NATO should break the ice on unmanned systems for icebreakers

Icebreakers are emblematic of the significant gaps in the Arctic defenses of NATO member states. U.S. President Donald Trump has announced an aspirational interest in acquiring at least 40 new icebreakers, but the U.S. Coast Guard only has two. Across NATO, there are thankfully 41, but 65% of these are past their design life. Absent rapid action to recapitalize NATO’s icebreaker fleets, there could be a dramatic drop in capacity this and the next decade.

Recognition of the looming decline has prompted allied countries to accelerate plans for icebreaker development, but before cutting steel, nations should ensure that next-generation designs address a wide range of future demands. Icebreakers are crucial for safety of life and constabulary missions in the poles, but their usefulness in naval warfare has historically been limited. If, however, new icebreakers were designed to deploy and service uncrewed systems, their mission set would greatly expand, bolstering a credible Arctic defense posture.

Heavy icebreakers are effective in areas with dangerous seasonal ice and hard multiyear ice. In the High North, they can break ice for convoys of resupply and merchant vessels through the Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route, conduct rescue and salvage operations and provide presence for scientific and strategic purposes. Overlapping claims to the Arctic Ocean seabed around the North Pole by Russia, Canada and the Kingdom of Denmark may also encourage patrolling with icebreakers equipped for coast guard purposes.

To do so, icebreakers are fitted with powerful engines, sloping bows and reinforced hulls and propellers, enabling them to break and push ice. These features set them apart from other ships, but they also make icebreakers relatively slow, noisy and high in energy consumption. Additionally, construction of each vessel is expensive (up to $3 billion) and time-consuming, lasting 7-10 years.

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Given their high procurement and operational costs, and crewing limitations, nations will face constraints on the number of icebreakers they can field. Additionally, some missions, such as anti-submarine warfare, require capabilities like sonar domes or arrays that are not well-suited to traditional icebreaker designs. But next-generation icebreakers could enable new approaches to these missions.

For example, to detect and track Russian submarines transiting from the Barents Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, NATO forces today use a mix of capabilities, such as satellites, seabed sensors, surface ships with towed arrays, maritime patrol aircraft and submarines. However, there are two primary limitations with the current approach. First, it does not scale well. It requires numerous crewed assets to cover Russian submarines, and if many Russian submarines simultaneously surge through the Greenland-Iceland-U.K. (GIUK) gap or other regions, there may not be enough forces to track and trail them. Second, Russian submarines can avoid many allied surface ships and aircraft by operating near and under the ice near Alaska, Canada and Greenland.

New icebreaker designs equipped with uncrewed assets can help solve these two problems. Fitted with helipads, cranes, moonpools and storage space, they can launch, recover and maintain airborne, surface and undersea uncrewed sensors and vehicles. Numerous uncrewed assets can help cover more area (in support of both civil and defense missions) and generate other effects, such as deploying sensors, laying mines, or, in the future, directly attacking submarines. To keep uncrewed assets operational, mothership icebreakers can refuel and maintain them — even in marginal ice zones, thus contesting Russian submarines under the ice. Additionally, by adopting large payload bays and interfaces, icebreakers can not only better support traditional missions such as navigation support, search and rescue and salvage today, but also be future-proofed to easily integrate with a range of uncrewed systems as they evolve to flexibly enable new warfighting concepts of operation.

Icebreakers cannot do it all. Allied forces will still need to field other assets across domains to efficiently operate, and if necessary, fight effectively in the polar regions. Accordingly, NATO states are wisely adding undersea sensors, uncrewed aircraft such as MQ-9B and crewed aircraft such as P-8A, ice-hardened frigates and polar satellites to their planned portfolios.

But icebreakers remain the lynchpin of Arctic presence. As allied countries consider new programs, they should look beyond safety of life and constabulary missions to maximize the value of icebreakers by adopting designs that also support broader defense demands. This week’s NATO summit is the perfect time to break the ice on adopting designs that leverage uncrewed systems from the start.

Liselotte Odgaard and Timothy A. Walton are senior fellows at Hudson Institute focused on Arctic, maritime, and defense issues.

NATO should break the ice on unmanned systems for icebreakers

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