By any measure 2015 was a challenging and highly successful year for U.S. Coast Guard polar operations and the nation’s two polar icebreakers, the USCGC Polar Star (WAGB-10) and Healy (WAGB-20). Dialogue is continuing on how to rebuild the nation’s polar icebreaker fleet, with President Barack Obama weighing in on the issue in September during his visit to Alaska and in a White House Fact Sheet announcing new federal Arctic investments, including icebreakers.1 Likely not since the time of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s request during World War II for a U.S. icebreaker fleet has a U.S. President been personally and directly involved in such issues.2
Deployments to the polar ends of the world showcase today’s global maritime reach of the United States provided by Coast Guard polar icebreakers. Recapping the operational year, the Polar Star and Healy supported multiple U.S. agencies in their polar work and a major international ocean-research program. A notable search-and-rescue operation was executed in a remote region with difficult Antarctic sea ice conditions. The Healy completed the first U.S. unaccompanied icebreaker transit to the North Pole as well as the cutter’s third visit there, but the first since 2005. These highly successful operations in Antarctic waters and across the central Arctic Ocean basin visibly demonstrate how an effective icebreaker capacity can provide reliable and unambiguous U.S. polar maritime presence.
Unique National Maritime Assets
Coast Guard polar icebreakers are instruments of national policy and the visible, sovereign presence of the United States in Arctic and Antarctic waters. They are foremost capital maritime and naval assets of the U.S. government that historically have supported a host of federal agencies. Operating independently in the polar regions where the United States has broad national interests, these specialized naval vessels can provide the commander-in-chief and the unified combatant commanders—the Northern and Pacific Commands would be the obvious potential Department of Defense users—a unique polar capability that is undeniably an integral component of American naval and maritime power. No other surface ships in the U.S. National Fleet (a joint U.S. Navy and Coast Guard concept and effort to address commonality and interoperability) can operate safely and effectively anywhere on the global oceans and along the relatively uncharted coastal waters of the Arctic and Antarctic. Surface and subsurface combatants rarely operate in these high-risk and shallow coastal waters, making a Coast Guard icebreaker the sole U.S. maritime and naval presence in those areas.
A U.S. polar icebreaker must also be viewed as a Coast Guard cutter with an inherent design that allows effective operation in all types of sea ice along with sustained on-scene presence and assured polar marine access. Cutters such as the Polar Star and Healy are essentially mobile Coast Guard multi-mission bases or platforms with long-range endurance in all polar marine regions. Ship-based mobility and the agility and flexibility to respond in the face of rapidly changing sea ice and other polar environmental conditions are an icebreaker’s greatest assets.
A commanding officer of these ships holds a wide range of legal authorities and responsibilities identical to all Coast Guard cutter commanders. That same captain also leads an independent marine operation with all its logistical challenges to the far reaches of the planet, providing the United States with a key global maritime capability. Every officer who has served on board one of these cutters understands the singular importance of this strategic requirement. A review of the types of missions with which a captain might be tasked on a polar deployment is instructive. Several examples illustrate a complex suite of plausible missions:
• Conducting Coast Guard statutory missions (such as law enforcement; search and rescue; marine safety; marine environmental protection; aids to navigation; defense readiness; ports, waterways and coastal security; and more) in U.S. and international waters. Of importance, all cutters are the primary U.S. maritime law-enforcement presence at sea.
• Enforcing U.S. law and sovereign rights in the U.S. territorial sea, contiguous zone, and exclusive economic zone. Operations could include enforcing U.S. law on American vessels and citizens who might be operating in Antarctic waters for research, contract work, or adventure tourism.
• Responding to high-latitude incidents, emergencies, and potential maritime disasters from ships or marine operations associated with offshore development such as exploratory drilling. In such circumstances an icebreaker acts as the U.S. government’s on-scene presence for command and control and can provide icebreaking in support of unlocking frozen harbors and waterways to facilitate commercial supply access.
• Conducting science and research in the national interest in the most demanding and remote regions at both ends of the world. Expeditions could include polar marine-transportation research and development in support of future systems for the U.S. maritime Arctic.
• Conducting bathymetric and scientific surveys north of Alaska to support a future U.S. extended continental shelf claim under the provisions of Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and more traditional bathymetric surveying along select routes within the U.S. maritime Arctic.
• Working in concert with U.S. and foreign polar research vessels and assuring access to remote survey locations that only a few of the world’s icebreakers can reach.
• Serving as an integral element of a support and search-and-rescue network for U.S. naval operations and DOD research in the Arctic Ocean. Support to the DOD can include icebreaking operations along the western coast of Greenland to the U.S. northernmost defense facilities at Thule Air Base.
• Acting as a mobile observation platform in all polar marine environments and during long transits of the global ocean and providing ocean and atmospheric data to ground truth satellite and aerial observations. Support to such agencies as NOAA, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Air and Space Administration, and the DOD for polar environmental observation has been long-standing.
• Conducting icebreaking operations in support of the U.S. Antarctic Program, led by the NSF, such as the seasonal breakout of the McMurdo base for resupply-ship access and conducting Antarctic Treaty inspections around the continent led by the Department of State.
Notably, all of these missions have been conducted by Coast Guard polar icebreakers in recent decades during an era of fewer ships and an aging fleet. The current imperative to replace these capital assets is what the President addressed during his visit to Alaska. Announced were his plans to accelerate acquisition of additional icebreakers, with mention of a key caveat for multiple ships that can operate year-round in the Arctic Ocean.3 This is a significant high-end operational requirement that suggests new icebreakers would be among the largest and most powerful afloat. Viewed from strategic and global perspectives, such ships could also conduct all current and future U.S. icebreaking requirements in the Antarctic.
Links to Arctic Marine Transportation
There is considerable misunderstanding about the future use of the Arctic Ocean for marine transportation and the potential role of icebreakers as facilitators of marine traffic. Using a scenarios or futures effort, the Arctic Council’s Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment (AMSA) released in 2009 found that the primary driver for Arctic navigation is the development of onshore and offshore natural resources and many links to global commodities markets (and prices).4 Another finding was that the profound Arctic sea ice retreat being observed in all seasons is important to navigation in that it provides greater marine access and potentially longer seasons of navigation.
However, also key is that the Arctic Ocean remains fully or partially ice-covered for nearly eight to nine months each year. It is not an ice-free ocean, and one plausible navigation season will likely be three to four months in summer along the entire length of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) from Kara Gate to the Bering Strait; year-round navigation has been maintained for more than three decades in the western areas of the Russian Arctic.5
In an effort to build a reliable and safe national Arctic waterway, Russia employs a fleet of large nuclear- and diesel-powered icebreakers for use in convoying and ice escort of commercial ships that are primarily carrying natural resources out of the Russian Arctic to global markets. However, even Russian maritime experts state that the NSR is a seasonal complement to a route using the Suez Canal around Eurasia.6 Few believe the NSR will become a trans-Arctic container-shipping route, primarily limited by its seasonality of access and overall environmental challenges that have an impact on reliability.7
Two highly relevant issues are influencing the possible operation of government-owned icebreakers for potential ice convoy in the Arctic marine areas of the United States and Canada. One issue is technical: the emergence of highly capable icebreaking commercial carriers that operate independently without the need for icebreaker escort. This is the likely future operational mode that is economically viable for commercial ships throughout the Arctic Ocean. These advanced icebreaking cargo ships have successfully sailed in the Russian maritime Arctic, including the NSR, and within the Canadian Arctic and through the Northwest Passage. The second issue relates to national policy and the future establishment of U.S. and Canadian Arctic marine transportation systems that could require escort or convoy icebreakers to extend the ice-navigation season beyond summer.
Would the two governments provide Coast Guard icebreakers for routine escort duties if many of the ships being supported do not trade in U.S. and Canadian ports? Such a scenario would seem problematic, and a viable alternative would be to have privately owned icebreakers chartered to support commercial shippers where and when required. While the justification of new U.S. Coast Guard icebreakers is clearly not based on convoying commercial ships in open Arctic seas, these ships would be available for response operations and potentially for the breakout of ports and coastal waterways (such as is conducted on the Great Lakes and in the U.S. northeast).
Past Polar Icebreaker Studies
In July1984 the Coast Guard released a major interagency assessment, the United States Polar Icebreaker Requirements Study (PIRS), which had been mandated by the Office of Management and Budget.8 This key analysis has remained a framework document on U.S. polar icebreaker issues for three decades. It provided the historical context for U.S. polar ships that have operated in Alaska since its purchase from Russia in 1867, in war-time theaters such as Greenland during World War II, and in the Antarctic since the early 20th century. The report affirmed the need to replace aging Wind-class icebreakers with new polar icebreakers operated by the Coast Guard.
A fleet of four icebreakers was recommended to meet a broad range of strategic and bipolar national interests. PIRS was updated in 1990 by a Presidential Report to Congress, which concluded that a fleet of the two Polar-class ships and an NSF polar research vessel should be joined by a new polar icebreaker with enhanced research capabilities. This report was the impetus for Congress to fund construction of the Healy, which was commissioned in 2000.
A high-level committee of the National Research Council released an authoritative and comprehensive study of future U.S. polar icebreaker needs in 2007.9 It contains strong recommendations that the United States must continue an active and influential presence in the Arctic and Antarctic and maintain a fleet of Coast Guard polar icebreakers. Again, this study called for the renewal of the nation’s polar icebreaker fleet.
In 2010 a report prepared for the Coast Guard by outside consultants—the United States Coast Guard High Latitude Region Mission Analysis, using operations-research modeling—concluded that to meet its statutory polar missions the service would require three heavy and three medium icebreakers. More ships would be needed (a mix of six heavy and four medium icebreakers) if a requirement for continuous polar presence was maintained consistent with a joint Naval Operations Concept developed that year. The bottom line for all of these studies is the need for the U.S. government to operate a fleet of Coast Guard polar icebreakers to meet our broad national interests in the emerging Arctic and Antarctic. All of these studies are consistent in recommending three or more highly capable Coast Guard polar icebreakers for global operations.
Federal Budget Challenges
In an era of multiple congressional budget constraints, the funding for even a single new polar icebreaker (at $800–900 million) is complex. It has been very difficult for the administration and Congress to identify a viable and fundable long-term strategy for icebreaker procurement. A significant challenge the Coast Guard has confronted for decades, even when under the Department of Transportation, has been the size of its acquisition, construction, and improvements account. That cannot easily accommodate partial funding identified for a polar icebreaker, given the range of cutter, aircraft, and shoreside assets that require renewal and replacement.
The Coast Guard, with a strongly held view that a polar icebreaker is a national asset with multiple agency users, seeks to have significant funding contributions from other agencies. This could only come about by those agencies’ deferral or cancellation of a host of future acquisitions such as aircraft, ships, weapons, satellites, research equipment, and more. It is important to remember that procurement of the Healy was accomplished with non–Coast Guard funding solely from the Navy’s shipbuilding account. A more equitable strategy must be found. Others are pursuing alternative strategies to somehow reduce or defer funding for polar icebreakers:
• Funding the reactivation of the USCGC Polar Sea (WAGB-11) as a stopgap measure while new ships are under construction.
• Investigating strategies to build an icebreaker in a foreign shipyard (today likely illegal without Presidential intervention, and doubtless politically unacceptable).
• Pursuit of leasing arrangements of polar icebreakers with the private sector (notably the entire cost of a long-term federal lease must be identified up front; such leases are likely more expensive to the federal government and the taxpayer).
One plausible future strategy may be incremental increases in the Homeland Security/Coast Guard budget for icebreaker acquisition with costs spread over a broad suite of stakeholder agencies. This would surely require a directive from President Obama or his successor. Action even today would create a several-year gap in the operation of the nation’s most capable icebreaker while awaiting the commissioning of a new ship.
Looking Forward
Multiple interagency, independent, and Coast Guard assessments—and more than three decades of debate—have highlighted the strategic needs for U.S. government-owned polar icebreakers best operated by the Coast Guard. With a rapidly changing Arctic and rising marine use in the region, these requirements have increased, providing greater strategic clarity on this issue. The U.S. Arctic policy statement in 2009 and a National Strategy for the Arctic Region issued in 2013 have reinforced our national interests in the area. Most would agree that our national polar (maritime) interests are not well served by outsourcing them to foreign governments. Nor are these same strategic needs met by potentially available (but less capable) domestic or foreign-flag commercial icebreaking ships that lack the robust, multi-mission capacity of Coast Guard icebreakers.
The time for further study and continued debate about U.S. polar icebreakers is over, as surmised by President Obama and his Executive Office team, with action taken as far back as a Fiscal Year 2013 budget submission to initiate an icebreaker-procurement process. A “whole of government” approach responding to this deficit and funding these national assets is still required to harness interagency and congressional support and limit parochial interests and budgetary rivalry. A recent clarion call in Washington and the current U.S. chairmanship of the Arctic Council reminds Americans that we are an Arctic nation.
A strong signal is also needed to remind all of us that America, as a leading and influential polar nation, continues to have critical strategic interests and key investment needs in both polar regions throughout the 21st century. Few requirements are more important than modern Coast Guard icebreakers that maintain our global maritime capability, assure polar marine access, and provide visible, effective U.S. maritime presence.
1. “Fact Sheet: President Obama Announces New Investments to Enhance Safety and Security in the Changing Arctic,” (The White House, 1 September 2015), www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/09/02/fact-sheet-president-obama-announces-new-investments-combat-climate.
2. Polar Icebreakers in a Changing World: An Assessment of U.S. Needs, (Washington, DC: National Research Council of the National Academies, 2007), 54. www.nap.edu/read/11753/chapter/1.
3. “Fact Sheet: President Obama Announces New Investments,” 1 September 2015.
4. Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment, (Arctic Council, April 2009), www.pame.is.
5. CAPT Lawson W. Brigham, USCG, (Ret.), “Russia Opens Its Maritime Arctic,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, vol. 137, no. 5 (May 2011), 50–55.
6. “Northern Sea Route Slated for Massive Growth,” The Moscow Times, 4 June 2013, www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/northern-sea-route-slated-for-massive-growth/481093.html.
7. Steven M. Carmel, “The Cold, Hard Realities of Arctic Shipping,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, vol. 139, no. 7 (July 2013), 38–41.
8. “United States Polar Icebreaker Requirements Study, Interagency Report,” U.S. Coast Guard. Washington, DC, 11 July 1984, www.nap.edu/read/11753/chapter/18#114.
9. Polar Icebreakers in a Changing World: An Assessment of U.S. Needs, 54.
A Busy Year on Ice
During Operation Deep Freeze, the Polar Star steamed 22,172 nautical miles from November 2014 to March 2015 from home port in Seattle. En route to the Antarctic, the ship released three National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data buoys in the Southern Ocean, and in late January the ship broke the initial ice track into Winter Quarters Bay off McMurdo Station on Ross Island. Two supply vessels, the general-cargo ship M/V Ocean Giant and the Military Sealift Command’s chartered tanker M/V Maersk Peary, were subsequently escorted safely to the ice pier in McMurdo for offloading critical annual supplies. On the cutter’s return voyage from supporting the U.S. Antarctic Program, the Polar Star was diverted to assist the Australian-flagged fishing vessel Antarctic Chieftain beset (with propeller damage) in heavy ice with 25 crew members and 2 government fishery observers on board. The Polar Star transited 753 nautical miles to the Antarctic Chieftain’s position east of the Ross Sea off Cape Banks, Antarctica.
The operating area of the rescue was completely covered with thick sea ice, embedded tabular icebergs, and a deep snow cover, which made it highly probable that the Antarctic Chieftain would have to winter over. There was substantial risk of not surviving these extreme conditions for the vessel and crew. By towing and then close-ice escort, the Polar Star was able to lead the stranded fishing ship to open water in the Southern Ocean to an awaiting towing vessel. The Polar Star was able to complete all missions on this year’s Antarctic deployment, but the heavy icebreaking demands in McMurdo Sound and a challenging ship rescue highlighted reliability concerns for the 40-year-old ship systems and the urgency of an icebreaker-replacement program.1
At the top of the world, the Healy deployed on two extraordinary research expeditions in the Arctic Ocean. The first, in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas along the northwest coast of Alaska, focused on applied research to improve Coast Guard Arctic operations. An interdisciplinary team (composed of Coast Guard, Navy, NOAA, Northern Command, Department of Homeland Security, industry, and university researchers) tested a range of new technologies, including unmanned aerial vehicles, aerostat weather balloons, and wave gliders, as well as advanced communications and navigation systems. An Arctic search-and-rescue exercise highlighted the importance of these new technologies for improving Coast Guard Arctic capabilities.
The second cruise was a major scientific expedition into the central Arctic Ocean to support an international marine biogeochemical research program, GEOTRACES. This international effort focuses on the mapping of trace elements and isotopes and the processes that control their distribution in the global oceans. During summer 2015 two icebreakers, the Healy and Germany’s research icebreaker, the Polarstern, completed a transit of the Arctic Ocean. The Healy sailed from the Bering Strait and across the central Arctic Ocean to arrive at the North Pole on 5 September. The Polarstern sailed north from the Atlantic to the Pole and rendezvoused with the Healy on 7 September for a crossover intercalibration sampling station where the two ships’ data were collected and compared near the Pole.2 The Healy steamed approximately 1,600 nautical miles to the North Pole from the Bering Strait, taking a series of deep oceanographic stations. The ship returned on a separate track line, conducting scientific operations in the central Arctic Ocean followed by debarking the scientific party in Alaska. The Healy traversed more than 3,300 nautical miles in the most remote regions of the Arctic Ocean and conducted oceanographic casts in the least-sampled marine region on earth.
1. “Deep Freeze 2015 Cruise Report,” USCGC Polar Star (WAGB-10), (Seattle, WA, 28 March 2015), .
2. Summer 2015 Arctic Operations of USCGC Healy (WAGB-20), provided by the commanding officer, CAPT J. Hamilton, USCG, and operations officer, CDR W. Woityra, USCG, October 2015.