U.S. Navy Arctic Blueprint

From the forward:

"This forward looking regional blueprint describes how the Department will apply naval power as we continue to prepare for a more navigable Arctic Region over the next two decades."

U.S. Navy Arctic Blueprint ... by lawofsea

Arctic Operations: We Really, Really Need the Right Equipment and an Arctic Port

The U.S. Chief of Naval Operations has a nice tweet regarding the "Arctic region" here.

However, as noted in the March 2020 Seapower here:

Unlike the South China Sea and other contested areas, the U.S. Navy does not have the capability to conduct freedom-of-the-seas operations in the icebound waters of the Arctic, a key Pentagon official conceded.

With only one heavy and one medium icebreaker and no Navy ships with hulls hardened against ice, “We do have limitations in the Arctic right now,” James H. Anderson, assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans and capabilities, told a readiness subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 3 during a hearing on U.S. military readiness in the Arctic.

***

In addition to a deficit of ice-hardened hulls, Sullivan said the U.S. lacks a strategic port on — or even near — the Arctic Ocean that could handle repairs or refueling of large Navy or even U.S. Coast Guard vessels.

“Russia has close to a dozen or two dozen ports,” he said, noting the closest viable port at Anchorage or Dutch Harbor, Alaska, was 1,000 nautical miles or more from Arctic waters. In addition to ports and military bases, Russian President Vladimir Putin has 54 icebreakers, Sullivan said. “He’s got all the cards.”

The dearth of ice capable ships is not this CNO's fault, but goes back years and years.

For example, here are a couple of posts I put up in 2007 and 2008, reproduced in their entirety:

From 2007

Reported here. Assuming that the ice caps are melting away and there is an ice free passage across the North Pole, then...

When the commander of the U.S. Coast Guard thinks of future trouble spots, his focus is increasingly to the north — the vast waters around a melting polar ice cap.

Once almost totally inaccessible to shipping and oil drilling, the region poses new opportunities for economic activity, as well as new challenges for those who patrol its frigid seas.

"If you go into a life raft 20 miles off the coast of North Carolina, chances are you are going to see the Coast Guard in a few hours," Adm. Thad Allen says. "If you go into life rafts at the edge of the Arctic ice cap, there are questions about when you should expect help to arrive."

The Arctic is still relatively empty but stands to become more crowded in coming years as several countries stake their claim to its rich oil and gas reserves. The increased maritime traffic has made the Arctic a more significant focus for the Coast Guard in the past six months, Allen says.

"We're like the cop on the beat up there," he says. That beat is massive — about half of the USA's 90,000 total miles of coastline is in Alaska.

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Ice in the Arctic sea has decreased by nearly 20% over the past two decades, and "it would not be beyond the realm of possibility to have an ice-free route across the top of Russia sometime in the next five or 10 years," Allen says.

Such a route would shave up to 5,000 miles — a week's sailing time — off the journey between the North Atlantic and the North Pacific, he says, attracting ships that otherwise would have transited the Panama or Suez canals. Allen says there has also been heavier traffic in the Bering Sea between Alaska and Russia. He says it could become an international waterway similar to the English Channel or the Straits of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia.

The reduction in ice sparks competing claims among the eight nations that border the Arctic: the United States, Russia, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark (which controls Greenland).

Russia claims 460,000 square miles of the Arctic as an extension of its continental shelf under a 1982 treaty that set guidelines for dividing undersea resources.

See earlier post on the on-going land grab effort here.

From 2008

From the Heritage Foundation The New Cold War: Reviving the U.S. Presence in the Arctic:

As an Arctic nation, the United States has signif­icant geopolitical and geo-economic interests in the High North. The U.S. should not only have a place at the table, but also seek a leadership role in navi­gating the nascent challenges and opportunities, such as disputes over the Outer Continental Shelf, the navigation of Arctic sea-lanes, and commercial development of natural resources and fisheries.

To play this role and to vindicate its interests, the U.S. needs to continue swiftly mapping the Arctic, build a modern U.S. icebreaker fleet, and work with its Arctic partners in bilateral and multilateral ven­ues. The U.S. needs to revitalize its Arctic policy and commit the necessary resources to sustain America's leadership role in the High North.

Read the whole thing. Check earlier posts on this topic by clicking on labels below, especially "arctic", "polar sea routes."

Fault finding will get us nowhere, the need is to look to our allies who operate in these waters and see if, among the hull types we need they have some ice-hardened ships whose designs we can obtain. Now.

Disaster Prep Wednesday: NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center

It's summer and a good time to know more about the NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center

About the SPC

SPC Mission

The Storm Prediction Center maintains a high-achieving staff using innovative science and technology to deliver timely and accurate watch and forecast products/information dealing with tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, lightning, wildfires, and winter weather for the United States to protect lives and property.

SPC Vision

The trusted source for the prediction of tornadoes and other high-impact hazardous weather.

SPC Unique Value Proposition

SPC national products and services for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes are an essential source of information for the protection of life and property.

Overview

The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) is part of the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). Our mission is to provide timely and accurate forecasts and watches for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes over the contiguous United States. The SPC also monitors hazardous winter weather and fire weather events across the U.S. and issues specific products for those hazards. We use the most advanced technology and scientific methods available to achieve this goal.***

Really, this is a great site.

The best way to learn what's there is to go play around with it. Click here

Arctic Waters: U.S. Policy and the Sea Services

With our long Alaska Arctic coast (over 1000 miles), the U.S. is an Arctic power. What does that mean and how what is the U.S. approach to the Arctic waters?

On 23 July 14, there was testimony on this topic before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, where, among others, Coast Guard Vice Adm. Neffenger testified on implementing US policy in the Arctic :

Currently, Coast Guard vessels and aircraft monitor close to one million square miles of ocean off the Alaskan coast to enforce U.S. laws, conduct search and rescue, assist scientific exploration, advance navigation safety and foster environmental stewardship. Throughout his testimony, the Vice Commandant spoke to these diverse operations, focusing on the need for the continuous assessment of capabilities required to operate in the region, long-term icebreaking needs and the National Arctic Strategy.
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USCG Polar Star

“Current and future operations in the Arctic and Antarctic will continue to be informed by the availability of polar icebreakers and ice-strengthened vessels. Polar Star’s recent reactivation will provide the U.S. with heavy icebreaker capability for another seven to 10 years,” said the Vice Commandant. “We believe that Polar Star along with the medium icebreaker Healy provide a minimum capability necessary to address the nation’s near-term icebreaking needs in the Arctic and Antarctic, and will give us the time we need to assess longer term national needs and requirements.”

I translate that last part as "We need more ice capable assets, including more real ice breakers."

The National Arctic Strategy:

U.S. National Arctic Strategy

The Coast Guard Arctic Strategy follows:

CG Arctic Strategy

The U.S. Navy has an "Arctic Roadmap"-

U.S. Navy Arctic Roadmap

You can watch the 23 July hearing here.

You might note the absence of pictures of U.S. Navy icebreakers - because the U.S. Navy hasn't got any. It used to, but not now.

Arctic Maritime Security: "America Needs a Coast Guard That Can Fight "

U.S. Coast Guard photo.

An interesting argument set out in "America Needs a Coast Guard That Can Fight"by James Holmes at Foreign Policy

Forget for a moment about the U.S. Navy and its "pivot to Asia." Over the next few decades, the woefully underfunded and thoroughly unsexy U.S. Coast Guard will likely hover near the center of the action.

The reason, in three short words: the Arctic Ocean.

Vigor Industries image

What sort of ships might the Coast Guard want? Nice discussion of an $8 billion program at Stew Magnuson's New Coast Guard Cutter Sparks Fierce Competition Among Shipbuilders :

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Robert Papp Jr. said at the Naval Surface Association conference in January that the Offshore Patrol Cutter will be the service’s “workhorse” for the next 40 years. He has stated many times in public that the ship is the Coast Guard’s most important project.

“We’ve put an awful lot of effort into it,” he said of the program.

“There seems to be significant interest out there to build 25 ships, and we’re very pleased about that. I think people are thinking out of the box. They’re looking at new designs. We need to think out of the box as well as we go forward, because as I said, this ship is going to be very, very important to us.”

USCGC BERTHOLF underway off Kodiak Island Alaska
Coast Guard photo

Well, remember that last year the CG took a hit in shipbuilding funds, as set out in Chris Cavas's 2 cutters removed from FY13 Coast Guard budget:

Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard’s parent agency, attempted to explain the elimination of the two cutters when she testified before Congress on Feb. 15 on the budget.

“What we are going to do, and this is all guided by really looking at the nation’s resources and the Budget Control Act and how it works, and there’s language in the budget request to this effect, we will look at seven and eight in light of what the Navy is doing,” Napolitano said.

“So we need to look at what the Department of Defense is doing with respect to their own force ... to see what we need to be putting in the acquisition pipeline.”

Napolitano did not elaborate on how the Navy’s shipbuilding plans affect the Coast Guard requirement for eight NSCs, but she noted the struggle to get funding for the ships.

Which is, I suppose, is Washington speak for "screw the Coasties" but you may have your own interpretation. No matter the interpretation, I hope Admiral Papp is not holding his breath while waiting for money to flow for 25 ships.

Vigor Industries image

It is interesting that one design possibility, put out by Vigor Industries (to whom credit for the illustration above goes) involves an "Ulstein X bow hull" - a patented design now being widely adopted for offshore oil vessels.

Good luck in these political times.

However, I truly urge all citizens to support the vital needs of the Coast Guard, which is too small, too underfunded, has too much territory to cover at its current level of funding, manning and ship count.

Arctic Sea Space: Trans-Arctic Shipping "By MidCentury"

From the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S., "New Trans-Arctic shipping routes navigable by midcentury":

By midcentury, changing sea ice conditions enable expanded September navigability for common open-water ships crossing the Arctic along the Northern Sea Route over the Russian Federation, robust new routes for moderately ice-strengthened (Polar Class 6) ships over the North Pole, and new routes through the Northwest Passage for both vessel classes. Although numerous other nonclimatic factors also limit Arctic shipping potential, these findings have important economic, strategic, environmental, and governance implications for the region.

Of course they do.

We need a bigger presence in our Arctic Waters including Coast Guard and a U.S. Navy "Northern Fleet."

Arctic Sea Routes: DARPA seeks monitoring systems

NOAA photo

As ice levels thin at the northernmost latitudes, the concern of how to keep an eye on the flow of sea traffic in the area grows. There are plans being floated to monitor the area for several reasons, including maritime security, as reported by Information Week as DARPA Pursues Security As Polar Ice Caps Melt:

The Department of Defense (DOD) is exploring new sensor technology to remotely monitor the Arctic region in anticipation of more shipping activity in the area as polar ice caps continue to melt.

Through the Assured Arctic Awareness (AAA) program, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is looking into environmentally-friendly ways to monitor the Arctic region both above and below the ice without the need for more expensive means of monitoring--such as aircraft, satellites, or manned ships and submarines--of the largely remote region, according to the agency.

DARPA's press release states:

The Arctic region is poised for greater regional significance as polar ice retreats in coming decades. Ship traffic likely will increase during summer months, and commercial activity focused on the sea floor is expected to grow. The Arctic is largely isolated, vast and environmentally extreme. Remote sensing may offer affordable advantages over traditional methods of monitoring the region—aircraft, satellites or manned ships and submarines—due to the great distances in the Arctic.
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DARPA seeks proposals that specifically take the perceived negatives of the harsh polar environment and turn them into positives for a suite of unique Arctic capabilities.

“We’re looking for creative ideas for compelling component technologies and a vision for applying them to monitor the region—whether proposers have expertise in the Arctic or not,” said Andy Coon, DARPA program manager.

Probably not what DARPA wants - the two boy kayak observation team.

For example, those with experience in unattended ground or maritime sensors, low-temperature electronics, distributed remote sensing technologies, or autonomous operations could contribute to the development of novel technology solutions applicable to the Arctic. DARPA seeks input from these and other technical communities to develop components that address system attributes such as design, mobility and deployment, persistence, survivability, energy management, sensing, and long-haul communications back to the United States. Tests of component proposals will occur, for the most part, in climatic laboratories to assess how well they handle simulated Arctic conditions before taking them to the Arctic for field trial.

“We seek to increase the diversity of contributors, including environmental research organizations, academia, traditional defense contractors and others,” said John Kamp, DARPA deputy program manager.

The program does not seek warm latitude solutions to be applied to the Arctic, nor does it seek new platforms for access.

“The goal is to identify one or two compelling system concepts enabled by new technologies and insights gained from the effort,” Coon said. “Compelling system concepts are those that enhance future maritime security in a cost-effective and responsible manner.”

Detail on how to apply at the DARPA link above.