An old icebreaker hand laments the Coast Guard's neglect of its polar icebreaker fleet-including the USCGC Polar Star (WAGB-10) in February 2006-and sounds an alarm that turning its back on this capability could be a huge mistake.
Staring out alone from the aloft conn some 105 feet above the ice. the officer of the deck searches the unbroken whiteness for the elusive path of least resistance, one that will allow her to safely drive the vessel through dozens of miles of fast ice between her and McMurdo Station. Antarctica. With three turbines burning and three propellers churning out 60,000 horsepower, the U.S. Coast Guard's Polar-class icebreaker shakes and shutters as she barely creeps along at three knots, plowing through the solid sheet of ten-foot-thick ice. while off the stern a two-story-high rooster tail of Volkswagen-sized chunks of milled ice shoots out into the freshly broken channel. For some, the sight is reminiscent of the worlds' largest margarita maker.
This is business as usual for polar icebreaker Sailors. The exceptional challenges they and their incredible machines face on a daily basis are part of a unique and little- known Coast Guard mission that is the nation's sole source of access and ability to provide persistent presence to the most remote areas on the planet. Here at the bottom of the world in the midst of the austral summer the sun never sets, so icebreaking operations occur around the clock. Yet half a world away recent actions by the Coast Guard and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are setting the stage to plunge this critical national capability into a long and dark winter's night.
On A Track Line To Decline
The ability to gain access and operate for extended time in these most inhospitable of regions is a primary Coast Guard mission, as directed by numerous statutory and other authorities. In the Arctic, the who goes where and the what gets done once the ships get there has evolved over time, from investigating how to track submarines under the ice during the Cold War to monitoring undersea ecosystems at the shell-basin interface off of the north slope of Alaska. In the Antarctic, the primary mission has historically been and remains today logistics support: the annual opening of a channel through the ice along the approaches to McMurdo Station and subsequent escort of tanker and cargo re-supply vessels collectively known as Operation Deep Freeze.
The makeup of today's high-latitude surface fleet is the direct result of the last high-level direction regarding the nation's icebreaking needs published by the Executive Office of the President back in 1990. Then as now, the fleet of ice-capable ships was undergoing great change as the older ones (some commissioned as far hack as World War II) reached the end of their service lives and were decommissioned, leaving only the two Polar-class icebreakers, the Polar Star (WAGB-10) and Polar Sea (WAGB-11), to shoulder the nation's icebreaking requirements.
Though the Polar-class vessels were significantly more capable icebreakers-in fact the most powerful non-nuclear-powered vessels of their type-the Coast Guard recognized that additional assets were required to meet all the nation's needs. The commissioning in 2000 of the USCGC Healy (WAGB-20), a medium-capability icebreaking research vessel, which joined the two heavy icebreaking Polar-class ships and the National Science Foundation's leased back ice-capable research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer, completed the current fleet. Though the Healy and Nathaniel B. Palmer are superb research platforms for working in ice, they are incapable of completing the heavy icebreaking required of the Deep Freeze mission.
The glacial pace of government ship acquisition and construction projects left the Polar class to be tag-teamed throughout the 1990s to meet all the nation's medium and heavy icebreaking requirements. State-of-the-art when delivered in the late 1970s, the ships were due for a mid-life refit at this point, hut the intensity of the mission cycle and the inherently difficult operating conditions (i.e.. run ship aground, foul propellers, repeat over and over again) took an ever-increasing toll. Though scientific research capability improved by the early 1990s, the attempt to conduct an in-stride. full blown, mid-life refit ran up against the reality of a two-ship fleet: with nothing in reserve, the service could never afford take one ship out of service long enough to do the job right. Add to this the aging and marginally supportable systems ship-wide, combined with maintenance costs rapidly outpacing the maintenance budget, and the nation's heavy icebreaking capability was at near meltdown by the end of the 20th century.
A Convergence of Events
The fallout trom the events of 9/11 affected the Coast Guard in many significant ways. With the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in March 2003 the Coast Guard was faced with new priorities and a shift of focus to different mission areas. All existing Coast Guard missions made the move to DHS, but in the scramble for limited resources to support the realigned priorities, there were large targets in the budget that did not appear to directly support the direction the Coast Guard was headed. Polar icebreaking was one of those targets.
The program consumed an inordinate amount of resources relative to its perceived size. The $12 million per year maintenance budget for three polar icebreakers was equivalent to what it took to maintain ten 378-foot highendurance cutters. In addition, the three ships had only one real customer-the NSF-for their unique capabilities, and those capabilities did not seem to have much relevance in relation to the new normalcy.
Constrained by law to continue to provide the capability to the nation but squeezed by other budget priorities, the Coast Guard, under the direction of the Office of Management and Budget and Congress, entered into negotiations to transfer all of its polar-icebreaker program funding to the NSF, which would then reimburse the Coast Guard for services rendered. This arrangement may have answered the mail from a budgeter's perspective, hut in reality it was the first nail in the coffin for Coast Guard polar icebreaking. It flew directly in the face of the Golden Rule: He who has the gold, rules.
As the new century dawned, yet another major factor began to conspire against the Coast Guard icebreaking program: environmental conditions at both poles began to change in ways not previously seen. In the north, the extent of annual sea ice in the Arctic Ocean appeared to be decreasing rapidly: large areas of water remained open year 'round, and the North Pole itself was found to be ice free in 2000. In the south, a slug of particularly cold water that normally circulates around the Antarctic continent made its way into the Ross Sea, and at the same time several gargantuan roaming tabular icebergs aligned to block the way to McMurdo Station.
The combination of cold water and massive icebergs created ice conditions that pushed the aging Polar-class icebreakers beyond their limits. By 2005 the ships had experienced several significant engineering casualties and were no longer fully mission capable. In fact, the Polar Sea was down hard with major propulsion motor problems and tied up awaiting availability of repair funding. Conveniently now in control of all the program funding, the NSF uniluterally decided to outsource the breakout for Deep Freeze 2006 to a Russian commercial shipping firm. Hence, the Polar Star was parked in stand-by status at homeport, relegated for use only in case of an emergency. This plan. too. played out along a familiar story line, the Russian icebreaker (herself no spring chicken) experienced a major propeller casualty while attempting to open the channel in difficult ice conditions and thus the Polar Star was activated at the 11th hour to make the non-stop trip from Seattle to MeMurdo to complete the breakout.
By mid-2006 the sum total of the preceding events placed the nation's polar icebreaking program in true extremis, and a capability gap is all but guaranteed:
* Heavy icebreaking capability is halved. The Polar Sea received the lion's share of repair funds to be made ready for Operation Deep Freeze 2007. but this was at the expense of the Polar Star, which returned from Deep Freeze 2006 and was laid up and placed out of service. The majority of her crew (and their associated experience) were reassigned outside of the program. This is the second nail in the coffin for Coast Guard polar icebreaking. Regaining those lost billets and then reconstituting an experienced crew from the dwindling pool of seasoned icebreaker Sailors when needed in the future will be a nearly impossible task.
* Russian icebreakers are not available for hire in 2007, and the worlds' market of other heavy icebreakers is extremely limited. Thus, all the eggs are now truly in one proverbial basket for Deep Freeze 2007. Providing the necessary heavy icebreaking capability year in and year out with certainty is now at great risk, and no one left on the bench from here on.
* The majority of the nation's icebreaking fleet is obsolete or at the end of service life and no unified long-term plan is in place to recapitalize. The Polar-class ships need a major refit or outright replacement, the NSF's Nathaniel B. Palmer is nearing the end of her lease period, and the Healy will need to plan for a major mid-life refit within the next decade (which means planning and budgeting must start now).
All of this plays against the backdrop of mounting budget pressures across the Federal government, while for the Coast Guard the Deepwater program is the singular new acquisition focus for the next 20 to 25 years (icebreakers are not considered Deepwater assets). Trying to launch another major acquisition program, potentially in the billion-dollar range, in this daunting environment would be challenging, to say the least. Confronted with such an onerous reality one must reasonably ask. do we as a nation really need to stay in the polar icebreaking business?
Forewarned Is Forearmed
"Second only to a weapon of mass destruction detonating in an American city, we can think of nothing more dangerous than a failure to manage properly science, technology, and education for the common good over the next quarter century."-From "The Roadmap for National Security: Imperative for Change, The Phase III Report of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, 15 February 2001 (Hart-Rudman Report)
In the wake of 9/11, the prescience of the Hart-Rudman report became amazingly clear. In particular, it was the harbinger of the creation of DHS, the current home of the Coast Guard. Furthermore, the report claims that the pursuit of fundamental scientific research is critical to the long-term security of the nation.
One of the most import areas of scientific research that will have significant influence on national security and the common good in the coming century is the impact of climate change. And it so happens that the bellwethers for measuring the implications of climate change appear to he at the poles, where fundamental science is inherently difficult to conduct because of access and persistent presence challenges. One might consider climate change the overarching homeland security issue of the coming century, and since the Hun-Rudman report has gotten so much right so far. we ignore its recommendations at our peril.
Climate change has the potential to recast the basics of our natural environment and result in situations that we do not face today. The impact of an ice-depleted Arctic will make previously very difficult areas to access become more readily accessible, exposing our northern flank (the north slope of Alaska), and directly affecting homeland security. With this also will be associated sovereignty issues that will need to be addressed, verified, and enforced with our fellow Arctic neighbors if the area opens to more regular seaborne traffic and the resource exploration and extraction that will naturally follow.
In the Antarctic, crucial scientific research across the gamut of disciplines can now be conducted year 'round, owing only to our ability to sustain the annual re-supply of McMurdo and thus maintain a permanent presence on the continent. Any interruption of this re-supply could lead to temporarily abandoning the new (and very expensive) South Pole Station and possibly McMurdo itself, and the resulting disruption to the scientific process would echo for years afterward. In addition, permanent presence also ensures our credibility as a leading member of the Antarctic Treaty Organization, an entity that for the past half-century has ensured through great effort that the continent remains a pristine laboratory for all mankind.
Since the Arctic is primarily a frozen ocean surrounded by several land masses, and the Antarctic is a large land mass surrounded by a frozen ocean, both areas then necessarily require medium and heavy icebreaking surface ship capability to ensure the access and persistent presence needed to conduct meaningful scientific observations and display a credible sovereign authority.
Semper Paratus, or Simply Forget Us?
The U.S. Coast Guard has nearly a half-century of heavy icebreaking experience and remains today the nation's sole provider of this necessary capability. Yet the continuing actions (and inactions) of the key players have let this once robust, world-class fleet wither nearly to the point of no return. Several nails are in the coffin, and it will not take many more to seal its fate.
Turning our back on the Coast Guard's hard-earned operational and maintenance experience in heavy icebreaking would be a foolish loss, as the learning curve is steep and very expensive to regain. The National Academy of Sciences is on task to study the overall issue of the size and shape of our nation's icebreaking needs and where the capability should finally reside. Its report is due out by the end of 2006. Action must be taken post-haste on its recommendations because of the decadal timelines required to study, approve, budget and acquire major capital assets such as icebreakers.
The United States is the global power with global interests, and is also a polar nation. Is it in our long-term interest to forfeit our capability to freely access all the world's oceans? Do we really want to outsource this capability to entities whose interests may not always align with our own, and conveniently deny us the capability in our moment of need? When an international crisis erupts in a far-off land, the President never utters the words, "Where are the icebreakers?" But the slow-burn, yet farreaching and potentially catastrophic nature of climate change may well have a future President asking. "Where were the icebreakers?" As a multimission, military service, the Coast Guard gives the national leadership unparalleled flexibility to use these unique assets as required, meeting our interests today and into an unknown future, ensuring our nation's ability to reach out to the ends of the earth and into the far tomorrow.
Commander Meister has served as the damage-control assistant on board the USCGC Polar Slur, port engineer for the Polar-class icebreakers at the Naval Engineering Support Unit Seattle, engineer officer of the USCGC Healy. and as polar icebreaker maintenance manager at the Maintenance and Logistics Command, Pacific.