Who owns the North Pole part 86

The Arctic Cold War Hots Up 

Canada plans to spend billions of dollars on new patrol ships, polar satellites, transport upgrade, and winter gear for its troops amid rising demands for the Arctic’s riches.

In line with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s vow to boost the country’s footprint in the Arctic in a bid to spur its economic growth, the Conservative government has announced a multi-billion dollar budget to purchase everything from naval ships to weather satellites, US-based Defense News reported this week.  According to the report, on top of the shopping list are five new patrol ships for the Royal Canadian Navy, which will be outfitted with Lockheed Martin avionics at a cost of CAN $3.5 billion ($3.4 billion), as well as up to $50 million in technical upgrades for the Air Force’s CC-138 transport aircraft. Canada plans to buy up to 100 all-terrain vehicles at an estimated price tag between $100 million and $249 million. The Arctic spending package will also include up to $49 million spent on new winter apparel, including snowshoes, skis and toboggans.

Several U.S. lawmakers are warning U.S. military leaders about the pace and scope of Russia's Arctic militarization, including the addition new brigades, ships and airfields to the fast-changing region. 

Russian initiatives are making it increasingly difficult for the U.S. to successfully compete in the area as new sea lanes emerge, they say. 

"When you look at what the Russians are doing in the Arctic, it is actually quite impressive --impressive, but disturbing," Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Ala., told military leaders at a recent Senate Armed Services Committee Navy budget hearing.

"The Russians are looking at adding four new combat brigades in the Arctic as our U.S. Army is thinking at pulling them out of there," he said. "I think that would give Vladimir Putin a lot of joy. They are building 13 new airfields and conducting long-range air patrols off the coast of Alaska."

"That we would even contemplate taking one soldier away from Alaska is lunacy given Putin's recent actions in the Arctic," he said. "Alaska's Army BCTs are the best cold-weather and mountain-hardened BCTs in the country.  The training makes them uniquely valuable to the U.S. Army and their presence in Alaska hopefully ensures that other nations never make us use them."

Experts say the pace of melting ice and rising water temperatures is expected to open more waterways in the region and possibly new sea-routes for commercial shipping, transport, strategic military presence and adventure tourism. The developments carry geopolitical and national-security risks, as well.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert said the U.S. needs to intensify its preparations for Arctic activity.

"We need to look at it deliberately and understand it," he said. "We need to get industry up there and study the place and find out when it is going to melt. What are the sea lines that will open? Are there territorial disputes? Are there threats? Russia is increasing their military presence which sort of makes sense. Also, how do we survive up there with our ships our aircraft and our people?"

The Navy is researching technologies that will better enable sailors, ships, sensors and weapons to operate in such a harsh environment.

"We have to look at the hardening of our hulls," he said. "It is not just surface ships. It is the aircraft and the undersea domain. I've directed the increase in our activity up there."

The Office of Naval Research has deployed drones underneath the ice to assess the temperature and salt content of the water so as to better predict the pace of melting ice and the opening up of sea routes.

Greenert also said the Navy is increasing joint exercises with Canada and Scandinavian countries in preparation for increased Arctic activity.

Despite these measures, some lawmakers are still not convinced that the U.S. is doing enough to counterbalance Russian military initiatives in the region. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, expressed concern that the U.S. only operates a handful of ice breaker ships compared to Russia's large fleet of ice breakers.

"We have one heavy duty and one medium-duty Coast Guard ice breakers," he said. "The Russians have 17 ice breakers in the Arctic. If we are talking about innocent passage and trade, ice breakers are the highway builders and that is an example of how we are really not adequately developing our strategic interests in that region."

Sullivan also echoed Sen. King's concerns about the small U.S. fleet of ice breakers, adding that the Russians have six new icebreakers in development with five more planned.

The U.S. has more than 1,000 miles of Arctic coastline along its Alaskan border. However, Russia's Northern Sea Route, which parallels the Arctic and Russian border, is by far the largest existing shipping route in the region.

Recognizing that the quickening pace of melting ice and warming water temperatures may open up sea lanes sooner than expected, the Navy last year released an Updated Arctic Road Map, which details the service's preparations for increasing its presence in the region.

The Navy's initial version of the document released in 2009 includes mission analysis and "fleet readiness" details for the environment, including search and rescue, maritime security, C4ISR, cooperation with the U.S. Coast Guard, strategic sealift and strategic deterrence, among other things.

"The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe," the document states. "While significant uncertainty exists in projections for Arctic ice extent, the current scientific consensus indicates the Arctic may experience nearly ice free summers sometime in the 2030s."

An assessment by the Navy's Task Force Climate Change determined the rate of melting has increased since the time of this report. As a result, Navy planners anticipate needing to operate there to a much greater extent by the middle of the 2020s instead of the 2030s.

Although the thinning of the Arctic ice was reported by Navy submarines in the 1990s, there have been considerable changes to the environment since that time, said Robert Freeman, spokesman for the oceanographer of the Navy.

While stressing that budget constraints might limit what preparations are possible, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus also said the service was increasing its exercises and preparations for greater activity in the region.

"As the ice melts in the Arctic our responsibilities go up. It is not just platforms and capabilities -- it is what we are facing," he said. "We not only have less ice but it is freezing in different ways. The ice is forming in different ways that are beginning to be a hazard to navigation. We're upping our exercises and research into the area."

Putin called the Navy's Northern Fleet to full combat readiness in exercises in Russia's Arctic North apparently aimed at dwarfing military drills in neighboring Norway, a NATO member. Norway is currently holding its "Joint Viking" drills involving 5,000 troops and 400 vehicles in Finnmark county, which borders Russia in the resource-rich Arctic circle where both countries are vying for influence. This is an operative exercise with all weapons and branches involved,” said army spokesperson Lt. Col. Aleksander Jankov. “To illustrate the magnitude of this, I can mention that if we put the vehicles one after another on the road it will stretch 6 kilometers.”

Norway said its military drills had been planned before the Ukraine crisis. "However, the current security situation in Europe shows that the exercise is more relevant than ever," Lieutenant General Haga Lunde said in a statement. Russia's drills would include nearly 40,000 servicemen, 41 warships and 15 submarines, RIA reported. 

"New challenges and threats to military security require the armed forces to further boost their military capabilities. Special attention must be paid to newly created strategic formations in the north," Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said, quoted by RIA news agency.

Russia's biggest new military development in the Arctic is the creation of the Russian Joint Strategic Command North (JSCN), which is built out of the former Northern Fleet. The command, according to Defense News, has a surface fleet and a submarine fleet of about 40 vessels each, although between 40% and 70% of those ships are currently unusable.

According to the Polish Institute of International Affairs, the JSCN won't be an ordinary naval fleet. The command will ultimately feature an air defense division, two Arctic mechanized brigades, a naval infantry brigade, a coastal defense missile system, and the placement of missile regiments in outlying archipelagos in the Arctic Ocean. As part of the air defense regiment, Moscow is moving a total of nine S-400 Triumph air defense missile systems to the coast. The S-400 is a long-range surface-to-air missile system that can engage a variety of targets, including aircraft, drones, and other missiles. Triumph air defense missile systems can strike at targets up to 250 miles away and at a maximum altitude of 18.6 miles.  New infrastructure throughout Russia's remote northern coast will support this military buildup. Formerly abandoned Soviet bases are being reopened and new ports and airstrips will be constructed. Moscow's current plans envision the opening of ten Arctic search-and-rescue stations, 16 deepwater ports, 13 airfields, and ten air-defense radar stations across its Arctic coast. Once completed, this construction will "permit the use of larger and more modern bombers," Mark Galeotti, an NYU professor specializing on Russia, writes for The Moscow Times. "By 2025, the Arctic waters are to be patrolled by a squadron of next-generation stealthy PAK DA bombers." One of the new bases is in Alakurtti in the Murmansk region, just 31 miles away from the Finnish border. Murmansk will soon be the location of over 3,000 ground troops, 39 surface ships, and 35 submarines.

Robert Papp, the U.S. special representative for the Arctic, says he questions reports that Russia has launched a major military buildup in the Arctic. Papp says he’s asking U.S. intelligence agencies to look beyond Russia’s military swagger for a realistic view of its Arctic activity. Papp says Moscow could be adding infrastructure for general use in the north.

“One person can look at what’s going on in terms of what they call ‘military buildup’ and rightfully say they’ve got an awful long border along the Arctic, and if you’re going to have increased maritime traffic you should have search-and-rescue facilities, you should have modern airports and other things — things I’d like to have built in Alaska as maritime traffic increases,” he said.

Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno spoke yesterday of Russia’s military buildup in the Arctic. 

“We have seen over the last several years an obvious increased interest in the Russians in the Arctic,” Odierno said at a U.S. Senate hearing. “There are clear indications … that they are increasing their presence and building bases so in the future they will be able to increase the presence and have an impact in the Arctic region.”

Last week, the secretary of defense said much the same, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said Russia is activating four new brigades in the Arctic.