Russia Continues to Dominate Arctic as US Struggles to Procure Icebreakers

[Geee]

Heritage Foundation:

The Arctic is shaping up to be one of the most strategically important regions in the 21st century. However, the United States has fallen far behind in building the specialized ships necessary to traverse the region’s treacherous waters.

On June 10, Russia launched its first new military icebreaker in half a century. The Ilya Muromets, a diesel icebreaker displacing 6,000 tons, will now begin supporting Russian naval operations in the Arctic.

 

Just days later, the Ilya Muromets’ launch was upstaged when Russia floated the largest icebreaker in history. The nuclear-powered Arktika displaces 33,500 tons and is the first of three planned hulls.

 

 

Russia even plans on adding two icebreaking patrol ships armed with cruise missiles by 2020.

[Draggingtree]

The Arctic is the First Stop in the United States Reset with Russia

Mark E. Rosen November 15, 2016

 

Throughout the primaries President elect Donald Trump asserted that he wanted to have a more constructive relationship with Russia. Trump correctly asserted that President Vladimir Putin was not someone that the United States could pretend didn’t exist because he both loves his country and is enormously popular with his own people. Trump suggested that the United States needed to get past the finger pointing and find ways in which the United States could work cooperatively with Russia – especially in Syria. Mr. Trump would likely have also said that the U.S. needs to find ways to assuage Russian concerns that they were being politically and militarily encircled by NATO. The Trump approach was labeled by his political adversaries as coddling an authoritarian dictator. Obama by contrast seemed to believe that the only way to deal with Putin was by “calling him out” and imposing economic sanctions to target the most critical sectors of the Russian economy.

 

Finding the right approach to Russian behavior towards Eastern Ukraine is something that cannot be ignored since the United States has legal obligations to Ukraine. Under the December 1994 Budapest Memorandum, the United States http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-arctic-the-first-stop-the-united-states-reset-russia-18409?page=2