American optimism and protectionist interest groups have the nation’s icebreaker fleet frozen in place as a Mississippi production plant relearns how to produce the hardened steel necessary to protect icebreakers from the hostile environs in which they’ll operate.
William Mauldin reports for the Wall Street Journal:
A $13.3 billion program to safeguard American interests in the Arctic has run aground on an old industrial challenge: cutting and shaping thick, hardened steel.
U.S. officials are racing to procure new polar icebreakers because one of only two that the Coast Guard now sails has reached the end of its life, and the one assigned to the Arctic is out of service for maintenance every winter. Delivery of the first new icebreaker has slipped to 2028 from 2024 as designers, engineers and welders grapple with something the U.S. hasn’t done in decades: reliably shape hardened steel that is more than an inch thick into a curved, reinforced ship’s hull.
The Coast Guard hasn’t launched a new heavy icebreaker since 1976. Out of practice, U.S. shipbuilders have had to relearn how to design and build the specialized vessel, say officials in the industry and the government.
The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) has, like the little brother it is, made for itself a situation akin to a U.S. Navy’s littoral combat ship fiasco — a sea service taking upon itself to reinvent seafaring and producing the item in the United States instead of going to foreign shipyards that specialize in precisely the kind of platform the service desires. Domestic shipbuilders assure Congress that it’ll be no problem; then, once the checks clear, the builders run back to Congress to demand more cash for delays and redesigns. (READ MORE: Did Elon Musk Save the Russian Fleet?)
The ostensible purpose of this new fleet of icebreakers is to compete with Chinese and Russian vessels in the Arctic. The U.S. icebreaker most often deployed to those gelid waters takes its winters off to recuperate in the Pacific Northwest. Meanwhile, a fleet of over a dozen operational Russian icebreakers ceaselessly navigates the zone (the Russians claim 40 breakers, but the plurality are little more than semi-operable hulks).
Now, should one care if we have icebreakers? One could argue that ceding the frozen wastes to Russia is fine. We have helicopters, planes, subs, and satellites to watch the northern approaches, after all. However, it’s best to have the capability to clear a path for other naval assets should an occasion arise that requires the Navy’s presence near the Alaskan coast. A handful of ships for surface reconnaissance and support is a reasonable desire, if for no other reason than that the U.S. should retain the ability to secure every mile of her shores, no matter how remote. But we don’t need a U.S.-built breaker to do this. The U.K.’s Cammell Laird shipbuilders and Italy’s Fincantieri shipwrights have turned out serviceable icebreaking ships of the correct size and ability for our needs. Instead of hacking together a Ford F-150 from pig iron in our back shed, we should call over to the showroom and have one delivered by those who know what they’re doing.
If icebreaking is a national security concern sufficient to spend the billions already allotted, then it’s crucial enough that there isn’t time to waste reinventing what exists. The U.S. should, as a matter of course, redevelop the structuring of hardened steel for icebreaking applications. (There is an unfortunate irony in the U.S. losing its steel-working prowess after that industry carried the Russian war effort through World War II.) (READ MORE: Learn of Heroes at a Young Age)
Learning afresh is admirable — so long as today’s necessary replacements are steaming west from their birthplaces in Europe. We have friendly ports abroad; let’s use them.
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