While the US languishes in the shallows with two fossil fuel powered Icebreakers, Russia has just launched its 39th active icebreaker, its sixth nuclear powered icebreaker.
Russia’s Latest Nuclear-Powered Icebreaker Extends Arctic Dominance
MOSCOW — The Cold War may be long over, but there’s still the Arctic chill.
Russia floated its largest and most powerful nuclear-powered icebreaker last month, upping the ante in what is literally the coldest global gold rush.
The ice-smashing ship was Russia’s sixth reactor-driven polar vessel. The United States doesn’t have a single one.
Moscow’s dominance of the northern seas — courtesy of vast investments — has America and the West worried. Here’s why.
What do we know about Russia’s icebreakers?
Moscow is the most active player in the race for polar dominance — despite the current economic crisis debilitating its fortunes at home.
Of Russia’s 39 icebreakers, six are powered by nuclear reactors.
The newest vessel — the Arktika — was floated on June 16 and will make its maiden voyage next year. An unchallenged feat of icebreaker engineering, the vessel is 1 ½ football fields in length and is powered by twin nuclear reactors.
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The Department of Homeland Security said in 2013 that the U.S. needs at least six active icebreakers.
It currently has two active icebreakers and one ice-capable research vessel — none of which are nuclear-powered.
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Aside from utter defacto military dominance of the Arctic Ocean, the Russian icebreaker fleet ensures massive logistical support for growing commercial Russian oil and gas extraction in the far North.
Of course, given President Obama’s plan to make solar cost competitive in 10 years, and Obama’s confidence that the Arctic will be ice free by 2040, perhaps the current US administration thinks the massive Russian investment in icebreakers and Arctic fossil fuel extraction is wasted effort.
To Bryan A “ICE STATION ZEBRA” might need a VHS player if you can still rent it.
It’s on YouTube.
“a VHS player”
Never heard of that. No such thing. My son certainly couldn’t programme one.
No VHS, no BETAMAX?
U-Matic? (3/4″ format I think); all successors to the semi-professional 1″ open real VTR format pioneered by Ampex.
… reel …
Why on earth would America NOT expect Russia to ‘be dominant in the Arctic’?
It’s not as if they’re invading foreign countries, is it? They just have a huge northern coastline with the Arctic ocean………
Why do Americans think that the only people on earth allowed to ‘dominate’ anything are themselves??
They may be emotionally addicted to master-slave relationships, but trust me, the rest of the world most certainly is not……..
The paranoia is strong with this one as well.
The paranoia wd be less had Russia not attacked Ukraine and colonized Crimea.
To say nothing of sabre-rattling with ex-Warsaw -Pact countries,
Putin breeds paranoia … and that’s his game, right?
So: “Don’t Happy, be Worried” — with a menace like him over-shadowing world-politics. He has a sole ultimate purpose: Russian hegemony.
On the other hand, if Canada were really smart (which I doubt given Toy-Boy, Ladies-Man Trudeau’s leadership, more intent on ‘smilies’, ‘selfies’ and jean-creaming politicking, than cold, calculating matters-of-state), they’d play-off Russia against USA. Since Canada — given it’s military impotence — is incapable of defending against either, its key role is as ‘Buffer-State’ …. as perceived from both sides!!!!!
As a Canadian, and thanks to Obama’s zero support of Canada’s interest in the pipeline debate, I’d advocate eschewing US interests and welcoming Russian ones in Canada.
What’s wrong with a Joint Canadian-Soviet Alliance re: Arctic Waters, and military & commercial interests therein (… for starters!)
Who’s the Devil in the piece??????
Shuffle the deck and deal the cards …..
“Why do Americans think that the only people on earth allowed to
Why did Great Britain ‘rule the waves’ and build an empire? For what ‘goal’ did the USSR lust?
Ans: It’s a human thing; you may not understand (bot or not?) …
“Take up the White Man’s burden.. (etc)”. This is not, by the way, a paean to the British Empire, but Kipling’s warning to the USA when it assumed control of the Philippines. Please note that I’m not a “return to Empire’ nut – I subscribe to the joke: “Q: Why did the sun never set on the British Empire? A: Because God couldn’t trust an Englishman in the dark”.
Official US Coast Guard Strategy is based on a warming Arctic with declining ice, see page 9 of this document:
http://www.uscg.mil/seniorleadership/docs/cg_arctic_strategy.pdf
The Russians don’t see things the same way!
Haven’t Wespoint grads been told their won’t be any ice? I think permanently ice free might take a big hit if strategists in the US start to visualize why Russia would go to such an extent to dominate in Ice Breaker fleets. Don’t forget, they are pragmatists and a nation of chess players. They also discovered that shrinking ice fields in the Arctic were matched by shrinking ice caps on Mars! This has been a kind of No No in climate discussions in the west so the west seems not to know much about this. Look at this from NatGeo no less. It must have got printed while the gatekeepers were on climate klatch in Bali or someplace.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
Nasa gets the credit but they shut up about it. Not so the Russians:
“Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun. The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars,” he said.
Do you think this guy advises the Russian government on this stuff? A western researcher would lose his funding and his job if he did the same thing.
No one seems to be reporting on the Mars ice cap these days, but I suspect it may be recovering.
Canada’s Trudeau and Obama are ‘birds of a feather’, and it’s hardly surprising that we have a weak-kneed, spineless response to just about everything. Is this a case of ‘small sticks’ begetting *having* to ‘walk softly’?
Canada has long had an institutional incapacity to place any order for any publicly-funded military (or quasi-military, such as Coast Guard) equipment in a timely, cost-effective and efficient manner … the list of delays, cancellations, inter-departmental wrangling, political infighting, inter-provincial arm-wrestling & rivalry, vote-pandering, etc., is endless. To say nothing of a pathological inability to firm-up Specifications, of huge budget over-runs, and delivery delays measured in years, if not decades.
Canada’s government won’t step-up to the plate of meeting its internal hardware requirements, let alone its international obligations, as it *cannot* do so …. it is paralyzed by government & bureaucracy from achieving these objectives.
Common-sense dictates that “they” write up a Specification — in stone! — put it out to bid internationally, and place an order within 7 days. However, ‘common-sense’ is a commodity far beyond the comprehension of narrow-interest politicians and sinecure-retaining bureaucrats in Ottawa.
This is why you won’t see a significant Canadian presence in the Arctic Ocean (for years, if ever). And another reason why not, is that if we can get the Yanks to do it for us, then we can focus on, and fund resolution of the *real* issues, such as the ‘feel-good’ politics of genderism, equal opportunity & washrooms — subjects much closer to the heartbeat of the current government.
Especially when one’s Leader is more obsessed with photo-op ‘selfies’ and smiley-face politics than dealing with hard issues of State.
If Canada can’t defend its own borders, and relies on our southern cousins to do so, we are ‘Buffer-State’ at best and ‘Manifest Destiny’ at worst. If Putin can do it with Crimea, so Trump can with Canada.
And so, folks, “Don’t ‘happy’ … be very, very ‘worried'”!
The rationale of the Odministration in D.C. is straightforward: since arctic ice is going to disappear soon anyway, there’s no point in spending money to break it up. That’s simple AGW logic, dummies.
Pie-in-Sky 1:
Errrrr. ….. I was referring to the overall building of marine & other forces from a strategic perspective, not just specifically the issue of icebreaking capability (which will be a factor until Arctic ice disappears which you wd appear — given your dismissive tenor & reference to non-believers as ‘dummies’) — to believe yourself.
iCEBREAKING 101: As I glean, there’s ice, ice & ice, from ice-floes hardened over millennia & centuries, thro’ multi-year, thro’ seasonal.
From my experience with Beaufort Sea Oil Production studies, ‘ice-islands’ are capable theoretically of having a draft as deep as the ocean at that point (maybe that’s merely a pessimistic design criterion rather than reality). We were talking of 60′ draft, and you’d need a massive tug rather than an ice-breaker!
I would suppose that ice-breaking captains ‘know where to go’ from experience & sat-photos, in order to clear a passage (if they can) from A to B.
I would further suggest that having opened a passage, it would be much simpler to keep it open with — what? — daily breaking (traffic & economics permitting), rather that on an ad hoc basis from scratch every time. Even in high-winter, freshly opened water wd only be a foot or so thick after 24 hrs (check me — I’m no expert) and that’d be an easy bit of daily(?) housekeeping for most icebreakers.
We have proof of ice island or stamuka keels touching the sea floor from surveys we run prior to drilling or planning a development. You should recall that we focus on sea floor scars to understand the threat to fixed installations. Ice breakers usually navigate over flat ice sectors, although in some cases they have to cross ice ridge fields. I’ve built ice breaker route optimization models and the key is to have a decent idea of ice conditions ahead. As for the ice breaker path staying open, that’s usually not going to happen, the wind pushes the ice and closes the channel, or it simply freezes over.
Leanme: tks for yr input.
Hypothetically, if one had a flotilla of icebreakers at one’s disposal, all travelling in line-astern, say 1 nm apart, one cd maintain an open channel.
I’ve often wondered if this thinking may be applicable to maintaining 365 day access to a Hudson Bay port for export of W.Canadian oil … the traffic and the ‘road-maintenance’ costs are quantifiable; and the route stays the same. Maybe a larger no. of smaller, double-hulled, ice-reinforced tankers, with ancillary ‘road-maintenance’ icebreakers? (Reminiscent of what was being considered in Beaufort Seal oil-extraction studies?)
Boy oh boy, here I am in the UK, anti Russian rhetoric everywhere, the USSR (CCCP) has gone. We in the UK know that Russia is an Old country, their and our Royal families were related you know. we have more in common with Russia than the USA (which is only a couple of hundred years old). Washington and Whitehall need a bad guy, don not believe all the C**p you hear. Russians are FUN people.
The pearls the (UK/German) Queen wears in a “Crown” are from a Russian jewl. That Russian “Royal” family was chopped to death, man, woman, child, literally with axes and shovels.