The strategic implications of steadily melting Arctic ice. It's one of those perennial stories of the U.S. defense trade, alongside "the end of U.S. air supremacy," "cyber Pearl Harbor" and "China conquers the world."
The story always starts and ends the same way. Up top, how global climate change will, by 2015 or so, result in ice-free Arctic summers -- allowing shipping and oil and natural-gas extraction. At the bottom, how the U.S. isn't doing enough to secure its slice of the Arctic pie. I should know: in weaker moments, I've written this tale, too.
But these tales, my versions included, usually omit two vital points: that Arctic conflict is unlikely to occur at all; and even if it does, the U.S. will have an overwhelming advantage over any rival.
The Washington Post was the latest to repeat the Arctic-war theme, in a story published yesterday. "The Arctic is believed to hold nearly a quarter of the world's untapped natural resources and a new passage could shave as much as 40 percent of the time it takes for commercial shippers to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific," Jacquelyn Ryan wrote.
But, she added, "government and military officials are concerned the United States is not moving quickly enough to protect American interests in this vulnerable and fast-changing region." Specifically, the U.S. does not have enough icebreakers or permanent bases on the Alaskan north slope. Canada and Russia, by contrast, are buying ice-hardened Arctic ships and building new facilities to enforce their Arctic claims, Ryan pointed out.
The thing is, it's not icebreakers and patches of wind-blasted tarmac that would really matter in some future North Pole showdown. In the Arctic, as in any sea battle, American nuclear attack submarines -- quiet, versatile and lethal -- would make all the difference. U.S. subs have been sneaking around under the Arctic ice, and occasionally surfacing, for decades. Today, they even carry geologists and other scientists in order to help map Arctic mineral deposits.
"In addition to being more heavily armed than most foreign boats, U.S. submarines generally have superior quieting and combat systems, better-trained crewmen, and much more rigorous maintenance standards," Bob Work wrote in 2008, before becoming Navy undersecretary. "As a result, the U.S. submarine force has generally been confident that it could defeat any potential undersea opponent, even if significantly outnumbered."
But in the Arctic, facing only the Canadians, Russians, Danes and Norwegians -- none of whom have large or healthy sub fleets -- the U.S. Navy's 50 Los Angeles-, Seawolf- and Virginia-class subs would be more numerous as well as more powerful.
And besides, an Arctic war is highly unlikely, at best. "Militarized conflict over the Arctic is unlikely, and regional disputes are unlikely to cause an overall deterioration in relations between or among polar nations," the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace concluded in a 2009 conference. "Security issues should not be sensationalized in order to attract attention towards the Arctic."
But it's rare anyone writes stories about how we've got enough weapons -- and don't really need them, besides. After all, it's the sensational stories about shortages and looming disaster that sell newspapers.
Photo: Navy
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