Russia’s Dominant Icebreaker Fleet Highlights US Arctic Shortcomings

The United States only has three similar ships to ply the waters of the north pole operated by the Coast Guard. Only one of these U.S. vessels is a heavy Polar-class icebreaker, the Polar Star; Russia has seven of them.

Eight of Russia’s icebreakers are nuclear powered. No other country has nuke icebreakers. That is a huge gap. And one that President Trump wants to close—fast.

This is especially true considering the strategic importance of the Arctic both for U.S. nuclear defense and vital undersea resources such as oil, gas and rare earth minerals increasingly vital for high tech industries and electronics.

Russia, along with its ally China, could seize de facto control of Arctic resources and strategic positioning before the U.S.

This is why I’ve written about this several times over the past few years.

It is also why Trump has suggested another ambitious national project: building a huge new fleet of icebreakers in the Arctic. As he said at a press briefing in North Carolina, he wants: “Forty Coast Guard big icebreakers. Big ones.”

And while that large a number of icebreakers is likely unrealistic, Congress should still listen.

The U.S. is currently struggling to finish building just the first of three new heavy icebreakers (or Polar Security Cutters). The lead ship, Polar Sentinel, will be delivered years behind schedule, likely in 2030 or later.

Even as the Arctic warms, and the Polar ice melts, icebreakers are critical for civilian and naval vessels to traverse the region, particularly in winter months.

Popular Mechanics explains: “Icebreakers are built with specially shaped reinforced hulls and high-power engines needed to smash through pack ice and push it aside, creating corridors through which other ships can transit.”

U.S. NATO allies, including Canada, have over a dozen polar icebreakers among them, which could assist the U.S. in time of crisis, but the U.S. needs more of its own.

After the overdue retirement of Polar Star’s sister ship, Polar Sea, the Coast Guard concluded it need up to five heavy Polar icebreakers and 4–5 medium ones.

As Pop Mech adds:

Without assistance from icebreakers, ordinary ships can only access Arctic areas during a couple summer months each year. In event of future conflicts with Russia, this lack of icebreakers could constrain the Pentagon’s ability to send troops and heavy equipment to shore up ground forces in Alaska, currently home to the Army’s 11th Airborne Division, which relies on helicopters and cold-weather all-terrain vehicles for mobility.

While defending Alaska is intrinsically important (particularly as it’s the base of the U.S.’s missile defenses against strategic nuclear missiles), there are broader motivations. Due to global warming, melting Arctic ice is opening new areas around the North Pole for potential exploitation of minerals and oil or for more efficient transit of cargoes across the globe—if ships can access them with assistance from icebreakers.

As I also wrote previously, Trump’s icebreaker fascination is related to his strong and valid interest in expanding U.S. territory in Canada and Greenland.

However, quickly building up a domestically produced icebreaker fleet is almost impossible now, due in part to the massive deficit in U.S. ship-building capacity, and the lost art of U.S. icebreaker construction.

This is why the U.S. must leverage the expertise and shipbuilding capacity of its allies such as Canada, Finland, Iceland and South Korea, to close the icebreaker gap.

In that vein, the U.S., Finland and Canada agreed last year to collaborate building icebreakers.

However, that was before Trump was elected, and he has threatened massive tariffs on Canadian trade and expressed a desire to use “economic force” to annex Canada.

“So,” notes Pop Mech, “breaking the ice for long-term ship-building deals in a northerly direction could prove tricky.”

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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