While the president of the United States – for whatever reasons — may have, until today,* taken his eye off the ball (Russia, that is), the country that interfered in our most sacred democratic process and the country that “is carrying out a campaign of destabilization to change the international order, fracture NATO and undermine U.S. leadership around the world,” the U.S. military – in particular the U.S. Navy — is not.
In an ongoing, captivating and very visible exercise, the U.S. Navy is emphasizing the strategic importance of the Arctic region, the national security implications of the diminishing sea ice of the Arctic Ocean, and the importance of free and unfettered navigation in this region.
The Arctic is aregion that is of primary strategic and economic importance not only to the U.S. and to Russia, but also to the three other bordering Arctic Ocean nations, Canada, Norway and Denmark and, in fact to the entire free world.
Already three years ago Business Insider predicted that as the Arctic ice melts this “wildly rich area” (oil, gas, mineral, and fishery reserves “including about 15% of the world’s remaining oil, up to 30% of its natural gas deposits, and about 20% of its liquefied natural gas”) would become “a center of strategic competition and economic activity.”
Russia and even China – that has “no viable claims” in the Arctic — have been active in the region.
Russia symbolically placed a Russian flag on the bottom of the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole in 2007 and is the most aggressive and successful exploration leader in the region with its 40 icebreakers in service and 11 in production (The U.S. has only one operational icebreaker), 16 deep-water ports, 13 airbases and long-range surface to air missiles protecting these facilities.
“By comparison, the U.S. has no major military bases north of the Arctic Circle,” says Terrell Jermaine Starr.
As mentioned, even China, calling itself a “near-Arctic State,” has vowed to actively participate in Arctic affairs claiming, “The natural conditions of the Arctic and their changes have a direct impact on China’s climate system and ecological environment, and, in turn, on its economic interests in agriculture, forestry, fishery, marine industry and other sectors.”
However, the U.S. Navy is not conceding the region and has been operating and training in and for the harsh Arctic environment for decades.
In 2014, the Navy released an “aggressive” update to its 2009 Arctic Road Map promoting naval security, improving operational experience in an Arctic environment, and bolstering naval readiness and capability and accelerating the original plan to include “better research on rising sea levels and the ability to predict sea ice thickness, assessment of satellite communications and surveillance needs, and evaluation of existing ports, airfields and hangars,” planning to boost the number of personnel trained for Arctic operations by 2020 and, by 2030, “as the Arctic Ocean becomes increasingly ice-free…have the training and personnel, to respond to crises and national security emergencies.”
The Navy has been conducting under-ice operations in the Arctic for more than 70 years starting with the diesel submarine USS Boarfish performing the under-ice transit of an ice floe in the Chukchi Seani 1947.
In 1958, the nuclear-powered submarine USS Nautilus made the first crossing of the Arctic Ocean beneath the pack ice. The first Arctic surfacing was done by USS Skate in March 1959.
Named after the USS Skate, the Navy’s Ice Camp Skate (below), a temporary ice camp on a moving ice floe approximately 150 miles off the coast of the northern slope of Alaska in international waters, supports the most recent set of exercises in the Arctic, ICEX (“Ice Exercise”), a “biennial exercise in the Arctic to train and validate the warfighting capabilities of submarines in extreme cold-water conditions.”
Photo: U.S. Navy
A Royal Canadian Air Force DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft delivering supplies and personnel flies over an ice floe during Ice Exercise 2018 in the Arctic Circle, March 5, 2018. Guard photo by Airman 1st Class Kelly Willett
Added: Airmen parachute from an HC-130J Combat King II aircraft on to the frozen Beaufort Sea several hundred miles north of the Alaskan coastline, March 5, 2018. The operation dropped a package that can provide shelter, heat, transportation, fuel and food for 28 individuals for almost seven days in extreme arctic conditions. The airmen are assigned to the Alaska Air National Guard’s 212th Rescue Squadron. Army National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Balinda O’Neal Dresel
Added: Soldiers assigned to 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment provide overwatch during a deployment of Stryker armored vehicles as part of the U.S. Army Alaska-led Arctic Edge 2018 exercise held at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, March 13, 2018. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Isaac Johnson
Added: Ice Camp Skate as the aurora borealis displays above camp March 9, 2018 in support of Ice Exercise (ICEX) 2018. (Mass Communication 2nd Class Micheal H. Lee/Navy)
This year’s ICEX has caught the world’s attention as two Navy fast attack submarines, the USS Hartford and USS Connecticut, broke through thick ice and surfaced in the Arctic Circle north of Alaska during the multinational maritime ICEX 2018 (Lead photo).
The U.S. Navy:
ICEX provides the U.S. submarine force and partners from the British navy an opportunity to test combat and weapons systems, sonar systems, communications and navigation systems in a challenging operational environment…The unique acoustic undersea environment is further compounded by the presence of a contoured, reflective ice canopy when submerged.
Navy Rear Admiral James Pitts, commander of the Undersea Warfighting Development Center says, “We must constantly train together with our submarine units and partners to remain proficient in this hemisphere…Having both submarines on the surface is a clear demonstration of our proficiency in the Arctic.”
Please watch the video below.
*”Trump administration sanctions Russian spies, trolls over U.S. election interference, cyber attacks.”
Lead photo: The submarine USS Connecticut and fast-attack submarine USS Hartford break through the ice in support of Ice Exercise 2018 near Ice Camp Skate in the Arctic Circle, March 10, 2018. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Micheal H. Lee
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