Back in August we were making this very point:
The U.S. Has NO Icebreakers It Can Deploy To The Arctic This Year
What the actual hell.
Congress and the Obama administration should have ordered six heavies ten years ago.
This is dereliction of their single most important function, national defense, and borderline suicidal.
From Reuters, October 19:
On a windy August afternoon in 2017, Akitsinnguaq Ina Olsen was relaxing in the old harbour of Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, when a Chinese icebreaker sailed unannounced into the Arctic island’s territorial waters.
“I saw it by chance,” Olsen, 50, told Reuters. “My first thought was: ‘They’re already here!’ They’re pretty cheeky, those Chinese.”
She pulled out her phone and took a picture of the 167-meter long Chinese icebreaker Xue Long (Snow Dragon), before it turned around and disappeared.
The Chinese ship was one of a growing number of unexpected arrivals in Arctic waters as shrinking sea ice has fast-tracked a race among global powers for control over resources and waterways. Both China and Russia have been making increasingly assertive moves in the region, and after the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last year said now is “America’s moment to stand up as an Arctic nation and for the Arctic’s future,” military activity is stepping up.
Greenland is a semi-autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark and Copenhagen runs the island’s defence through its Joint Arctic Command. On several occasions since 2006, foreign vessels have turned up unexpectedly or without the necessary protocols, in waters that NATO-member Denmark aims to defend, Greenland residents and military sources in Denmark and the United States told Reuters.
Copenhagen and its Arctic neighbours have tried in recent decades to keep the region what they call a “low tension” area. But each event underscores new challenges for Denmark and its allies.
The main problem: It’s hard to see what’s going on there.
Greenland, which U.S. President Donald Trump offered unsuccessfully to buy from Copenhagen last year, is largely an ice sheet with a rocky coastline of 44,000 km (27,000 miles) - longer than the earth’s equator. It’s hidden by almost complete darkness in the winter months.
Beneath its rocks and ice are abundant resources of minerals and rare earth metals used in equipment from smartphones to electric vehicles and military jets, as well as uranium and potentially vast resources of oil and natural gas.
Greenland offers more than resources. The island, which is nearer to New York than New York is to Los Angeles, is also a strategic window onto space....
....MUCH MORE
HT: gCaptain
It's probably best the U.S. didn't try to do some Kelo eminent domain thing:
"President Trump Eyes a New Real-Estate Purchase: Greenland"
Possibly related:I promise not to do this to Greenland! pic.twitter.com/03DdyVU6HA
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 20, 2019
June 9
Chinese Investment In Greenland and Iceland
May 17
Sand from Greenland’s Melting Ice Sheet Could Bring in Business
November 2018
"How the Greenland ice sheet fared in 2018"
September 2018
Greenland Passes On the Opportunity To Be Part Of China's One Belt, One Road
And then there's the whole Hans Island thing.
