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Old 11-02-2020, 05:11 AM
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Arrow For the First Time in 26 Years, a US Polar Icebreaker Is Headed to the Arctic

For the First Time in 26 Years, a US Polar Icebreaker Is Headed to the Arctic
By: Patricia Kime - Military.com News - 10-30-20
Re: https://www.military.com/daily-news/...ed-arctic.html

Photo link: https://images02.military.com/sites/...?itok=mUsL56wh

And then there was one.

The Coast Guard cutter Polar Star -- the service's only running long-range icebreaker -- will head to the Arctic this year, in the polar opposite direction of its regular annual deployment to Antarctica.

With the ocean resupply at McMurdo Station in Antarctica canceled this year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the Coast Guard plans to send the heavy icebreaker Polar Star northward to the Arctic region, according to a release issued by the service Thursday.

The ship's mission will be to help "protect the nation's maritime sovereignty and security in the region," the release states.

"The Arctic is no longer an emerging frontier, but is instead a region of growing national importance," said Vice Adm. Linda Fagan, U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Area commander. "The Coast Guard is committed to protecting U.S. sovereignty and working with our partners to uphold a safe, secure, and rules-based Arctic."

It will be the first deployment of a U.S. Polar-class icebreaker to the Arctic since August 1994, when the heavy icebreaker Polar Sea, now inactive, became one of the first two American surface ships to reach the North Pole.

With the largest Arctic nation, Russia, expanding its influence in the region and China seeking to exert its own presence and economic efforts in the Arctic, the U.S. has been seeking to ensure that it retains its authority there.

The Coast Guard released its Arctic Strategic Outlook in April 2019, and the Air Force and Space Force unveiled the Department of the Air Force Arctic Strategy this year, outlining its role and goals for the region.

But displaying presence has proved challenging for the Coast Guard in the past several years, with the service's tiny fleet of icebreakers suffering losses and new ships still a few years away.

This summer, the medium icebreaker Healy Coast Guard suffered a crippling fire in one of its main propulsion motors, leaving it and the starboard shaft inoperable. The vessel, which was on its way to the Arctic for a deployment through at least October, returned to its homeport in Washington under its own power but needed a replacement engine.

The Polar Star, commissioned in 1976, has had its own share of woes, experiencing an engine fire while participating in Operation Deep Freeze last year. The blaze damaged the ship's garbage incinerator housing and the response caused damage to its electrical system.

It needed relatively few repairs in dry dock following Operation Deep Freeze 2020, however, and will leave for the Arctic in early December, according to Coast Guard Pacific Area spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Brickey.

McMurdo Station, managed by the National Science Foundation, will be resupplied this year via aircraft.

The Navy and Coast Guard awarded a $749.5 million contract to VT Halter Marine of Pascagoula, Mississippi, for the first of three new heavy icebreakers, known as Polar Security Cutters. Construction is expected to begin next year.

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Another story: Coast Guard to Tackle China 'Illegal' Fishing in Pacific
By: Agence France Presse - News 10-24-20
Re: https://www.military.com/daily-news/...g-pacific.html

Photo link: https://images01.military.com/sites/...?itok=LvWKARzq
An MH-60S Sea Hawk Helicopter assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 21 conducts “touch and go” drills aboard U.S. Coast Guard Legend-class cutter USCGC Munro (WMSL 755) during Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2020, Aug. 25, 2020. (Madysson Anne Ritter/U.S. Navy)

The United States said Friday it will deploy Coast Guard patrol ships in the western Pacific to counter "destabilizing and malign" activities by China in disputed fishing grounds of the South China Sea.

Accusing China of "illegal" and "unregulated" fishing, as well as "harassment" of fishing boats from regional countries, White House National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien said in a statement that the U.S. Coast Guard "is strategically homeporting significantly enhanced Fast Response Cutters...in the western Pacific."

These Sentinel class vessels will carry out maritime security operations, including helping fishing boats "in collaboration with regional partners who have limited offshore surveillance and enforcement capacity, and ensure freedom of navigation," he said.

Washington regularly accuses China of breaking international law by sending its warships as escorts for Chinese fishing vessels into the fishing grounds of other countries.

In July, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper slammed a "catalog of bad behavior" in the South China Sea over the previous months and accused the Chinese military of having sunk a Vietnamese fishing boat, harassing Malaysian oil and gas development and escorting Chinese fishing fleets into Indonesia's exclusive economic zone.

O'Brien added that the Coast Guard, which is under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was also studying whether to permanently station several of its patrol ships in the area of American Samoa in the South Pacific.

Last month, Indonesia protested about an incursion by Chinese coastguard ships in its exclusive economic zone, which is situated between its own territorial waters and international waters and where the state claims exclusive rights to exploit natural resources.

China claims almost the whole of the South China Sea as its own, a claim contested by several countries including Malaysia, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia.

This article was from Agence France Presse and was legally licensed through the Industry Dive publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@industrydive.com.

end
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Boats

O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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