The Coast Guard Cutter Healy participates in an Arctic survey to map the continental shelf. Vice Adm. Peter W. Gautier said the Coast Guard will welcome up to six new icebreakers to the fleet in the coming years. U.S. COAST GUARD
THE WATCH STAFF
A U.S. Coast Guard vice admiral said his branch’s long history in the Arctic is entering a new phase as a changing climate and emerging threats have increased the emphasis on polar security in the region. Vice Adm. Peter W. Gautier, the Coast Guard’s deputy commandant for operations, is responsible for the development of operational strategy, policy, guidance and resources that address national priorities. He spoke March 5, 2024, at an event titled “Understanding U.S. Armed Forces Operating Capabilities in the Arctic,” an online and in-person event hosted by Rand Corp., a U.S. public policy research organization.
Gautier noted that the Coast Guard has been present in the Arctic since the U.S. acquired Alaska from Russia in 1867. Its traditional role of conducting search and rescue operations and scientific voyages in the region has broadened into maintaining a strong U.S presence in the Arctic and collaborating with allies and partner nations.
At its height during the Cold War, the Coast Guard had eight or nine icebreakers, Gautier said. Currently, it has two, with one assigned to Antarctica. The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy, based in Seattle, is a medium icebreaker and is the only vessel that has made recent Arctic voyages. But up to six new icebreakers — three heavy and three medium — have been authorized. When those come online, Gautier said, the U.S. will be able to support the international rules-based order more efficiently as icebreakers will allow for more navigation in the region. “It will give us an enduring capability to have presence in the U.S. Arctic up around Alaska and to the north, and then to the Arctic in and around Greenland and Canada to the eastern side. … So eight to nine icebreakers is what we think we need to build,” Gautier said.
Recent international tensions, including the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, have changed the risk calculus in the Arctic, Gautier said, but the Coast Guard has already adapted. Gautier spoke glowingly about Starlink satellite technology that has given the branch high-quality communications in the Arctic for the first time. And the service is undertaking a major infrastructure effort in Kodiak, Alaska, and Seattle to prepare for a larger Arctic presence, he said. “We’re building out Kodiak, Alaska, in terms of the air station there, in terms of home-porting offshore patrol cutters. They’re fast-response cutters,” he said. The service is also “building out Seattle as the preeminent home port for our polar fleet, so that costs a lot of money. And that also requires a mindset to enduring sustainment: everything like childcare centers to making sure we have housing in these locations to the ability to maintain the piers and infrastructure to keep our fleet actually operational,” Gautier said.
Gautier welcomed private investment, especially in ports, as critical for the Coast Guard completing its Arctic mission. He spoke positively of a possible deep-water port being built in Nome, Alaska, as a potential benefit for defending the U.S. homeland.
A November 2023 Rand report on U.S. military capabilities in the Arctic recommended a deep-water port at Nome. “This will emplace a more capable key maritime logistics node in the U.S. Arctic, more than 700 miles north of the one at Dutch Harbor in southern Alaska. The vast distances in the Arctic make it difficult to respond within a few days in many locations without port infrastructure to host ships and support operations,” stated the report, which was commissioned by the U.S. government.
The report said the most urgent needs for the U.S. Armed Forces in the Arctic are infrastructure, assets, domain awareness and communications, and enough Soldiers trained to operate in the harsh weather. “The Arctic has its unique challenges and is growing in strategic importance,” Gautier said.