The Coast Guard recently announced that Juneau, Alaska, will be the homeport for the Alviq, a U.S.-registered Arctic oil exploration support ship that has the capability of a medium polar icebreaker. 

It was a rare piece of good news in what’s been a long struggle for the Coast Guard to beef up its inadequate polar fleet, which pales in comparison to the fleet of more than 40 icebreakers fielded by Russia. 

The $125 million Alviq is the only U.S.-built commercial vessel that meets icebreaking standards. But Coast Guard officials acknowledged it won’t be ready for two years, which means it won’t help close the gap between America and its foes right now.

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“The United States is an Arctic nation, and the Coast Guard is vital to providing a presence in our sovereign waters and the polar regions,” Adm. Kevin Lunday, the Coast Guard’s vice commandant, said in a recent statement. “Acquiring a commercially available polar icebreaker will enable the Coast Guard to increase our national presence in the Arctic.”

The strategic importance of the Arctic region has grown in recent years as melting ice has opened up new transportation routes that can be used for commercial and military purposes by both allies and antagonists, including Russia and China. Officials say that it’s vital for the U.S. and its partners to be prepared.

“We’re seeing some of the most assertive and even aggressive actions of potential adversaries who are really leaning forward in the Arctic,” Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair told The Washington Times in May. “The region is facing new challenges and potentially new threats and it really demands that we respond in an appropriate way.”

An Arctic ’crisis’

The Coast Guard has been the sole provider of America’s polar icebreaking capability since 1965. It needs at least four heavy icebreakers and a similar number of medium icebreakers to carry out its Arctic and Antarctic mission in the future, according to a 2023 Coast Guard fleet analysis.

But today, the service operates only two Polar icebreakers: the medium-class U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy and the USCGC Polar Star, the sole heavy icebreaker in the fleet. The Coast Guard has a handful of smaller icebreakers that are used to support maritime traffic on the Great Lakes and along the East Coast, but they aren’t capable of operating in the polar regions.

“It’s definitely a crisis right now, but it’s something that has been decades in the making,” said Rebecca Pincus, director of the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center. “We’re at a point right now where the U.S. has fewer icebreakers than China.”

The Healy and the Polar Star are both currently out of action. The Healy was about a month into its summer Arctic patrol on July 25 when a fire broke out in the engineering compartment. The fire was quickly extinguished and there were no casualties. But out of what Coast Guard officials called “an abundance of caution,” the Healy turned around and returned to its home port of Seattle.

“In the Arctic, there are few rescue resources, and ice-covered waters make it difficult for rescue assets,” Capt. Michele Shallip, the Healy’s commanding officer, said after the cutter returned to Seattle. “Crews operating in polar waters must be well-trained for emergency response, and responsible operation includes addressing any system degradation on a vessel before continuing operations in the high latitudes.”

The Polar Star, commissioned in the 1970s, is undergoing a major maintenance program at a drydock in California. The Coast Guard expects it to be ready for its icebreaking mission later this year in Antarctica.

The Polar Sea, its sister ship, has been in mothballs for several years and is regularly cannibalized for parts to keep the Polar Star afloat.

A heavy polar icebreaker can continuously smash through 6 feet of ice at a speed of three knots, and 20 or more feet of ice by backing up and ramming. A medium icebreaker can power through almost 5 feet of ice at three knots and at least 8 feet by backing and ramming.

Searching for a solution

The Coast Guard’s Polar Security Cutter (PSC) program was meant to be the answer to the country’s icebreaker dilemma. It would have provided them with a fleet of heavy and medium icebreakers for about $3.2 billion.

As part of that initiative, the Coast Guard in 2019 awarded VT Halter Marine, Inc. a contract for the design and construction of up to three icebreaking ships. But two years later, the company was bought out by Bollinger Shipyards of Louisiana. A May 2024 Government Accountability Office study concluded that the Coast Guard’s priority shipbuilding programs are now “well behind schedule and have experienced significant cost growth.”

The ship’s design required substantial modifications to meet the needs of the Coast Guard. As of July, it was only 59% complete, according to a recently released Congressional Budget Office study.

GAO analysts blamed the Coast Guard’s polar icebreaker delay on four primary factors: the lack of companies in the U.S. with experience constructing the niche vessels; a complex design requiring the use of a specialized steel alloy and new welding procedures; a shipbuilder that was forced to make significant design changes to meet government specifications; and COVID-19 restrictions that limited the company’s ability to collaborate and consult with domestic and international partners.

“Officials told us that, unlike with other shipbuilding programs, there were no existing U.S.-developed hull designs for a heavy polar icebreaker that the shipbuilder could easily leverage as a basis for the Polar Security Cutter,” the GAO said in its report.

The original shipbuilder initially based its PSC design on a polar icebreaking research ship designed by a European firm.

“The shipbuilder and its design subcontractor likely overestimated the extent to which that design could be leveraged,” the GAO said. “This resulted in a contractor having to make considerable changes to the design of that ship, which led to delays.”

Ms. Pincus, with the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute, said the Coast Guard’s PSC program delays and the Navy’s shipbuilding challenges indicate systemic problems in the nation’s shipbuilding industry.

“We’re not good at building ships, and when we do build ships, they are really, really expensive and they take way too long,” Ms. Pincus said. “We’ve lost the expertise that’s been eroded out over the last few decades.”

Last month, lawmakers on Capitol Hill raked Adm. Linda Fagan, the Coast Guard Commandant, over the coals for the delays and cost overruns for the Polar Security Cutters.

“The PSC program was initially supposed to have delivered the first cutter by this year, but construction on the first ship has not even begun,” Rep. Mark Green, Tennessee Republican and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said in a statement. “The PSC program’s cost will be almost 60% higher than the Coast Guard’s current estimate.”

Adm. Fagan called the Polar Security Cutter “a critical national security asset” for the country because it allows the U.S. to operate and have a presence in its own polar exclusive economic zone.

“The Polar Security Cutter contract has been delayed. We’re working with (Bollinger Shipyards) to finalize the detailed design (and) begin building the cutter in earnest,” she said during her July 26 testimony to the House Homeland Security Committee. “We have a design. The design maturity is critical to reducing risk and onward schedule slippage and cost.”

Ms. Pincus said the Coast Guard has been starved of resources for years. Even if it gets a new fleet of icebreakers, the operations and maintenance costs to keep them up and running will be extensive.

“The Coast Guard is tiny and icebreakers are really expensive. It’s like a snake trying to swallow an elephant,” she said. “It just doesn’t fit into Coast Guard budgets and Congress has not given them” the additional money that would be needed.

The Coast Guard, like other military services, has faced difficulties trying to fill its ranks with new recruits.

“The Coast Guard is in a place right now where they are mothballing cutters because they don’t have enough people to crew them,” Ms. Pincus said. “The Coast Guard needs more icebreakers but it’s got to figure out how to crew them and operate them and maintain them.”