Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has frozen hopes of Arctic coordination and left simmering a future competition between a Sino-Russian strategic partnership and the West’s Arctic claimants. Even as Russia expends its conventional military in Ukraine, its authoritarian regime retains power, flexibility, and opportunities with its premier icebreaker fleet and Arctic basing.1 Bolstered by a new maritime strategy that asserts the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation and Northern Sea Route (NSR) are “vital areas of national interest,” Russia’s Duma passed a law in December 2022 claiming the four key straits along the route as internal seas.2
China—Russia’s “friend with no limits” and aspiring “polar great power”—has built multiple domestic icebreakers and proposed a “Polar Silk Road” for maritime voyages between Europe and China.3 As global water temperatures warm, fish populations in near-Arctic waters have grown and are increasingly subject to Chinese illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. As the only service with a mandate for icebreakers, the U.S. Coast Guard will be challenged to keep “free and open” a maritime trade route and its near seas that connect key U.S. allies and partners (such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) with the economies
of NATO—notwithstanding Sino-Russian capability and interests. Further worrying is the service’s limited budget and a Polar Security Cutter (PSC) program already in danger from shipyard consolidation, running the risk of pushing delivery to fiscal year 2027, as Vice Admiral Peter Gautier, Deputy Commandant for Operations, testified in December 2022.4 PSCs will be critical, but the Coast Guard also must innovate its organizations and technology if it wishes to push back on Russian maritime claims along the NSR or regulate near-Arctic IUU fishing.
Conventional single-ship Navy freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) like those conducted in the South China Sea will be insufficient along the NSR. Developing new approaches will require several steps. First, policy-makers must understand the details of Russian claims. Second, the Coast Guard should establish a “Task Force Rush”—named after the earliest Revenue Cutters that served on the Bering Sea Patrol starting in 1874—at Coast Guard Sector Anchorage.5 The task force would be tailored to rapid operational innovation and the deployment of commercially available unmanned systems and artificial intelligence for the Arctic’s maritime domain. Third, the Coast Guard should consider changes to support its long-range aviation fleet of HC-130Js; further coordination with the Navy, Air Force, and Space Force; and adoption of commercially available, cost-effective hybrid air vehicles (HAVs) and high-altitude balloons (HABs) to increase Arctic aviation capacity. Last, the Coast Guard should seek to establish “Task Force ICE”—Icebreaker Coordination Element—modeled in part after the Standing NATO Maritime Groups to bring together the icebreaker fleets of U.S. allies and partners. Task Force ICE would enable future coalitions of icebreakers to plan transits along the NSR in concert with unmanned systems and joint aviation assets, ultimately asserting a “free and open Arctic.”
Pack Ice Packed with Legal Details
Commentators have intermittently called for an Arctic FONOP to push back on Russia’s claims, and Congress specifically highlighted the issue in the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). NDAA Sections 11219–20 direct that, within the year, “the Secretary shall submit to . . . Congress a report that describes the ability and timeline to conduct a transit of the NSR and periodic transits, . . . [a separate study] to assess Coast Guard and Department of Defense collaboration,” and evaluate steps taken to manage risks in Arctic Coast Guard, environmental, and commercial maritime operations.6
Russia’s law does not claim the entirety of the NSR; nor does it differ significantly from historical Soviet doctrine on prenotification of warship passages in the Arctic. In many ways, our Canadian neighbors have been more outside international norms concerning Arctic claims.7 In particular, experts note that the Russian law amends a 1998 federal law, wherein flag states must “apply for permission to enter NSR internal waters greater than ninety days before passage; with no more than one warship allowed in these waters,” and “a special clause requires submarines to surface and show their flag while passing through NSR internal waters. . . . [The Russian] Government reserves the right to suspend passage for warships for security reasons.”8 As U.S. Coast Guard icebreakers are warships under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea definition, an NSR FONOP would require specificity in execution and capacity.9
Whereas Navy FONOPS are often single-ship transits, more than one warship would be required to challenge the inland sea sovereignty in key NSR straits that Russia asserts. Opportunity also could exist in an announced but submerged transit by submarines or unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), or in a U.S. choice to conduct any transit without preapplication and Russian endorsement, including in the airspace above the claimed inland seas.
Capacity, however, remains the key issue, as history informs. Soviet icebreakers forced U.S. icebreakers to turn around in 1965 and 1967 during the last attempted transits through the Vilkitsky Strait.10 The responsibility of Arctic icebreaking shifted from the Navy to the Coast Guard in 1965, and the Chief of Naval Operations rebuffed a recent call in Congress for Navy icebreakers and ice-strengthened hulls.11 In the 1965 and 1967 attempts, the Coast Guard had a total of five icebreakers; the Soviet Union’s icebreaker fleet numbered 18.12 Today, Russia’s icebreaker fleet numbers at least 40, with more under construction.13 Having failed with a Russian-U.S. icebreaker ratio at 3.6:1, the Coast Guard is now forced to contemplate a transit with icebreaker ratios nearing 20:1. More capacity and better icebreakers are needed.
‘Task Force Rush’
Addressing Arctic capacity should begin with increased investment in autonomous systems and artificial intelligence, which eventually should be cheaper and more plentiful than traditional manned systems. A “Task Force Rush” at Coast Guard Sector Anchorage would speak to the need for agility and innovation while honoring two pioneering Revenue Cutters—both named Rush—from the Bering Sea Patrol, which began in 1874. Task Force Rush would take inspiration from the Navy’s Task Force 59 and the Coast Guard’s own unmanned systems experiments elsewhere, developing rapid operational innovation and deploying commercially available unmanned systems and artificial intelligence. Task Force Rush could accelerate deployment of the unmanned aerial, surface, and undersea vehicles industry is developing for the polar regions. The Coast Guard flew the Puma AE unmanned aerial system from the USCGC Healy (WAGB-20) in 2014; Saildrone operated its unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) in the Arctic with the Coast Guard in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA; and the Navy deployed the Bluefin-21 UUV autonomously under the Arctic Circle in 2022.14
Task Force Rush also would support future joint integration. Before 2011, the Coast Guard District 17 Commander served as commander, Naval Forces Alaska; some have argued the District 17 commander should also become the Arctic joint forces maritime component commander (JFMCC).15 Whether the Coast Guard assumes JFMCC, Task Force Rush could spur the creation of Alaska Command task forces with the 11th Air Force and 11th Army Airborne, similar to Central Command’s innovation-focused Task Forces 99 and 39 (U.S. Air Force and Army, respectively).
Of the new autonomous platforms, UUVs could be the most critical for Task Force Rush. Russia requires submarines to surface when transiting. Small, hard-to-detect UUVs could directly challenge this rule, either compelling a Russian response or demonstrating the facile nature of Russia’s Arctic legal regimes.
Amplifying Arctic Aviation
Adapting some HC-130Js with ski landing gear—similar to that on the New York Air National Guard’s LC-130H “Skibirds”—would enhance the ability of these capable long-range surveillance aircraft to work with the new task forces while still carrying out traditional Coast Guard missions, such as search and rescue, in the High North. They could be joined by P-8A Poseidons, with their sophisticated intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and electronic warfare capabilities as well as joint datalink communication and information-sharing systems. Employing Poseidons could be a truly multinational component, as many U.S. allies fly this aircraft. Even without skis, Coast Guard HC-130Js are equipped with a version of the U.S. Navy’s Minotaur mission system and APY-11 phased-array radar, while the Air Force is deploying interim Link 16 capabilities on its HC-130Js.16
At the highest end of the Arctic aviation spectrum would be an occasional augmentation of the allied task forces with U.S. Air Force assets, such as RC-135V/W Rivet Joint reconnaissance aircraft and B-1B Lancer bombers, which could provide sensor and payload capabilities the HC-130s and P-8s lack.
But why employ these exquisite airplanes when HAVs and HABs will do? HAVs, which can be described as part blimp and part airplane, will bring a new ability to deliver heavy equipment to austere locations. They would be important assets in multidomain missions. The HAVs would be contracted; the Coast Guard would not have to own them. Instead, it would lease or hire them to emplace sensor packages in austere locations (including ice packs), resupply far-flung Arctic outposts, and even deliver UUVs and USVs to their point of need. HAVs are the only aircraft that currently can set down on any flat surface: water, ice, or land. Certified for Arctic operations, a hybrid airship that can reach the North Pole with tourists could potentially deliver payloads anywhere in the polar regions.17
Recent Chinese spy balloon operations are clear examples of the potential applications of HABs for various statutory missions in the Arctic region. These balloons— equipped with cameras, radars, or other sensors—could be deployed at the edge of space and maneuver using buoyancy and wind to support civilian and military applications in areas such as communications, search and rescue, ISR, and environmental protection. (For more on HABs, see “Launch Mines from the Stratosphere,” pp. 99–101.)
One unique polar difficulty is access to internet protocol services from satellites in low-Earth orbits, because of the orbital geometries needed to provide communications at high latitudes. But HABs equipped with communication and position, navigation, and timing (PNT) capabilities could establish alternative network options in the region.18 So equipped, HABs could transfer data between task force assets, speeding response times and effectiveness in the Arctic.
Task Force ICE & Arctic Transits
The Polar Security Cutter program is moving slowly. Until and even after those ships are fielded, other nations and their icebreakers might provide additional opportunities to challenge Russian claims along the NSR. A Task Force ICE could serve as a working group of allies and partners comprising Canada, Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the United States—the Arctic Council countries other than Russia.19 “Arctic 7” missions align in many cases with the Coast Guard’s. Under the auspices and endorsement of the these seven nations, Task Force ICE could operate in principle like the Standing NATO Maritime Groups. This task force could plan toward routine transits of the NSR to demonstrate that commercial ships do not require Russian escort and that Russia’s inland sea claims are illegitimate.
It seems unlikely that every member of Task Force ICE could or would provide icebreakers at the same time in a coalition transit of the NSR. But at the very least, the task force could serve as a forum in which participating nations would conduct a coalition equivalent of Global Force Management to allocate icebreakers and facilitate interaction, technological delivery, and support to Arctic and Antarctic missions, as many states have requirements at both poles. If that same coalition did eventually decide to attempt an NSR transit, each icebreaker would be far better prepared if it were flanked and escorted by numerous unmanned, Arctic-capable systems and overflown by multiple joint air assets.
Freedom of Navigation
This past April, two Coast Guard cutters and an L3Harris Arabian Fox MAST-13 unmanned surface vessel transited the Strait of Hormuz while operating in support of the International Maritime Security Construct, an 11-nation coalition led by the United States that focuses on maritime operations near key waterways in the Middle East.20 It is easy to imagine bombers, patrol and ISR aircraft, and HAVs or HABs providing overwatch for a similar transit in the Arctic in the near future.
Competition with Russia and China and new technologies have created challenges and opportunities in the rapidly warming Arctic and its near seas. An enlarged U.S. icebreaker fleet alone will be necessary but not sufficient to answer the call in this new security paradigm; the Coast Guard will need to employ multidomain capabilities in concert with allies and partners so that Russia and China do not use the region in a way detrimental to global security. Task Forces Rush and ICE could answer the call—if the United States innovates boldly to employ joint, international, and commercial means in new ways.
1. Malte Humpert, “From Ukraine to the Arctic: Russia’s Capabilities in the Region and the War’s Impact on the North,” High North News, 28 September 2022.
2. Mathieu Boulègue, Polar Points No. 17: “The Arctic Component of Russia’s New Maritime Doctrine,” The Wilson Center Polar Institute; and Andrey Todorov, “New Russian Law on Northern Sea Route Navigation: Gathering Arctic Storm or Tempest in a Teapot?” Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, 9 March 2023.
3. Elizabeth Wishnick, “The China–Russia ‘No Limits’ Partnership Is Still Going Strong,” CNA, October 2022; Rush Doshi and Gaoqi Zhang, “Northern Expedition: China’s Arctic Activities And Ambitions,” Brookings, April 2021; and Anu Sharma, “China’s Polar Silk Road: Implications for the Arctic Region,” Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, 25 October 2021.
4. Justin Katz, “Why a Small Shipyard Merger Could Signal Bigger Problems for the U.S. Military,” Breaking Defense, 14 November 2022; and Cal Biesecker, “Delivery of First Polar Security Cutter May Slip into 2027, Coast Guard Warns,” Defense Daily, 7 December 2022.
5. William H. Thiesen, “The U.S. Coast Guard’s History in the Arctic,” The Maritime Executive, 7 November 2017.
6. “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023,” H.R. 7900. 117th Congress, 2nd session, 7 July 2022.
7. Cornell Overfield, “FONOP in Vain: The Legal Logics of a U.S. Navy FONOP in the Canadian or Russian Arctic,” Arctic Yearbook 2021.
8. Todorov, “New Russian Law on Northern Sea Route.”
9. “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,” Article 29, adopted 10 December 1982.
10. Melody Schreiber, “Latest U.S. Defense Bill Considers a Northern Sea Route Transit, More Icebreakers,” Arctic Today, 22 December 2022.
11. John Konrad, “Top Navy Admiral Says No to Icebreakers,” gCaptain, 1 April 2023: and, Todorov, “New Russian Law on Northern Sea Route”: “The U.S. Navy could theoretically involve Coast Guard icebreaker Healy in its operation. However, in practice, the Coast Guard has not been engaged in an operational challenge against an excessive maritime claim in over forty years.”
12. Amalgamated “List of Icebreakers,” Wikipedia, counting Soviet icebreakers in active service for use in 1967 during the last American attempt at an NSR transit.
13. Nurlan Aliyev, PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo no. 797: “Russia’s Icebreakers, North Sea Route, and Invasion of Ukraine,” September 2022.
14. PO1 Shawn Eggert, USCG, “Coast Guard Research and Development Center, NOAA Test Unmanned Aircraft System During Arctic Exercise,” DVIDS, 27 August 2014; “Largest Saildrone Fleet Ever Launches 5th Annual Arctic Mission,” Saildrone.com, 29 May 2019; and “Video: Bluefin-21 UUV Navigates Autonomously under the Arctic Circle,” General Dynamics Mission Systems, 19 January 2022.
15. LCDR Grant Bryan, USN, and Col Mark Schmidt, USAF, “Let the Coast Guard Helm Alaskan Command’s Maritime Component,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 145, no. 7 (July 2019).
16. “Minotaur Mission System,” www.dcms.cg.mil; “U.S. Coast Guard to Procure 9 ELTA AN/APY-11 Radars for HC-130J Minotaur,” Defense Week, 9 February 2021; and Shephard News Team, “USAF Seeks More Link 16 Installation Work for HC-130Js,” Shephard Media, 17 August 2022.
17. Miquel Ros, “Travel to the North Pole Aboard a Luxury Airship,” CNN, 18 August 2021.
18. Walker D. Mills, “Solving Communications Gaps in the Arctic with Balloons,” Cimsec.org, 23 August 2021; and LCDR Collin Fox, USN, “If It Floats, It Fights,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 144, no. 6 (June 2018).
19. Trine Jonassen, “The Arctic Council: The Arctic 7 Resume Limited Work without Russia,” High North News, 8 June 2022; and “NATO Standing Naval Forces,” mc.nato.int/missions/NATO-standing-naval-forces.
20. NavCent Public Affairs, “Unmanned Surface Vessel Transits Strait of Hormuz with U.S. Coast Guard,” navy.mil, 19 April 2023.