U.S. urgently needs new icebreaker ships to patrol the Arctic. Will Trump's border wall get in the

[JacksinPA]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...w-icebreaker-ships-patrol-arctic-will-n942236

"The United States has ignored the Arctic,” warned a congressman who supports icebreaker funding. “Control of the ocean will be ceded to Russia and China.”

The American icebreaker fleet is in a perilous state, with only two operational polar icebreakers. Equipped with strengthened hulls, they are charged with gathering scientific data, rescuing ships stuck in ice and responding to oil spills in the most remote parts of the globe. They also protect U.S. interests in the vast polar regions, where climate change is melting sea ice — opening the Arctic to new commercial opportunities while also raising military tensions.
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The melting Arctic ice sheet is opening up the long fabeled Northwest Passage to the Far East. And the Arctic has become valuable military space for the Russians & Canadians. But something is out of whack: we have 2 ice breakers & Russia has 40. Why are we building a purposeless wall instead of building new ice breakers?

 

[Hawkeye10]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...w-icebreaker-ships-patrol-arctic-will-n942236

"The United States has ignored the Arctic,” warned a congressman who supports icebreaker funding. “Control of the ocean will be ceded to Russia and China.”

The American icebreaker fleet is in a perilous state, with only two operational polar icebreakers. Equipped with strengthened hulls, they are charged with gathering scientific data, rescuing ships stuck in ice and responding to oil spills in the most remote parts of the globe. They also protect U.S. interests in the vast polar regions, where climate change is melting sea ice — opening the Arctic to new commercial opportunities while also raising military tensions.
==============================================
The melting Arctic ice sheet is opening up the long fabeled Northwest Passage to the Far East. And the Arctic has become valuable military space for the Russians & Canadians. But something is out of whack: we have 2 ice breakers & Russia has 40. Why are we building a purposeless wall instead of building new ice breakers?

I started hearing about the need for new icebreakers about 15 years ago.

For some, it is unthinkable that a great maritime power such as the United States would lack sufficient icebreakers to ply the frozen waters of the Arctic and the Antarctic and protect its national interests. This is in contrast to Russia whose icebreaker fleet numbers more than 40 and has 11 more in production. (Report No. RL34391, Sept. 2, 2015, by the Congressional Research Service, entitled “Coast Guard Polar Icebreaker Modernization: Background and Issues for Congress,” at 11.)

Over the past two decades, there have been a number of reports completed by various federal agencies, congressional committees, and academic and nonprofit institutions, that recognized that there needed to be a long-term plan to ensure that there were adequate icebreaking vessels available to carry out activities in the polar regions that were important to U.S. national interests, but no real action has been taken to address this growing crisis. The cost of building a new heavy icebreaker is estimated to be on the order of one billion dollars—a figure that, to date, neither the Executive Branch nor the Congress has been willing to fund. We as a nation now find ourselves on the precipice of a major crisis in how to provide the resources necessary to protect our national interest in the Arctic. There are, however, glimmers of hope for congressional support for the acquisition of at least one new icebreaker. Senator Murkowski from Alaska, for one, has intimated her support for funding the new icebreaker.

https://www.blankrome.com/publications/us-imperative-new-icebreakers-0

As has become shockingly normal for failing America nothing was ever done.

 

[mike2810]

Global warming (climate change) will just cause the ice to melt. No need for ice breakers. :lamo

It would be a good idea to fund an start building a few now.
https://www.navytimes.com/opinion/2016/06/08/u-s-navy-and-coast-guard-need-more-icebreakers-now/

 

[Bullseye]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...w-icebreaker-ships-patrol-arctic-will-n942236

"The United States has ignored the Arctic,” warned a congressman who supports icebreaker funding. “Control of the ocean will be ceded to Russia and China.”

The American icebreaker fleet is in a perilous state, with only two operational polar icebreakers. Equipped with strengthened hulls, they are charged with gathering scientific data, rescuing ships stuck in ice and responding to oil spills in the most remote parts of the globe. They also protect U.S. interests in the vast polar regions, where climate change is melting sea ice — opening the Arctic to new commercial opportunities while also raising military tensions.
==============================================
The melting Arctic ice sheet is opening up the long fabeled Northwest Passage to the Far East. And the Arctic has become valuable military space for the Russians & Canadians. But something is out of whack: we have 2 ice breakers & Russia has 40. Why are we building a purposeless wall instead of building new ice breakers?

Because the ice is melting, but illegals keep coming.

 

[Hawkeye10]

One of the things that needs to be understood is that one of our two ice breakers is nearly completely consumed with the logistics of the Antarctic science community, so as a practical matter we only have one.


https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/12/01/icebreaker-healy-returns-to-seattle-homeport/

 

[Hawkeye10]

I had a repair guy here today, he showed up with a Coast Guard hat on so I asked him about this.....turns out that he served much of his career on ice breakers. He said that he expects that Washington will continue to fail, and that we will end up leasing ships from the Russians. We leased during the 1950's he says.