but also to serve broad security objectives."18
China is currently attempting to secure sea lanes that would ensure a smooth flow of future oil supplies to match surging demand. In the case of an ice-diminished Arctic, the Chinese may abandon efforts to use the U.S.-patrolled Straits of Malacca and instead pursue northern routes. This would prove to be not only a shorter transit for the Chinese, but the United States would be unable to follow and patrol the transits with its current capabilities.
Naval strategy in the United States has traditionally centered on defending sea lanes and strategic oil transits. The Straits of Hormuz and Malacca currently see the highest volume of oil flow daily. Increased Asian demand for oil and natural gas could fundamentally change these patterns of shipping. If key transits develop to the north, the United States must be prepared to patrol and defend these sea lanes equally.
U.S. Capabilities for Arctic Operations
Without a polar capability, the United States is seriously hindering its ability to ensure its national sovereignty and enforce laws and regulations along its borders.19 An assessment of the U.S. Navy's preparedness to operate in Arctic or cold weather conditions reveals large gaps in knowledge. A workshop conducted in 2001, titled "Naval Operations in an Ice Free Arctic," brought to light many of these emerging concerns. The final report highlighted the deficiencies in U.S. Navy and Coast Guard equipment and training in cold weather.20
Specifically alarming is the lack of understanding of the operation of communications gear and sensors in the Arctic. Iced-over equipment and weapon systems would cripple battle-space management, navigation, and weapons deployment. Lack of navigational aids and accurate bathymetry also would paralyze any attempts to deploy naval assets in this environment. Currently, no U.S. source of satellite-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors can monitor Arctic sea ice under all-weather, day and night conditions. The tracking of ice features will require routine high-resolution monitoring only afforded by SAR. Unfortunately, the United States must rely on SAR imagery obtained from foreign sources, including Canada and Europe.
Despite these gaps, as well as the current possibility of emerging threats, the Navy recently eliminated its formal program for polar research at the Office of Naval Research, which is leading to a drain in expertise of Navy-supported researchers. This budget was as high as $25 million in the mid-1990s, but with formal elimination of the High Latitude Program, Navy-supported investments in Arctic research are now restricted to approximately $1 million annually, with a probable decline to zero soon.
The largest gap in capability nationwide is likely ice-strengthened hulls. To date, the United States operates one light icebreaker leased by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Nathaniel B. Palmer, for operations in Antarctic waters, while the Coast Guard has three icebreakers capable of operating in the polar regions, the light icebreaker USCGC Healy (WAGB-20) and two Polar-class heavy icebreakers, Polar Sea (WAGB-10) and Polar Star (WAGB-11). However, the state of disrepair of the Polar-class vessels forced the United States to lease the Russian icebreaker Krasin to complete its Antarctic resupply mission last year. For the 2005-2006 resupply mission, the Krasin is expected to take the icebreaking lead, with the Polar Star participating only in a standby mode.
Reduced current capabilities in the U.S. icebreaking programs can also have long-term ramifications and be detrimental to U.S. security. For example, the Polar icebreakers' budget authority has shifted from the Coast Guard to the NSF in the president's fiscal year 2006 budget, and it is expected to remain with the foundation through at least fiscal year 2007. Logistical support of the McMurdo Antarctic Station will be the primary mission of the Polars over scientific research.
Maintaining homeland-defense capabilities or defending national sovereignty in high latitudes may be a distant third in interest-if at all. The potential danger in this arrangement lies in the fact that, while the logistical and science mission components of icebreaking can be contracted to commercial or foreign assets, sovereignty cannot be leased.21 If made permanent and expanded to the Healy and future icebreakers, such changes could lead to the United States' lacking in military-controlled ice-operating surface vessels in the polar regions for the first time in more than 100 years.
Immediate Concern, or Threat on the Horizon?
Some may argue that the demand for surface ships to operate in the Arctic is far enough in the future to not be cause for current concern. However, other countries' recent attention to the Arctic as well as other threats in cold-weather regions should not be ignored. Many of the gaps in capability for and knowledge of the Arctic apply equally to a North Korean threat. Maximum ice edge extents in the Yellow Sea reveal that ice will be a major cause of concern and could impede operational capabilities.22
Other countries have already begun earnest Arctic research. China has built and deployed an icebreaker and conducted a number of exploratory missions to the Arctic, including one unannounced visit to Tuktoyaktuk in Northern Canada in 1999. Canada, having already realized the vast importance of Arctic operations to its military, conducted Operation NARWHAL in 2003, an integrated Arctic military exercise to test its ability to operate effectively in the Arctic.
Even if a credible threat cannot currently be fully defined in cold regions, the United States may be forced to deal with law enforcement, homeland security, or environmental disaster problems in the Arctic as it becomes more navigable and widely used. Protection of the indigenous peoples of the north is another global concern that may arise in the near future, as their subsistence will be dramatically affected by development and energy exploration. Given the current global interest in the Arctic, as well as rising future concerns, the United States needs to take another look at its cold-weather knowledge and capabilities in the context of long-term security threats.
With the high probability of a continued diminishing ice cover trend in the Arctic, as indicated by the September 2005 satellite observations showing the lowest sea ice extent on record, the region can no longer be ignored as a potential theater for military operations. Territorial claims, increased maritime access, and vast natural resources are anticipated to create the need for future Arctic naval presence.
All of these changes are within the next Program Objective Memorandum cycle. Thus, fiscal planning for these changes needs to occur now. The Navy should begin long-term planning, training, and acquisitions toward understanding and operating in this complex environment. Without this, the Navy's lack of preparation could leave the United States in the dark and out in the cold.
Lieutenant Hanna is leaving the U.S. Navy to accept a position at the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, U.S. Department of State. Since 2003, she has been stationed at the National/Naval Ice Center after beginning her Navy career as a surface warfare officer on board USS Higgins (DDG-76). Lieutenant Hanna is a 2000 graduate of Northwestern University and holds a Master of Science degree in Environmental Management from the University of Maryland University College. She thanks U.S. Coast Guard Lieutenant Scott Borgerson, Navy Captain Paul Stewart, and Coast Guard Captain Dan McClellan for special assistance in preparation of this article.
- Four-year scientific study of the Arctic region conducted by more than 300 international scientists. Compiled by Robert Correll in Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA). Summary of ACIA report can be found at http://amap.no/acia/. back to article
- D. Andrew Rothrock, Was sea ice quite thin in the 1990s? Yes. Presented at the SEARCH open science meeting 27 October 2003. Polar Science Center-Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle, WA back to article
- Randy Wilson, "The Siberian Connection: American Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union in WWII," The Dispatch, Winter 1998, Vol. 23, No.4, available from http://rwebs.net/dispatch/output.asp?ArticleID=56. back to article
- Stetson Conn, Rose C. Engelman, and Byron Fairchild, Guarding the United States and Its Outposts (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army, 2000) Available from http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/Guard-US/ch17.htm. back to article
- The Arctic Ocean and Climate Change: A scenario for the U.S. Navy, U.S. Arctic Research Commission, 2000), copies available at http://www.arctic.gov/publications.htm. back to article
- ACIA Report (see full citation in footnote 1). back to article
- Richard F. Pittenger and Robert B. Gagosian, "Global Warming Could Have a Chilling Effect on the Military." Defense Horizons, December 2003, available at http://www.stormingmedia.us/28/2832/A283224.html. back to article
- Franklyn Griffiths, "Pathetic Fallacy: That Canada's Arctic Sovereignty Is on Thinning Ice," Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, Volume 11, Number 3, September 2004. back to article
- Dr. Garrett Brass, Arctic Research Commission. back to article
- 3Arctic Marine Transport Workshop Draft Report held at Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge University, 28-30 September 2004. back to article
- Douglas R. Brubaker. The Russian Arctic Straits (Leiden, Netherlands: Martin Nijhoff Publishers, 2004), summary available at http://www.fni.no/publ/polar.htm. back to article
- Andrew C. Revkin. "Jockeying for Pole Position." 10 October 2004, New York Times Sunday late edition, available at Lexis Nexis. back to article
- The Brookings Institution, Policy Brief #137, David Sandalow, Law of the Sea Convention: Should the U.S. Join, available at http://www.brookings.edu/scholars/dsandalow.htm. back to article
- Arctic Marine Transport Workshop Draft Report held at Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge University, 28-30 September 2004. back to article
- Lawson Brigham, Arctic Research Commission, personal conversation (January 2005). back to article
- U.S. Department of Interior Minerals Management Service Press Release 24 February 2005 Available at www.mms.gov. back to article
- M. Ogutcu, "China"s Energy Security: Geopolitical Implications for Asia and Beyond," Oil, Gas and Energy Law Intelligence, 26 January 2003, available at http://www.gasandoil.com/ogel/samples/freearticles/article_15.htm. back to article
- Bill Ridley, "China and the Final War for Resources." Feb 9, 2005. Available at http://www.energybulletin.net/4301.html. back to article
- Personal conversation with Capt. Dan McClellan, chief, Office of Strategic Anlaysis, U.S. Coast Guard, and a former National Security Fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government (March 2005). back to article
- Naval Operations in an Ice-free Arctic Symposium Final Report (17-18 April 2001), report available at http://www.natice.noaa.gov/icefree/FinalArcticReport.pdf. back to article
- Capt. Dan McClellan (U.S. Coast Guard), personal communication (March 2005). back to article
- National/Naval Ice Center Archives (January 2004), contact www.natice.noaa.gov for further information. back to article