Image source: topwar.ru
Washington is thinking about buying a new icebreaker to surf the freezing waters of the Arctic Ocean, writes The Wall Street Journal.
As the newspaper notes, Russia has up to 40 icebreakers, China is increasingly seeking to strengthen its fleet to become a "great polar power", and the United States is playing catch-up.
America currently has only two icebreakers – the heavy Polar Star and the medium Healy, which exhausted their service life ten years ago, the newspaper writes.
In order to somehow catch up, the US Coast Guard set out to purchase a vessel capable of splitting ice from the private company Edison Chouest Offshore. The cost of the ship is estimated at up to $ 150 million. It will operate in Arctic waters.
Icebreakers are necessary for the US navy in order to be able to approach foreign ships in frozen waters or conduct search and rescue operations, the newspaper notes. In addition, the Arctic is interesting because it is possible to organize oil production there, develop commercial fishing. The importance of the Arctic is difficult to overestimate in military terms.
Recall that even under President Donald Trump, the possibility of adopting a program to create an American fleet of icebreakers for navigation in the Arctic and Antarctic ice was considered.
