Kinda like getting reassigned to
Thule Air Base if you screwed-up ...
The Worst Orders You’ll Ever Get?NavyTimes: — If you think your ship has everything it needs to operate anywhere in the world, you might consider stocking up on baseball bats, silicone heating pads, mukluks and working uniforms with seven layers of insulation.
That’s because if lawmakers here have their way, the Navy might cut you orders to what they’re calling “Strategic Arctic Ports” — anchorages near increasingly thawing waterways in a northern region that’s becoming an “emerging strategic choke point of future great power competition.”
All of that’s tucked into Section 1041 of the new 988-page defense spending bill. It orders the Pentagon to begin coordinating with the U.S. Coast Guard and Maritime Administration to find “potential sites for one of more strategic ports in the Arctic,” a place Navy surface warships and aircraft carriers have rarely ventured over the past three decades.... The legislation mandates that the northern ports will host “at least one of each type of Navy or Coast Guard vessel,” including a guided-missile destroyer and a Legend-class National Security Cutter, along with a heavy polar ice breaker.
The sites will have the capacity for equipment, fuel storage and defense systems and be linked by roads to airports that can support military aircraft.... Some longtime Arctic hands wonder if Capitol Hill sounds unrealistically ambitious about northern ports.
“It reads like, ‘Where are we going to put Naval Base Norfolk in the Arctic?’ That’s a bit of a stretch,” said retired Coast Guard Capt. Lawson Brigham, the former commander of the icebreaker Polar Sea during expeditions through the Arctic and Antarctic.
Now a global fellow as the Woodrow Wilson Center and a University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher,
Brigham said multiple challenges confront anyone trying to build an Arctic port from scratch, starting with finding deep water along western Alaska’s shallow coastline.“You’ve got to have draft. You’ve got to have depth of water,” Brigham added. “You’ve got to have a proper place to moor ships, not necessarily in the ice. An Aegis-class cruiser or destroyer can’t go anywhere near the ice.”And then there’s the price tag.
“The question that makes everyone nervous is, ‘Who pays for this?’” he said. “What agency is going to have to pony up?”... Planners need to realize that there’s no road or railway that connects the small towns to larger cities, Brigham said.
“It is good to take a hard look at what’s feasible and practical for a port in the United States maritime Arctic,” Brigham concluded.
https://www.businessinsider.com/%C3%A7
