The vast Arctic Ocean encompasses some 5,427,000 square miles, with 28,200 miles of coastline fringing the landmasses of Eurasia, Greenland, North America, and several islands. Under
international law, no one country owns the North Pole or the surrounding ocean. Bordering this expanse, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States are limited each to a 200-mile economic zone along their respective coasts.
But with the prospect of increased domestic oil production and a shorter sea route for commerce, the United States has turned its eye north again—and so has its Navy. Vigilant to emerging possibilities, the Navy released its new "Arctic roadmap" in late 2009. With any acceleration of American initiatives in the Arctic realm, an expansion of responsibilities can be expected for the Navy.
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea allows a period for filing claims beyond one's economic zone. Countries that have ratified the convention—Canada, Denmark, Norway, and Russia—all have launched claims. The United States, which has yet to ratify it, has not taken similar action. The U.S. Coast Guard, however, did send the cutter Healy (WAGB-20) north from Barrow, Alaska, to map the sea floor of the Chukchi Gap in the northern Beaufort Sea. The results could reinforce American claims to the area as part of an extended outer continental shelf.
The U.S. Geological Survey, meanwhile, has confirmed what oil barons have long suspected: The area north of the Arctic Circle may hold as much as 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,669 trillion cubic feet of natural gas—13 percent of the world's total undiscovered oil, and 30 percent of its undiscovered natural gas.
In addition to new resources, new routes beckon as well in the Arctic. The Northwest Passage connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Historically an "impassable passage," it is covered by thick, year-round sea ice. But satellite observation is confirming that global warming has caused sea ice to decline in thickness and extent in the area, with portions of the passage now virtually ice-free. The National Snow and Ice Data Center is showing the 2009 summer melt at some 50 percent of ice cover. The potential for a shorter Pacific-to-Atlantic transit route has both energy and strategic implications for the United States and its allies.
To assert and protect our interests, it is clear then that the United States should develop an Arctic-based Eighth Fleet of the Navy.
The Eighth Fleet could be home-ported at Prudhoe Bay in the far north of Alaska (the Eighth Fleet in history operated in the Mediterranean during World War II and then as part of the Atlantic-based Second Fleet, until absorbed completely as the Eighth Task Fleet of the Second Fleet). The North Pole area-of-responsibility currently belonging to the Second Fleet and the Arctic Sector of the Third Fleet both could be absorbed by this new "sleet fleet."
Potential vessel assignments could include, but not be limited to, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, littoral combat ships, Naval Fleet Auxiliary Force ships (fast-combat support ships, fast dry-cargo/ammunition ships, fleet-replenishment oilers), and special mission ships (ocean-surveillance and oceanographic-survey ships), as well as prepositioning and sealift ships of the Military Sealift Command. To maintain a primarily defensive, freedom-of-transit, resupply, air-defense, and merchant-escort force, no carrier strike group or Marine Corps expeditionary strike group should be assigned to this new fleet; they could be surged into the area-of-responsibility when needed.
Eighth Fleet sub-surface assets could include reassigned nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines, new cruise-missile platforms (SSGN), and fast-attack boats. Should the United States commit to revitalizing its icebreaker capability, the new fleet would be a logical home for new hulls.
Creating an independent Arctic-based fleet would reflect the growing economic and military importance of the top of our planet and send a clear political message that the United States will assert and protect its interests there.
As merchantmen begin to exploit diminished ice, the Northwest and Northeast Passages will become increasingly important sea lines of communication—lines that the U.S. Navy will be charged with defending and keeping open. Devoting a fleet to such a task makes organizational and operational sense.