Center for a New American Security

On Wednesday, several of us from CNAS had an opportunity to visit the Coast Guard’s 154ft Bernard C. Webber Fast Response Cutter (FRC), the first of the newest Sentinel class FRCs that are slated to replace the aging 110ft Island Class cutters. This new variant will serve to fill an endurance gap in the Coast Guard’s current patrol boat fleet by being able to perform near the coast or to deploy up to five days out at sea to conduct its missions. The missions set is diverse and includes marine environmental protection, fishery patrols, search and rescue, as well as law enforcement functions, such drug, arms and illegal migrant interdiction.

One of the key differences between the 110ft and 154ft Fast Response Cutters is the time and effort to deploy the small boats from the cutters, which is really a core function of the FRC – that is, deploying a boarding crew to perform the missions listed above. Whereas a 110ft cutter has to deploy the small boat from the deck of the cutter using a crane and many members of the crew, the 154ft cutter employs a stern-launching system where the small boat sits in a well at the stern of the ship and can be deployed by a single crew member if necessary. What is more, where the 110s took up to 20 minutes to deploy the small boats, the 154s are capable of doing it in less than a minute. This will save lives when the cutter is deployed in a search and rescue mission at sea or after a severe storm near the coast.

Special thanks to our Coast Guard Fellow Commander Shannon Gilreath for arranging this awesome visit.

Photo: The Coast Guard Cutter Bernard C. Webber off the coast of Miami in February 2012. Courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard. 

The U.S. Navy does not have the assets it needs to conduct long-term Arctic maritime operations and will have to increasingly rely on the U.S. Coast Guard or international partners in order to accomplish its missions, according to a Sunday report in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

According to the report, the U.S. Navy asked the U.S. Naval War College to conduct a war game in September 2011 to explore what the U.S. Navy would need to execute long-term missions in the High North. “We looked at search and rescue, oil spill response, maritime domain and maritime safety and security issues," Walter Berbrick, assistant research professor in the War Gaming Department at the Center for Naval Warfare Studies, told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. “They were all fictional scenarios.”

The war game’s conclusions, according to the report, may suggest looming challenges for America’s ability to project power and protect its interests in the Arctic. According to the report:

[T]he Navy is not adequately prepared to conduct long-term maritime Arctic operations; Arctic weather conditions increase the risk of failure; and most critically, to operate in the Arctic, the Navy will need to lean on the U.S. Coast Guard, countries like Russia or Canada, or tribal and industrial partners.

 

To sustain operations in the Arctic, the Navy needs ice-capable equipment, accurate and timely environmental data, personnel trained to operate in extreme weather, and better communications systems. Much of the environmental data will come from other Arctic nations.

The report particularly notes the U.S. Navy’s lack of ice-capable ships. “We have limited capability to sustain long-term operations in the Arctic due to inadequate icebreaking capability," Berbrick told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. "The Navy finds itself entering a new realm as it relates to having to rely on other nations." Interestingly, the report also notes that the Navy (in large part because of its lack of ice-capable ships) will increasingly work with the U.S. Coast Guard, which has had a greater presence in the region as of late. Yet the U.S. Coast Guard’s missions in the Arctic are also undermined by its inadequate icebreaking capability – although there is renewed interest in expanding the U.S. Coast Guard’s icebreaking fleet, which now consists of one active and two inactive vessels.

Two years ago today the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil drilling rig experienced a catastrophic explosion off the Louisiana coast that destroyed the rig, killed 11 people and poured an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, demanding an unprecedented response from the U.S. Coast Guard and other local, state and federal agencies. The long-term environmental impacts and effects on coastal residents and the rest of the region are still not well understood.

Photo: Fire boats respond to the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 21, 2010.  Courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard. 

A new report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) outlines for Congress the key issues around modernizing the Coast Guard’s icebreaker fleet. According to the author Ronald O’Rourke:

Potential issues for Congress regarding Coast Guard polar icebreaker modernization include the potential impact on U.S. polar missions of the United States currently having no operational heavy polar icebreakers; the numbers and capabilities of polar icebreakers the Coast Guard will need in the future; the disposition of Polar Sea following its decommissioning; whether the new polar icebreaker initiated in the FY23013 [sic] budget should be funded with incremental funding (as proposed in the Coast Guard’s Five Year Capital Investment Plan) or full funding in a single year, as required under the executive branch’s full funding policy; whether new polar icebreakers should be funded entirely in the Coast Guard budget, or partly or entirely in some other part of the federal budget, such as the Department of Defense (DOD) budget, the National Science Foundation (NSF) budget, or both; whether to provide future icebreaking capability through construction of new ships or service life extensions of existing polar icebreakers; and whether future polar icebreakers should be acquired through a traditional acquisition or a leasing arrangement.

The report comes on the heels of a recent request from the Coast Guard for $8 million dollars for Fiscal Year 2013 to begin the acquisitions process for a new polar-class icebreaker that the Coast Guard says it needs to perform its critical missions in the Arctic and to protect U.S. interests broadly across the region. “The $8 million request is less than 1 percent of the $860 million being asked for icebreaker acquisition in the Department of Homeland Security’s five-year budget projection,” according to a recent report from The Navy Times. “Neither of the U.S.’s two heavy-duty Polar-class icebreakers is in service. The Polar Star is awaiting a $57 million upgrade set to be finished in December. Its sister ship, Polar Sea, has been docked in Seattle since 2010 with engine issues. The medium-duty polar icebreaker Healy is designed for research and cannot cut through the thickest ice.”

To read the full CRS report, click here. 

The U.S. Coast Guard gave quiet attention to the Arctic this week. In preparation for its largest-ever deployment to the Arctic region this summer, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut hosted a two-day conference on emerging security challenges in the High North. “The time for shaping and implementing Arctic policy is now,” said Coast Guard Commander Russ Bowman, a co-chair of the Arctic conference.

Photo: In Juneau, Alaska, a U.S. Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules airplane sits on the deck at the Alaska Army National Guard hangar after providing overflight support off the Alaskan coast. Courtesy of Petty Officer 1^st Class Sara Francis and the U.S. Coast Guard.

A new report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) finds that the build-up of Arctic military capabilities is limited, with few indications that conflict is looming. According to the study, all five Arctic states – Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States – have increased their military capabilities in the Arctic in recent years in response to growing accessibly to the region owed largely to climate change.

Some of the increased military activity is likely a response to the changing geostrategic environment that will make military capabilities increasingly important for power projection that states need to maintain in order to secure access to lucrative natural resources and other national interests. According to the SIPRI study, for example, “Russia’s Arctic policy underlines the importance of the Arctic as a principal source of natural resources by 2020,” and “Denmark’s defence policy underlines the changing geostrategic significance of the Arctic.”

Despite the increased deployment of military assets, Arctic states are continuing to pursue new avenues of cooperation, mollifying concerns – at least for the time being – that tensions will worsen as the region becomes more accessible. Last year, the Arctic Council – an intergovernmental forum for Arctic states to address challenges in the High North – hosted a high-level forum that led to an agreement for countries in the region to increase search-and-rescue cooperation given the growing concerns surrounding increased eco-tourism and commercial shipping that could portend future law enforcement challenges. Some states’ newly deployed military assets are intended for search-and-rescue purposes, according to the SIPRI study. Canada, for example, will replace older C-130s and other aging aircraft with 17 new search-and-rescue aircraft in the next several years.

Debate over ratifying the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is ramping up in Washington. There has been a lot of attention given to how the treaty can help the United States secure its interests in places like the Arctic and the South China Sea – and rightly so given that challenges to U.S. maritime interests in these regions have serious implications for American security and its global leadership role. Yet other regions also exemplify the central role that UNCLOS ratification will play in securing U.S. interests at sea, including just off the U.S. coast.

As the U.S. Gulf Coast continues to reel from the devastating months-long oil spill that plagued the region in 2010, the United States is likely to be hamstrung in managing future disasters unless it ratifies UNCLOS. Offshore oil drilling in non-U.S. waters is a particular worry for U.S. officials – including the Coast Guard. Recent activities along Cuba’s continental shelf have exacerbated concerns that an oil spill akin to the Deepwater Horizon incident could impact an area of the U.S. coastline that stretches from eastern Florida to North Carolina’s outer banks. Reports suggest that Cuba’s capacity to respond to a major oil spill is minuscule, with only five percent of the assets needed to respond to an accident. Given that Washington does not maintain official diplomatic ties with Havana, it is unclear how the United States and Cuba would cooperate around an oil spill that could have economic and environmental implications for U.S. coastal communities.

U.S. policymakers and military officials are giving the Arctic some more attention.

On Saturday, The Navy Times reported on the Coast Guard’s request to Congress to purchase a new heavy-icebreaker to bolster the U.S. presence in the Arctic. “Rising global temperatures and melting sea ice are opening the Arctic as a new frontier for research, travel and oil drilling — and creating more area for the Coast Guard to patrol,” the report said. “To keep up, the Coast Guard is asking for $8 million in the fiscal 2013 budget to begin procurement of a new large icebreaker.” The total cost of the icebreaker is projected around $860 million. The initial $8 million is to, as the report notes, get the procurement process started.

The U.S. Coast Guard currently lacks the icebreaking capability it needs to secure U.S. interests in the Arctic. “Neither of the U.S.’s two heavy-duty Polar-class icebreakers is in service. The Polar Star is awaiting a $57 million upgrade set to be finished in December. Its sister ship, Polar Sea, has been docked in Seattle since 2010 with engine issues,” The Navy Times said. “The medium-duty polar icebreaker Healy is designed for research and cannot cut through the thickest ice.”

For those of you who have not been following the national security or defense journals recently, the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings published in its February 2012 edition a great article by U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) Commandant Admiral Robert J. Papp Jr. on the Arctic, paving the way – I hope – for a national level discussion on U.S. interests and goals in the High North.

“The Arctic region—the Barents, Beaufort, and Chukchi seas and the Arctic Ocean—is the emerging maritime frontier, vital to our national interests, economy and security,” Admiral Papp writes. “The difference [between the Arctic and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans] is that in the rest of the maritime domain, we have an established presence of shore-based forces, small boats, cutters, and aircraft supported by permanent infrastructure and significant operating experience. Although the Coast Guard has operated in southern Alaska, the Gulf of Alaska, and Bering Sea for much of our history, in the higher latitudes we have little infrastructure and limited operating experience, other than icebreaking.”

Admiral Papp describes the U.S. Coast Guard’s responsibilities in the Arctic and, by doing so, lays out how the Coast Guard should be prepared to lead. “Our first challenge is simply to better understand the Arctic operating environment and its risks, including knowing which Coast Guard capabilities and operations will be needed to meet our mission requirements,” Admiral Papp states. This includes addressing the lack of USCG infrastructure that can support shore-based operations, as well as “ensuring that Coast Guard men and women have the policy, doctrine, and training to operate safely and effectively in the northern Arctic region.” In addition, the Coast Guard is “working closely with other key federal partners to lead the interagency effort in the Arctic,” leveraging its experience with “speaking the interagency language” and success with engaging the range of public and private stakeholders active in the Arctic, from local tribes to corporate adventurers.

Last Friday I pointed out that the U.S. Coast Guard Healy helped the Russian tanker Renda deliver 1.3 million gallons of fuel to Nome, Alaska.

It may sound like a normal mission for the Coast Guard, but I’m assured there’s nothing normal about traveling through the ice-covered Arctic in the middle of winter. I think there is a tendency to forget that icebreakers perform a crucial mission in the Arctic, during relatively ice-free summers or in the dead of winter. In this particular instance, the Coast Guard was helping assure delivery of fuel to the Alaskan town. According to a U.S. Coast Guard news release, “The [fuel] delivery was necessary due to an early winter storm that prevented a scheduled fuel resupply to the city [Nome].”

In a meeting I had last week, an official painted a vivid picture for me about the importance of an icebreaker and what this niche capability actually gives the United States. The USCG Healy began escorting the Renda out of Nome on January 20, 2012 for the nearly 400 mile journey across the frozen Bering Sea. According to this official, as the Healy was breaking through the ice, the Bering Sea continued to freeze over, extending its frozen reach. I thought this was an interesting point and one that certainty points to the importance of icebreakers in helping commercial vessels plow through the ice, if for nothing else but to avoid a Sisyphusian-like situation that traps commercial vessels in an endless sea of ice.  On Monday, after 10 days of icebreaking, both the Healy and Renda reached ice-free waters and have parted ways. The Healy has returned to its homeport, Seattle.

Icebreakers perform a critical function. U.S. policymakers need to have an honest conversation about what the U.S. mission needs to be in the Arctic and then decide what resources it needs to support that mission. Having an understanding about the role U.S. icebreakers perform in the Arctic should help get the conversation going.

Photo: The Healy breaks through ice on its journey to Nome, Alaska. Courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard.