Freezing U.S. out of the Arctic

But the ice pack on the roof of the world is melting, and a surge of economic and foreign military activity is forcing Washington to take a hard look at how to fund polar priorities under an already strained federal budget.

While Russia is building air bases and search-and-rescue facilities in the Arctic and Chinese ships entered U.S. waters off the coast of Alaska, the U.S. lags at least 10 years behind where it needs to be in the Arctic, said Adm. Paul Zukunft, commandant of the Coast Guard.

“Russia is building up capability that may be intended to deny U.S. access into that domain and to extend their base of operations as an offensive force targeting the U.S. using the Arctic as a base to carry out those operations,” Zukunft told the Washington Examiner. “I am concerned, just because of the complete lack of transparency.”

Sen. John McCain, after a trip to the Arctic, penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal and put the threat into stark terms.

“As polar ice melts, Russia is rushing to nationalize and control new waterways across the Arctic Ocean that could open not simply to commercial shipping, but also military and intelligence activities,” the Arizona Republican wrote, saying he visited Scandinavian leaders during the trip. “Officials from each of the countries I visited expressed the same concern: Russia is threatening the security and prosperity of the Arctic and Northern Europe by assertively deploying its military power, patrolling its neighbors’ coastlines both above and below water, and building or reopening numerous military outposts across the region.”

One key to operating effectively in the Arctic is icebreakers, ships that clear the way for others in ice-covered waters. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, likened them to basic infrastructure on land, calling them the “highways of the Arctic.”

President Obama traveled to Alaska and called on Congress to speed the acquisition of icebreakers. (AP Photo)

Russia has 20 to 30 ships with ice breaking capability. Even non-Arctic nations are investing in technology that will allow them to capitalize on the economic and military advantages of traversing the Arctic. China will have at least six icebreakers and India is building its own ship, said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

Analysts widely agree that the U.S. needs at least six icebreakers to be able adequately to carry out its Arctic missions to protect America’s economic interests, conduct life-saving missions as traffic in the region increases and respond to any potential national security threats.

But right now, the icebreaker fleet stands at two: the Healy, a medium icebreaker primarily used for research that cannot punch through the thickest ice, and the Polar Star, a heavy icebreaker commissioned in 1976 that recently was refurbished but has only six to eight years of service left.

“Even six [ships] doesn’t get us into the ball game when you look at what our neighbors to the left of us and off of Alaska have,” Murkowski told the Washington Examiner.

Murkowski said she is used to being the “lonely voice” on the importance of Arctic issues in Congress, but that interest has risen in recent weeks. It began in 2007, when a Russian submersible planted its country’s flag in the seabed at the North Pole. Interest surged this month, when Obama traveled to Alaska and called on Congress to speed the acquisition of icebreakers.

Now, Murkowski said there is no debate among her colleagues that the country needs greater capabilities in the Arctic, especially in the form of icebreakers.

The issue, she said, is how to cover the $1 billion cost per ship when a government shutdown looms, and when there is uncertainty about a possible continuing resolution and slashed budgets for every department under sequestration.

“I haven’t come up against anybody who says ‘why do we need one’? Where you get resistance is, ‘Oh I didn’t realize it was that expensive,'” she said. “It makes people swallow really hard when you say there’s a billion-dollar price tag.”

Will Congress act?

Military bases and airfields in Russia.

There’s long been resistance in Congress to appropriating $1 billion for a new icebreaker, even among members of Congress with interests in the Arctic.

“You’re not going to get the $1 billion from this Congress to build a new icebreaker. That’s simple. You’re not going to get it,” Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, said during a House Transportation Committee hearing last year.

As a result, Murkowski said it’s up to Congress to “be creative” in ways the country could have regular use of an icebreaker without the high price tag or 10 years needed for construction.

“As somebody who is involved with Arctic issues every single day of the year, we can’t wait for 10 years and $1 billion. So I’m pushing to look at other alternatives,” she said.

Brian Slattery, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, said one thing that may spur Congress to action is that the U.S. just took over a two-year stint as chair of the Arctic Council, a group of eight Arctic nations cooperating in the region.

“Hopefully, the news surrounding the U.S. being chair of the Arctic Council will beat the drum on this. And it’s a step in the right direction that the president acknowledged that it’s a necessity that we build up toward [that] ice breaking requirement,” Slattery said. “The Coast Guard presence is not where it needs to be.”

The U.S. will lead this international group until 2017, and the eyes of the world being on the U.S. for this time will hopefully prompt officials in the administration to take action, Murkowski said.

“I think the administration is taking the role that we play a little more seriously because other Arctic nations are looking at us, and not just other Arctic nations, but other nations around the world,” Murkowski said. “They’re looking to see how the U.S. will lead in these areas and it’s tough to lead if you can’t get through the ice.”

Obama this month visited Alaska and became the first sitting president to travel above the Arctic Circle. During the trip, he said he would prioritize getting a new icebreaker by 2020, speeding up the original timeline of 2022.

(AP Photo)

“We think that we should be able to generate some bipartisan support, although it’s going to be a lot easier to do if we are not continuing to labor under the burdens of sequester,” Obama said during a Sept. 2 speech in Seward, Alaska. “These icebreakers are examples of something that we need to get online now. They can’t wait. And I’m looking forward to trying to work with Congress to make that happen.”

Murkowski commended the president for his words, but said he needed to back it up with his budget.

“We’re really looking to the administration, saying OK, you came to Alaska two weeks ago and you said that we need to move forward with ice breaking capacity,” she said. “We appreciate that, but you have to do more than talk. You have to translate to the budget.”

Even though the president’s support and Russia’s growing influence in the region will help push lawmakers to work together, Abbie Tinstad, a physical scientist at Rand Corp., said it probably won’t be enough to get Congress to act when so many other issues are competing for attention and money in a tight budget.

“I think it’ll help, but at least based on my experience, the U.S. has a lot of priorities right now,” she said.

“Oftentimes it takes something happening that hurts people or the economy or something else to really bring things into sharp focus,” she said. “Although I hope that doesn’t happen in the Arctic, if history is any pattern, we often see that essentially when it’s too late, that’s when people start paying attention.”

Options for a new icebreaker

The U.S. has options beyond dropping $1 billion on a American-made icebreaker, though it’s unclear if those options have enough support in Congress.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., sent a letter to the White House in August asking the administration to look at ways the country could use an icebreaker without actually paying to build one, including leasing, contracting and hybrid public-private staffing of ships owned either privately or by the government.

“The goal should not be to build the best federally-owned ship possible, but to meet the federal mission requirements in the most flexible, cost-effective manner for the taxpayers,” Hunter wrote in the letter obtained by the Washington Examiner.

The ice pack on the roof of the world is melting. (AP Photo)

The U.S. could also buy an icebreaker from an international shipbuilding company. Slattery said Scandinavian countries are already producing icebreakers at a lower cost.

Both ideas could face pushback in Congress, however, since leasing an icebreaker or buying one built outside the U.S. would sacrifice both job creation in the U.S. and an injection of cash into a congressional district where the ship could be built, Slattery said.

Another option would be to reactivate Polar Sea, the Coast Guard’s second heavy icebreaker that has been out of commission since 2010, Zukunft said.

Slattery said he doesn’t think that’s a “responsible option.” Polar Sea was gutted for parts to get the Polar Star running, and has been sitting without a crew for five years. It would likely be cost prohibitive to make it seaworthy and even then might be unsafe, Slattery said.

Zukunft said the Coast Guard would have a cost estimate to reactivate the ship by next year, but that the actual costs would likely be much higher.

“It’s like an old car that’s been laid up without an engine in it, an engine that’s been stripped of its parts. It’s not until you really tear into it and what you maybe thought you could do for $100 million is now $200, is now $300, $400,” Zukunft said. “You reach a point where you keep throwing good money after bad. You step back and say, well if it was a car, you should’ve bought a new car instead.”

The U.S. lags at least 10 years behind where it needs to be in the Arctic, Adm. Paul Zukunft said. (AP Photo)

The Coast Guard leader has some of his own ideas about how to pay for a new icebreaker. He suggested leasing land to companies to drill for oil in the Arctic, then using revenue as a down payment, or imposing a tax on something to fund a ship, such as the per-barrel fee on oil.

With the president’s support for a focus on the Arctic, Zukunft said it will ultimately be up to the Office of Management and Budget to find money for a new ice breaker in the president’s next budget request.

He expects the administration to look for a down payment in the Navy’s budget, since neither the Coast Guard nor the National Science Foundation, the two main users, has nowhere near enough money.

“I have an acquisition budget of just over $1 billion to buy everything, so [it’s] clearly not in our base,” he said.

Analysts, however, said the Navy has already made the case to lawmakers that it doesn’t have enough money to execute its 30-year shipbuilding plan, including a replacement for the Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarines that is expected to cost $6 billion per boat.

“The Navy is already suffering from its own shipbuilding funding shortfalls,” Slattery said. “I think politically that would be difficult as well because naval budget is already stretched quite thin.”

The Navy supports the Coast Guard in its mission to recapitalize the icebreaker fleet, but “Congress assigned responsibility for ice breaking to the U.S. Coast Guard,” said Cmdr. William Marks, a Navy spokesman.

The U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy is capable of breaking ice eight feet thick. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

“Appropriately, the USCG is leading the effort to define the specific ice-breaking requirement in support of their mission,” Marks said in a statement. “The Navy supports the USCG in their request for modernization of the ice breaking fleet and strongly recommends all ice breaker procurement authority and appropriations be vested to the USCG.”

The Coast Guard’s two icebreakers will be adequate to meet the Navy’s minimum ice breaking needs in the near term, he said.

Analysts stressed that the government can always find the money if officials deem it a high enough priority.

“Someone is sitting around with a big pile of money,” John Farrell, executive director of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, said at an event held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “An icebreaker is a lot less expensive than the next generation B-2 bombers.”

Moscow’s shadow

Zukunft said he is worried about Russian activity on the roof of the world, especially as Vladimir Putin builds the country’s Arctic capabilities and the U.S. spends on other priorities.

“Russia has been less than transparent in terms of what their intent is in the Arctic, but they’re building installations under the auspices of search and rescue also with a military footprint there as well,” he said.

Russia plans to have 14 operational air fields in the Arctic by the end of 2015, finishing construction on 10 this year in addition to the four already in use, state news agency Sputnik News reported this year. The government is also investing about $123 million to update an old military base in northern Russia, including building new living quarters and infrastructure. It also hosts search-and-rescue facilities there.

Relationships with Russia across the government are strained as the Pentagon just ended a ban on military-to-military communication between the two nations. (AP Photo)

Slattery said recent Russian actions are “unsettling” and their military build up in the Arctic is “revitalizing Cold War-era” thinking.

“Given the context of activities in Russia and Ukraine, it’s troubling to people,” he said. “That might make people consider our presence in the Arctic to be more important in near future.”

But Tinstad said the Arctic, where Russia has traditionally maintained good relationships with international partners, is different from Ukraine. For example, Russia worked through the United Nations to submit its claim to land in the Arctic whereas it simply overran and annexed the Crimean peninsula with armed rebels in a land grab last year.

Zukunft will speak with his Russian counterpart during the first meeting of the Arctic Coast Guard forum in October. The forum, which includes Coast Guard representatives from all eight Arctic nations, seeks to establish what role coast guards around the world need to play in the Arctic.

“This is one area that we’re still able to have meaningful dialogue as it pertains to the Arctic,” Zukunft said. “I think that will be the big collaborative effort that we have as we look at maritime activity in the Arctic, not necessarily from navies but from coast guards and to do it in a collaborative fashion.”

Relationships with Russia across the government are strained as the Pentagon just ended a ban on military-to-military communication between the two countries in September over escalating conflict in Syria.

McCain, in his op-ed, said the U.S. must do more than build icebreakers. The country must end defense spending caps, he wrote, while NATO members should increase defense spending and build “missile defense, aerial refueling and unmanned aerial vehicles.”

“Moscow is waging a Cold War updated for the 21st century, employing modern military tactics and weapons systems, conducting sophisticated information-warfare operations and using advanced cyber and space capabilities. It is not that the U.S. and our allies are doing nothing in response to this new Russian threat, but nothing we are doing has been successful in establishing deterrence.

“The U.S. must encourage greater security cooperation, robust military exchanges and exercises, and improved intelligence capabilities to deter Vladimir Putin’s quest for a new form of Russian empire.”

This article appears in the Sept. 28 edition of the Washington Examiner magazine.