Closing the U.S. Strategic Gap in Icebreaker Capacity

For over three decades U.S. Coast Guard leaders have struggled to address the strategic risk to the nation created by the exhaustively-studied yet still unresolved U.S. “icebreaker deficit.” This article examines the current state of the U.S. Coast Guard's icebreaking fleet and recent proposals to close the gap between the Coast Guard's Arctic and Antarctic region mission demands, including navigation access, maritime search and rescue, marine environmental protection and scientific research support, and the Coast Guard's capacity to meet those demands