12 New-Order Trump Icebreakers For Polar Security

Icebreakers face some of the toughest jobs on the maritime

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Over the past several months, America’s approach to Polar security has been a perplexing mix of future commitments coupled with tough, near-term pull-backs. In the interim, China is highlighting America’s apparent retreat, surging icebreakers and other craft to both the North and South Poles. It is high time for President Trump to walk his own talk, cutting administrative red tape to contract out the construction of a “Dirty Dozen” new ships with new American icebreaker-builders. America needs at least 12 tough, mid-sized Trump icebreakers—utilitarian bruisers—for service in both the Arctic and the Antarctic.

Despite a lot of White House attention, America’s icebreaking fleet remains in a shambles. The venerable USCGC Polar Star (WAGB 10), commissioned in 1976, completed the vessel’s 28th voyage to Antarctica, and the Coast Guard commissioned the USCGC Storis (WAGB 21). That vessel is a something of a frankencutter, cobbled together from an unwanted anchor handling tug with icebreaking characteristics. Immediately after commissioning, the converted “icebreaker” was sent on patrol, likely to track one of the five recently-built Chinese icebreakers currently operating waters off Alaska. One other ship, the USCGC Healy (WAGB-20) is available for moderate icebreaking tasks in the Arctic.

In the Antarctic, research programs—the basis for a future U.S. territorial claim to the continent—are being slashed. The contract to operate RV Nathaniel B. Palmer, a research icebreaker, was abruptly terminated, joining the recently terminated ARSV Laurence M. Gould support ship, in some form of layup. Meanwhile, China and Russia are rushing to build new “research” bases across the frozen continent and deploying massive fishing vessels to exploit America’s retreat. Only the little R/V Sikuliaq, an “ice-capable research ship” more suited for Arctic work, is left. The scientific stewards of America’s various footholds on the Antarctic continent have been left scrambling.

Right now, America’s icebreaker shipbuilding effort is offering more pomp than product. The President has been vocal about increasing America’s icebreaking capabilities during his first administration, and has continued pressing forward from the earliest days of his second term.

But things are not working out.

Bollinger Shipyards, after inheriting the Coast Guard’s troubled Polar Security Cutter program, is struggling to get the job done. In an almost universal industry sign of programmatic trouble ahead, the company has focused more corporate energy upon building a powerful political machine than upon building Coast Guard icebreakers.

Bollinger’s political campaigning has worked, but the $951.6 million the yard won to advance production of the first PSC and stands to get $4.3 billion in funding for additional vessels. But that funding may not go as far as the government might hope. A glance at publicly available data hints that the shipyard’s efforts seem focused on building stakeholder confidence in Mississippi rather than upon building real capacity.

The PR doesn’t hold up.

As the funding rolled in earlier this year, Bollinger bragged that, since Nov 2022, the company spread some $76 million in capital investments across 4 Mississippi shipyards. In shipbuilding, that amount of capital investment is no more than chump change. In December 2022, BAE Systems Southeast shipyard in Jacksonville, Florida, announced an $250 million investment in a massive Pearlson shiplift, and, while Bollinger was busy celebrating their political wins, the Trump Administration—in a strange case of really poor staff work from the Navy’s front office—lost a chance to showcase their maritime commitment. Rather than make headlines, BAE had to quietly “cut the ribbon” in a low-key celebration two months ago. If the Navy’s front office was actually doing their job, the White House should already be primed to have the President show up as the first Navy vessel arrives.

Gulf Coast braggadocio, coupled with an incredibly effective government relations team, makes Bollinger an exciting-sounding partner. But the fact remains that America’s first heavy icebreaker won’t go into service for years yet and Bollinger, despite lashing up with the well-regarded Canadian shipbuilder Seaspan and Finnish shipbuilder Rauma last month, is struggling to move forward with their current icebreaker contract.

The only bright sign of life in American icebreaker shipbuilding is Davie Shipbuilding, currently setting up to invest upwards of a billion dollars in what will soon be the former Gulf Copper shipyards in Texas. This dynamic and experienced icebreaker builder—with integrated icebreaker-building shipyards in both Finland and Canada—is the only foreign shipbuilder besides the Korean shipbuilding giant Hanwaha that has, as of yet, responded to the President’s call to invest billions in the United States to bring manufacturing jobs back home.

12 Trump Icebreakers Are Needed Now

America’s Polar policy is a mess. The only way to improve things is for the President to follow up on his long-held desire for more icebreakers. An announcement of 12 new mid-sized icebreakers—more than the expected eight–makes sense. To keep a single ship on station, the Navy needs three ships—one on duty, one in training, and the other in refit. For icebreakers—whose job is to batter themselves against on unwitting ice field—a user needs around four ships and a lot of spare engines and other key parts to keep one on station.

By adding four more “Arctic Security Cutters” to the Coast Guard’s minimal ask, another set of robust mid-sized bruisers can be forward-deployed in Australia, tasked with the job of supporting America’s modest footholds on the Antarctic continent and pushing back against Chinese and Russian efforts to erode America’s long-benevolent stewardship of the continent. It is time for America to get back into the Polar security game, and the White House can do it today, right now, by announcing the purchase of a “Dirty Dozen”—12 tough, new Trump icebreakers.