Alaska, about 1,000 miles South.
“It’s very clear that more icebreakers are needed," Seth Myers, a research associate at The Arctic Institute, told Mashable. "It’s just that right now it’s very unlikely that Congress is going to approve them.”
The Navy could spend some cash to "ice harden" some of its existing fleet, but steeling a ship against sea ice makes it slower and less effective in temperate waters. Plus, that protective shell can cost 33% of what it would take to build a whole new ship. Icebreakers aren't a much better proposition. Those ships take 8-10 years to build and cost $800 million-$1 billion, Myers said. Such expenses are hard to justify when the Pentagon is slashing spending and shrinking its forces in the wake of the Iraq War and the drawdown in troops from Afghanistan.
The same logic goes for building a naval base inside the Arctic Circle. Right now, as the military budget is tightening, the Navy's roadmap indicates that it's just not a priority.
“The Navy is dealing with a lot of push back on its platforms across the board, so it has to focus on the most immediate threat," Myers said. “As a result, it’s not going to push extremely hard for capabilities that match requirements that are pretty far out in the future.”
And the oceanographer's office understands that. The purpose of the new roadmap wasn't to start building icebreakers and bases near the top of the world, but to outline how much money the Navy might want to allocate for Arctic exploration, and to provide a basic timeline for when serious exploration should begin.
"If you don't have a requirement, you don't get funding," Freeman said. "That's how it works. This will provide requirements for us that we can use to justify investment."
And future funding is not out of the question, given that the issue has some new high-level attention.
Secretary of State John Kerry announced in February that the State Department would soon name a "Special Representative for the Arctic Region," which some have referred to as an Arctic ambassador. That person will "play a critical role in advancing American interests in the Arctic Region," Kerry said in a statement. "President Obama and I are committed to elevating our attention and effort to keep up with the opportunities and consequences presented by the Arctic’s rapid transformation — a very rare convergence of almost every national priority in the most rapidly-changing region on the face of the Earth."
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