Icebreakers: Future Force Projection? Often Overlooked Vessels For An Increasingly Strategic Arena

Icebreakers: Future Force Projection? Often Overlooked Vessels For An Increasingly Strategic Arena

01 Nov 24
Posted by: James W Monroe
22 minutes, 20 seconds read
Message from the Editor

Many leading Arctic nations are engaging programmes to build more icebreakers or to otherwise modernise or refit their icebreaking capability. China is an emerging polar nation with icebreakers and an overall presence in the Arctic only set to increase – and perhaps to overtake existing Russian Arctic dominance. A 20 minute read.

“The United States is an Arctic nation, and the Coast Guard is vital to providing presence in our sovereign waters and the polar regions… As we continue to build the Polar Security Cutters, acquiring a commercially available polar icebreaker will enable the Coast Guard to increase our national presence in the Arctic.”[1] The statement above was delivered by Adm Kevin Lunday (Vice Commandant of the US Coast Guard) in August regarding the upcoming acquisition of the icebreaker Aiviq for the US Coast Guard. The purchase and refit of the icebreaker is but one indication of how, after years of negl…

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