Despite the growing importance of the Arctic, the U.S. continues to move further away from a sustainable operating plan.
The USCGC Healy broke down during sea trials, and the Polar Star is undergoing its own refit, which leaves the U.S. with one operational icebreaker. Clearly there is a hole in U.S. Arctic strategy, and attempting to plug it with the goodwill of Canada and Finland (given strained relations) might leave the U.S without a long-term solution.
Hey, everybody. Good morning from Colorado. This is Peter Zeihan. Today we’re going to talk about how the American Arctic strategy collapsed over the weekend. The United States only has a small Icebreaker fleet. And the biggest of them, the Healy, was undergoing high speed trials after a repair cycle, and the engines crapped out. The crankshaft broke.
There was a bit of a fire and it basically stalled out and had to be towed back to port. We don’t know how long it’s going to take to get it back into operation, but it will be at least the remainder of this year. And this is after a series of other mishaps that involved an engine room fire and a transformer fire.
The ship has not been doing well since it came on line 20 years ago. Second, you got the Polar Star, which is over 50 years old, and its only job is to run supply runs to Antarctica to supply Fort McMurdo, McMurdo base, if you prefer. That’s it’s only job and it is now completed that most recent cycle and has begun its own refit.
That just leaves a ship called The Stories. Now, Coast Guard vessels are in that gray area there. It’s a middle branch of the military, but the ships are kind of a civilian military hybrid, oftentimes not for the stores. The stores is a flat out civilian vessel in construction. It’s an oil tug that’s been converted. And it is now the only ship the United States has. It’s an icebreaker. Whether you’re looking at global warming and new routes, whether you’re looking at competition with the Russians or the Chinese, this is basically bad because the United States no longer even has a ship in the game. And the backup plan, while wise under normal circumstances, probably isn’t going to work out. You see, under the Biden and later Trump administration’s Trump to the United States basically signed a series of agreements with the Canadians of the Finns to build icebreakers for.
You see, we don’t even have a shipyard that can build them anymore. And that would be great, especially now that Finland and NATO. But the two countries that the Trump administration has threatened most directly and most repeatedly are Canada. Canada is not going to help us build an icebreaker fleet that could then circumvent Canadian power in the Arctic.
And then there’s Denmark. You know, the whole Greenland thing. Finland is a very tight ally of Denmark. And if the United States seizes Greenland, we can basically kiss the entire Scandinavian block a goodbye. So basically, we are looking at a period for at least the next 30 years. We, the United States, does not have a military presence on the waters in the Arctic.
Whenever there’s ice, we can still sail up there. In the summer, we can still use air power, which is of limited use on the water. But other than that, we’re looking at the United States not even having a tool in the box. And at a time where the world is in churn, to not even be able to play is a real problem.
And this is something that will resonate well, well throughout the remainder of this century. So, you know. UGG.
