Making Waves: Looking Beyond Today’s Illusory ‘Icebreaker Gap’ and Troubled PSC Program to a Cheap, Quiet, and Plentiful Polar Sub Fleet for Tomorrow
News headlines flashed red and bated Beltway breaths were anxiously held as China deployed its (dubiously) menacing armada of five icebreakers – the Xue Long 2, Tan Suo San Hao, Zhongshandaxue Ji Di, Ji Di, and Shen Hai Yi Hao – into America’s extended continental shelf (ECS) in August. Ever ready for the moment (Semper Paratus, Latin for “always prepared,” after all is its motto!) the United States Coast Guard proudly deployed its newest icebreaker – alongside its medium polar icebreaker Healy and a cutter – the reconditioned Storis, whose new name is Old Norse for “large ice,” even though this newest member of America’s icebreaker fleet is most famous for being swamped on its maiden voyage to Alaska in 2012 as the (formerly) private vessel Aiviq.
With a history this inglorious, the misguided top brass at U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) headquarters – after sinking $2 billion into the much delayed and much over budget Polar Security Cutter (PSC) program (built upon the 2012 launch of a USCG heavy polar icebreaker acquisition program and 2016 establishment of an integrated program office with the Navy) aiming to “Build Back Better” a new fleet of American-made icebreakers but spending more than an Ohio-class nuclear sub costs with (so far) nothing to show for this mini-Manhattan Project of American innovation other than a deepening pool of red ink – decided to buy the controversial Aiviq and refurbish it, design flaws and all, as a quick fix to its growing PR problem. In their self-perceived view, America, the sovereign power that has possessed Alaska for almost 160 years, somehow has an inadequate “Arctic presence” and is so desperate to remedy this (mis)perception that even an ill-designed icebreaker with a dubious haunted history will do.
The Aiviq is not just any icebreaker. It may well be the worst icebreaker for the job. A ProPublica investigation found the Aiviq was already infamous for its “troubled history.” This starts with its “maiden voyage to Alaska” that “ended in a rescue at sea and a Coast Guard investigation,” and includes an “influential donor” who “has made more than $7 million in political contributions since 2012” during which they “sought to sell or lease the ship.” And it culminates in the “Coast Guard’s $125 million purchase of the Aiviq, made under congressional pressure” that followed “the service’s failure to get its preferred, $1 billion model built.” Asks ProPublica, “So how would the U.S. Coast Guard use the Aiviq beyond flag-waving and general presence in the near Arctic? According to [Lawson W.] Brigham, the former icebreaker captain and polar-shipping expert, ‘No one that I know, no study that I’ve seen, no one I’ve talked to really knows.’”
As Malte Humpert reported last year in High North News, “The U.S. Polar Security Cutter program continues to face headwinds. Five years after signing a construction contract, the vessel continues to exist only on the drawing board, with the design still waiting to be finalized. Delivery will now occur no earlier than 2029.” With Beijing’s choreographed deployment of five icebreakers to polar waters America claims as part of its ECS, it is both ironic and potentially tragic that our leaders have embraced the controversial Storis for our collective salvation. Humpert more recently reported in the pages of gCaptain, citing Australian military scholar Elizabeth Buchanan, that: “The U.S. might be an Arctic nation but decades of taking their eye off the prize are coming home to roost – and the next decade is certainly not going to be smooth sailing in the contested maritime domain. No matter the policy commitment, Washington simply can’t magic capability overnight.” But rather than throw two billion dollars at the Polar Security Cutter (PSC) program, or even $125 million for the Storis, there are other paths to a more secure Arctic and a more robust, meaningful, and sustained American Arctic presence.
Since its inception, I have instead proposed that America abandon the money pit of the PSC program altogether. Instead, create a new class of “cheap and quiet” diesel-electric submarines, modeled on and inspired by Sweden’s Stirling engine (a quiet and enduring air-independent propulsion (AIP) system) powered Gotland-class subs that have run circles around our own carrier strike groups (CSGs) in allied training missions and war games during which the Swedes’ feisty $100 million diesel-electric sub easily dispatched a $6 billion aircraft carrier.
I dub these new, nimble budget-friendly vessels “Hickel-class” subs in tribute to Wally Hickel, the famed two-term Alaska Governor and former Secretary of the Interior in President Nixon’s cabinet, who famously promoted resource-rich Alaska as part of the global commons. Sweden’s more robust Blekinge-class submarine, still in development, and the next generation to follow the Gotland-class, sports a heftier price tag (already north of $600 million each, and likely to end up over $800 million) but with extended subsurface endurance makes an attractive alternative model – particularly if the price tag for this now much-delayed sub (the first of which is not expected to be launched before 2029) could be driven down at scale. Japanese Sōryū-class AIP subs, at about $500 million each, could also offer a reasonable compromise – with an impressive 40-day subsurface endurance capability, more than twice that of its Swedish counterpart.
Why settle for surface tracking and monitoring icebreakers the way America does now, and the way the Russians did when America sent the Healy two years ago through the Laptev Sea just north of the coastal shipping lanes of the Northern Sea Route, en route to Tromso, Norway, on a science mission that Russia closely tracked but otherwise did nothing to obstruct? Why be content with the misguided rivalry of the current icebreaker gap, reminiscent in all the worst ways of the (John F.) Kennedy-era “missile gap,” which was predicated on a misperception (or outright fabrication) that the Russians were ahead of America in intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and which led to an expensive and dangerous proliferation of strategic nuclear weapons and their launching platforms – putting the world on a brittle hair-trigger one mistake away from World War III and, potentially, human extinction?
The icebreaker gap and the current race to restore balance in Arctic presence may not be nearly as dangerous as that was, and will likely never be as expensive or wasteful either. Icebreakers, as everyone acknowledges, are refreshingly dual use, of value not just for sovereign assertion and polar presence but a wide range of practical endeavors such as SAR, intel gathering, and science missions. But given the widening PSC hole into which the American taxpayer has already tossed $2 billion with nothing to show for it, enough to purchase a strategic nuclear sub with the capacity to not only deter aggression against America but to end the sovereign existence of any foe unwise enough to challenge America militarily, the program’s capacity to waste money is already sadly well established.
Adding further doubt to the wisdom of investing any further funds is the dubious nature of the mission for which the PSC program was conceived: asserting an Arctic presence. That’s because America owns Alaska, and the country that sold Alaska to the USA, Russia, has long acknowledged our sovereign possession. It was no coincidence that President Trump’s peace summit with Russian President Putin was hosted there, on an American military base, with American air supremacy on full display. America not only owns Alaska, but Russia fully endorses our ownership of its former Russian-American Company colony. Full stop.
And yes, China can now deploy (as it recently did) a flotilla of five icebreakers into America’s ECS adjacent to Alaska. But this is not the first time Beijing has deployed a flotilla to Alaskan waters. During President Obama’s symbolic visit to the 49th state in 2015, Beijing choreographed another five-ship flotilla, this one comprised of warships, which were dispatched to the Aleutian Islands just in time for the President’s arrival in Nome. Five is definitely Beijing’s go-to number for dramatic flotillas. And while impressive, it’s not that impressive. Five, because Beijing lacks ten assets to deploy at once. Five compares modestly to Russia’s more robust 40. (It’s important to recall that Russia’s vast, 2-million square mile Arctic region greatly dwarves America’s own 663,000 square miles of Arctic, which itself infinitely exceeds China’s zero square miles of Arctic territory.)
If America had such a fleet of inexpensive Hickel-class subs, ideal for the noisy, ice-choked waters of the region, to assert our sovereign maritime Arctic presence on or beneath the surface, we could easily – and stealthily – track Beijing’s flotilla every inch of its journey. Its dual-use advantages would also multiply beyond surface research and diplomatic displays of Arctic maritime presence to include subsurface research as well as a wide variety of search and rescue (SAR) and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) missions. And if war ever did break out, these scrappy little subs could readily sink a rival icebreaker fleet (as well as a well-protected carrier strike group) from below without incriminating fingerprints, the sort of “dual use” America might really need one day.
America could, for the same amount of money wasted on our much over-budget and long-delayed PSC program (which, as noted, has yet to yield a single PSC), instead own 20 Hickel-class subs at a thrifty $100 million per. Instead of an IOU for a future heavy icebreaker that may or may not meet the promises of its ambitious marketing materials, America would instead have a fleet of useful dual-use polar subs with diverse mission potential, and a more muscular capacity to not just demonstrate presence but deter aggression. That’s money better spent.
But America can be stubborn when it sets its attention on something, and building upon the Biden-era “ICE Pact” designed “to advance polar icebreaker development,” just last week (on October 9th) President Trump and Finland’s President Alexander Stubb and PM Petteri Orpo signed a $6.1 billion MOU to partner on fast-tracking constructing up to 11 new medium icebreakers (known as “Arctic Security Cutters” (ASPs), in contrast to the heavier and pricier PSCs), four to be built in Finland, and seven more to be built in America. It remains to be seen whether this $6 billion price tag remains on target, or balloons the way the PSC program has. But the important question that remains unasked is this: Does America really urgently need an expanded icebreaker fleet?
Some much needed and welcome wisdom can be found up north across the 49th parallel, from which we can find helpful guidance to slow or even stop America’s present-day icebreaker madness. As CBC’s senior defense writer Murray Brewster has reported, a “former top naval commander and several defence experts have been left scratching their heads following the … recent embrace of the notion of giving the Royal Canadian Navy heavy, armed icebreakers to defend the Arctic.” Brewster added: “Retired vice-admiral Mark Norman told CBC News the decision to build more icebreakers seems more political than practical. … ‘I’m puzzled, because I don’t know what it is we’re trying to achieve other than the political objective of demonstrating a commitment to Arctic sovereignty.” Brewster also cites Canadian Arctic security expert Rob Huebert of the University of Calgary, who suggested instead that “Canada would be better served by investing in under-ice capable submarines. ‘If you are actually in a shooting conflict, you’re going to find out where the icebreaker is right away,’ said Huebert. ‘If you’re going to be putting money into something, put it into a submarine and give it some form of perhaps anti-missile capability.’”
As Craig Hooper, another PSC program critic, has observed in Forbes: “Over the past several months, America’s approach to Polar security has been a perplexing mix of future commitments coupled with tough, near-term pull-backs” and, “[d]espite a lot of White House attention, America’s icebreaking fleet remains in a shambles.” Unfortunately, America’s icebreaker shipbuilding effort is offering more pomp than product.” What America really needs to dominate our warmer, faster paced world is not $2 billion of taxpayer funded “pomp,” but instead a new fleet of cheap (relative to our overpriced and as yet undelivered Polar and Artic Security Cutters), quiet and impressively stealthy subs; swarms of far, far cheaper and more readily scalable long-range drones and a necklace of drone bases on Alaska’s vast coastal and insular territories; and inexpensive Arctic offshore patrol vessels (AOPVs) to secure the always shifting interface between blue water and the ice edge (preferably without the cost overruns and mechanical problems that have plagued Canada’s controversial AOPV program.)
Arctic security expert Jeremy McKenzie has also shined an unflattering light on the troubled PSC program: “I have long felt the USCG is focused on icebreakers at the cost of other much needed Federal investments in the Arctic … Instead, we have focused on a large and vulnerable shiny new command that has absorbed an incredible amount of the available resources and attention.” (McKenzie further refines his refreshing critique of the misguided PSC program in this thoughtful analysis on West Point’s Modern War Institute blog.)
It’s time, I believe, for America to truly Build Back Better (as former President Biden aptly described, building upon the foundation established during the first Trump administration). One might add, budget-wise too –not following down the rabbit hole of hype and hysteria associated with the illogical and largely illusory icebreaker gap.
Russia may well need 40 icebreakers to keep its Northern Sea Route open for business. Canada may in time need that many – if Ottawa ever decides to open its own circuitous, shallow, and largely uncharted Northwest Passage (still a big if). And while China has done diplomatic wonders with its flotilla of five icebreakers in American polar waters, this is mostly smoke and mirrors, as China has no Arctic territory at all, so its feisty flotilla is Beijing’s Arctic presence. And as I explained above: America is the undisputed sovereign of Alaska, and need not counter Beijing’s flotilla with our own. From Alaska’s southeast archipelago to the dateline crossing the Aleutian Islands chain, to the infrastructure-rich North Slope (and a deep-water port forthcoming in the south Seward Peninsula community of Nome), America has plenty of Arctic presence.
If Washington seeks to assert a more mobile and persistent maritime presence off Alaska’s shores, a fleet of my proposed Hickel-class subs could keep the Chinese, or any polar interloper, for that matter, in line. Indeed, whether in time we face off against China and/or Russia as many fear, or Greenland and/or Canada as I imagine to be more likely at present, or just against retreating polar ice and rising polar seas as is in fact most probable, it remains imperative that America fulfill the vision of William H. Seward first articulated in his September 14, 1853 Destiny of America speech calling for America to become a polar power, and in so doing to ascend to the pinnacle of global power (172 years ago to the day this article was written).
On our important and ongoing polar journey, America can and indeed must do a better job understanding the Arctic and its place in our warming and increasingly dynamic world – and more smartly defending our corner of it.
