Center for a New American Security

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. 

This weekend’s news highlighted several ongoing territorial disputes across the Indo-Pacific region, from resource-rich Kashmir to the potentially hydrocarbon-rich South China Sea.

On the far West of the Indo-Pacific, The New York Times published a report on Sunday drawing attention to the Siachen Glacier and the intractable territorial dispute between Indian and Pakistan over Kashmir. The report comes on the heels of an avalanche last week that buried 138 Pakistani soldiers and civilians. “In outposts up to 22,000 feet above sea level, the temperature can plunge to 58 below, and linger there for months,” The New York Times reported. “Patrolling soldiers tumble into yawning crevasses. Frostbite chews through unprotected flesh. Blizzards blow, weapons seize up and even simple body functions become intolerable.” Indeed, what makes the Siachen Glacier noteworthy is not that it is the world’s highest battlefield, per se – it is that the conflict there is more a fight “against the mountain, not the man,” The New York Times reported.

This is a new feature to highlight the top tweets of the week to hit my Twitter feed (@wmrogers). The list is completely subjective, of course, but I hope it is helpful to readers interested in following natural security news a little bit closer.

From Reuters’ @alertnetclimate: “Private funding for humanitarian response on the rise, as government budgets squeezed - report ow.ly/aeinB #aid#disasters.”

This is an interesting story to follow given the potential increase in demand for governments to support humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions due to climate-related and other natural disasters. Institutions like the U.S. military may be called on to support HA/DR missions in order to help dampen the impact of these natural disasters, which can have knock-on effects for security and stability.

From The Hill’s Energy and Environment Blog @E2Wire: “News bites: Study questions natural gas climate benefits, pump prices may have peaked, and morebit.ly/IrIEVM.”

The Hill’s Energy and Environment Blog links to a Wall Street Journal report on a new study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that challenges that assumption the natural gas reduces greenhouse gas emissions compared to other fossil fuels. The study notesthat methane (CH4) leakages throughout the lifecycle production process could offset the greenhouse gas benefits. The study is very important given the recent attention to natural gas production in the United States, largely from shale rock.

Saleem Ali of the University of Vermont and author of Treasures of the Earth: Need, Greed and a Sustainable Future had a terrific piece in National Geographic Magazine on April 7 exploring the opportunities to transform the Siachen Glacier – the world’s highest battlefield – into an environmental peace park that could pay significant dividends for stability between Pakistan and India. Here is an excerpt of his article:

The death of over a hundred Pakistani soldiers due to an avalanche on April 7 has brought forth the forgotten frozen frontiers of Siachen in the news cycle. This is the world’s highest battlefield where more die of hypothermia than of battle wounds and yet no end is in sight for this senseless conflict. Seven years ago, I wrote an article for India’s Sanctuary Asia magazine on how to quell this conflict using ecological approaches. This was a very practical solution modeled after the Antarctic treaty, which erstwhile adversaries such as the United States and the Soviet Union signed at the height of the Cold War. As the world’s longest non-polar glacier, Siachen has particular importance for science and since this region is not habitable by humans, there is little value in terms of useful real-estate. In the age of military drones and cyber warfare, coupled with a massive nuclear deterrent, the strategic value of Siachen is also very limited. This is the most hostile border to cross and is clearly not on the priority list for terrorist infiltration! Contrary to popular opinion in both India and Pakistan, incursions such as the Kargil episode also have no connection to strategic advantage over Siachen. Even if troop deployments now extend across the full range, such deployments are malleable and the cooperative monitoring system proposed in various peace plans could easily assuage concerns of security on both sides.

President Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon met earlier this week at the White House and held a joint press conference in the Rose Garden on April 2, 2012. The three leaders discussed new avenues for multilateral cooperation, including advancing clean energy technology and combating climate change.

Photo: Courtesy of Chuck Kennedy and the White House.

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.

The Indonesian government retreated from a planned increase in government-subsidized fuel prices on Saturday due to widespread protests that caused the government coalition that initially backed the plan to fracture. Indonesians have long enjoyed subsidized fuel prices, with gasoline prices at about US$2 a gallon. More than 10,000 demonstrators gathered around parliament to protest the legislation during parliamentary debate, with police reportedly firing tear gas and using water cannons to disperse the crowd.

Failing to increase fuel prices could potentially have a wide political reach as the Indonesian government struggles to rein in a ballooning budget that could stall the country’s economic growth. “The subsidies accounted for 20 per cent of government total spending last year, and analysts have said that cutting is needed if the government wants to limit its deficit and make room for investing in long-term growth projects,” The Financial Times reported on Saturday. “The country's fuel-subsidy bill has ballooned to more than $15 billion a year and could climb to close to $30 billion as global oil prices have been rising this year,” The Wall Street Journal added on Sunday. “The amount of money Indonesia spends to keep petroleum prices low is more than 15% of the country's budget and more than it spends on its military or its infrastructure.” What is more, the failure to pass the legislation could portend a difficult political future for Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. According to The Wall Street Journal, “His inability to control his coalition and get the original plan passed could not only trigger a bigger budget deficit for Indonesia, analysts said, but it could also signal a political deadlock that could hurt future policy making.”

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.”

Today is World Water Day, a day to promote awareness of the acute water and food shortages plaguing the estimated 1 out of 8 persons that lack reliable access to clean drinking water. 

This morning at 10:30 AM, tune into the State Department's website where you can watch Secretary of State Clinton deliver her remarks on World Water Day. According to a State Department release, Secretary Clinton will also launch the new U.S. Water Partnership (USWP) today. The statement says that “The USWP is a public-private partnership formed to share U.S. knowledge, leverage and mobilize resources, and facilitate cross-sector partnerships to find solutions to global water accessibility challenges, especially in the developing world.”

The Director of National Intelligence will also release the Global Water Security Intelligence Community Assessment, a long-awaited report from the intelligence community that describes the security challenges associated with increased water scarcity.

Hopefully the rollout of the IC report timed with a major speech by Secretary Clinton will generate some greater awareness within the security community about the importance of water security to U.S. national security and foreign policy. As Secretary Clinton said in a speech in 2010, “water represents one of the great diplomatic and development opportunities of our time.” As the United States rebalances in the Asia Pacific, perhaps water can serve as a touchstone for building strategic partnerships with countries already beset by water insecurity, a challenge likely to be exacerbated in the future. It is something that security practitioners should consider. 

Last Tuesday, President Obama announced that the United States, the European Union and Japan filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization against China for its export restrictions on rare earth metals – materials used in a wide range of high-end technologies, including smart phones, clean energy technologies and even some weapons systems.

On Friday, President Obama followed up the announcement with an Executive Order (EO) on National Defense Resources Preparedness with the broad purpose of identifying the resources and services critical to U.S. national security. Production of non-Chinese rare earth metals is expected to increase over the next several years as mines in Australia, the United States, Malaysia and elsewhere come online. However, one of the greatest hurdles for U.S. defense planners and others in the U.S. government trying to address resource-related challenges is a lack of fidelity in the supply chains for defense systems, energy technologies and other products that undergird the national defense and economy.

President Obama’s EO is a first step in helping provide better clarity into supply chain issues. Specifically, the EO states that:

Executive departments and agencies (agencies) responsible for plans and programs relating to national defense (as defined in section 801(j) of this order), or for resources and services needed to support such plans and programs, shall:

(a)  identify requirements for the full spectrum of emergencies, including essential military and civilian demand;

(b)  assess on an ongoing basis the capability of the domestic industrial and technological base to satisfy requirements in peacetime and times of national emergency, specifically evaluating the availability of the most critical resource and production sources, including subcontractors and suppliers, materials, skilled labor, and professional and technical personnel;

The rise in gasoline prices topped the headlines this weekend. The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that gas prices rose an average of 6 percent in February and are expected to climb higher as refineries in the U.S. Northeast go idle or offline due to rising global oil prices that are making it too expensive for refiners to produce gasoline. “Gasoline production in the Northeast is expected to decline to 350,000 barrels a day in 2013, from 580,000 barrels a day in 2011, according to government estimates,” according to The Wall Street Journal. “By 2013, the government estimates, motorists in the Northeast will be using 240,000 barrels more each day than refineries and imports are providing right now.” What is more, the rise in global oil prices is having a ripple effect on other consumer goods, with overall consumer prices rising 0.4 percent in February.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported that gasoline prices have come front and center in presidential politics ahead of the Illinois primary on Tuesday. However, according to The New York Times, gasoline prices may not significantly influence the election in November.

Regardless of the influence on presidential politics, the rise in gasoline prices seems to have renewed the domestic debate of how the U.S. government can help manage consumer pain at the pump, including through the sale of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve. The Obama administration ratcheted down expectations last week that the United States will release oil from the strategic petroleum reserves in order to mitigate supply and demand issues. The White House announcement came after false reports that the United States and Great Britain would coordinate a sale of their respective strategic reserves. (To have the most strategic effect, the United States would need to coordinate the sale of strategic petroleum reserves with other members of the International Energy Agency, adding a large volume of supply to the global oil market that can quench global demand and effectively manage the global price of oil.)

Global climate change has doubled the risk of coastal flooding for many American communities. “Global warming has raised sea level about 8 inches since 1880, and the rate of rise is accelerating,” a new report from Climate Central found. “Scientists expect 20 to 80 more inches this century, a lot depending upon how much more heat-trapping pollution humanity puts into the sky.”  While the projected range of sea level rise may leave a lot to be desired with respect to certainty, the implications of even the low- to medium-range projections (between 36-48 inches) over the next century could have dramatic consequences for the estimated 5 million Americans living at less than 4 feet above high tide, and more so for the 3.7 million living at less than 3 feet above the tide.

U.S. military planners and others in the national security community should pay attention to the study’s mid-range projections. Depending on the location, mid-range projections are estimated at 1-8 inches in sea level rise by 2030, and 4-19 inches by 2050, with some projections much higher in areas currently home to U.S. military installations. The study’s authors give projected ranges and best estimate predictions. For example, in Virginia, Sewells Point – Hampton Roads (home to Norfolk Naval Base) is projected to experience between 3-10 inches in sea level rise by 2030, and 7-24 inches by 2050, with best estimates projected at 6 inches in sea level rise by 2030, and 14 inches by 2050. In La Jolla, California (the greater San Diego region, home to Camp Pendleton to the north near Oceanside and Coronado to the south), the study projects 2-9 inches in sea level rise by 2030, and 4-22 inches rise by 2050, with best estimates projected at 5 inches by 2030 and 11 inches by 2050. The study provides a list of other communities and the projected sea level rise with 90 percent confidence intervals that are worth reviewing at length.

Although the ranges for projected sea level rise (given in inches, not feet) may seem insignificant, the risks and concerns are quite legitimate. Communities like Hampton Roads are already plagued by sea level rise and have given serious attention to adapting to the increased risk. One concern for these coastal installations is the increased risk of storm surge and the subsequent damage. Indeed, even modest sea level rise measured in single inches portends serious risks with respect to flooding. “Cities such as Norfolk have already experienced the effects of sea-level rise as powerful storms pushed water inland, leading to flooding in places where it once was rare,” The Washington Post reported last year. What is more, climate scientists project an increase in the severity and frequency of storms which may exacerbate the effects of sea level rise and the damages incurred for coastal communities, including U.S. Naval installations. The implications for military readiness cannot be overstated, and military planners need to adapt to these changes, or be prepared to reconstitute their capabilities and facilities in the wake of these events.