Posted on 05/26/2020 10:43:43 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
When the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee convened a hearing to confirm the new Secretary of Navy Kenneth Braithwaite, the word "Arctic" was mentioned 35 times.
It topped other hot topics such as "China" and "Russia," which each received 22 mentions, and far outweighed "North Korea," which was raised just six times, reflecting the new interest in the topic in Washington.
"The Chinese and the Russians are everywhere," Braithwaite told senators on May 7, referring to the Arctic region. "Especially the Chinese. You'd be alarmed at the amount of Chinese activity off the coast of Norway in the High North, and we need to be vigilant to that. We need to understand why."
As the U.S. ambassador to Norway for the past two years, Braithwaite has had a front seat view of the activities of the two countries. His appointment to be secretary of the navy itself is symbolic of the trend.
The former one-star rear admiral said that the opening of Arctic waters, due to the melting of ice, was the main factor motivating the Chinese. "If you look at the northern sea route between Kirkenes, the most-northern city in Norway, coming across the top of Russia," Braithwaite said, it could reduce the amount of time needed to move commerce out of China to European markets "by half."
The senators agreed with Braithwaite's analysis. "The opening up of the Arctic Ocean is a world historical event. It's the equivalent of the discovery of the Mediterranean Sea," said independent Sen. Angus King of Maine. "It's an entirely new water body that was unavailable for human use except for the indigenous peoples for all of human history. It's of enormous strategic importance."
King raised concern about China's ambitions in the region. "The Chinese now have declared themselves a 'near Arctic nation.'
(Excerpt) Read more at asia.nikkei.com ...
Captain Sig, your quota has just been increased!
We have one broken down conventionality-powered heavy Ice Breaker - the new conventionality-powered medium ones will not come online for years. By then, the US will have zero heavies, none of which will be nuclear. Which in effect seeds both the Arctic and Antarctic to Russia and China - because without heavies, there is no way to break the ice to create lanes for ships.
The Chinese have one or two modern heavies and are building more - all nuclear; the Russians have dozens of modern heavies nuclear and non-nuclear. Most of the Russian heavies are heavily armed. Our new ones may be.
Cedes.
Basically this is posturing for public benefit without a single dedicated ship to back up anything and none in any budget or even publicly discussed. Just hollow rhetoric. A puff piece.
The three new medium breakers will not be on line anytime soon, and when they are, they will spend a good bit of operational time shuttling back and forth between the Arctic and Antarctic.
Remember the Chinese Communists were buying up several airports, er bases, in Greenland? One a former US Air Force base...
Maybe it’s time to reconsider the offer to buy Greenland.
All I know is, thank God we bought Alaska from the Russians.
You think the Russkies would like a “do over” on that one?
That’s what I been saying, buy Greenland now.
According to this article, it’s a given that the Arctic ocean will soon rival the south pacific in ice. Why would we need icebreakers of any weight?
Imagine if Sec of State Seward had backed off when he was lampooned over buying Alaska......
Maybe getting rid of the crippling political correctness would be a good first step to restore the Navy to it’s former greatness.
opps
If anyone can make a deal, it's Trump.
And global arming takes another victim.
We need them for the Antarctic too. And if the ice melts this year and then comes back next; penny wise and pound foolish we still have no heavy Ice Breakers.
No one has launched an ICBM in anger so why do wee need anti-missile defense? The moon is made of rocks, so why do we need to go back again?
etc
“Seeds,” jumps off the page..
But, then I thought, “maybe there is a chance that
an attempt to grow crops on the ice was afoot?”
It could be successful with enough bat guano.
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