Russia’s ‘Combat Icebreaker’ Sets Sail

James Stavridis at Bloomberg reports that Russia is building up combat power in the polar region, and NATO needs a plan to counter him. This comes after news broke in February that the U.S. icebreaker was delayed three years. He writes:

Ukraine was rightly the major focus at this week’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Washington. And as the meeting’s communiqué attests, the 75-year-old alliance has lots of other pressing challenges: in the Middle East, the Asia-Pacific, cyberspace and elsewhere.

Relatively little attention is paid, however, to a zone of geopolitical competition that could soon become a flashpoint for conflict: the Arctic. Russia is on the move up north, and to a lesser extent so is China. What should NATO consider as it looks at the polar region?

Russia is the largest coastal nation of the Arctic Ocean, taking up about half its shores. The other half is divided among the US, Canada, Denmark (Greenland is its dependent territory), Iceland and Norway. The recent addition of Sweden and Finland means NATO boasts seven of the eight countries holding real estate above the Arctic Circle. […]

But what has heads turning in NATO-world is the construction trial of a brand-new combat icebreaker, the very impressive Ivan Papanin. This Russian warship, which is diesel-electric rather than nuclear, is expected to be fully functional by the end of this year. Two more of the same class are coming right behind it. […]

When I was NATO’s military commander a decade ago and raised my Arctic concerns with senior Canadians, they would tell me to relax, that it was “High North but low tension.” One joked that if the Russians attacked Canada across the Arctic, “We would end up performing search and rescue on them.” Maybe. But that was well before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and his push on combat icebreakers. Russia’s Arctic capabilities are no longer a punch line.

James Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, a retired US Navy admiral, former supreme allied commander of NATO, and dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

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Also read, The Arctic Buildup: A New Cold War, Dangerous Forecast for Shipping Routes, and U.S. Coast Guard Admiral: Potential Russian ‘Checkmate’ in the Arctic