Iceland investments by the CCP gets the added bonus of being immediately adjacent to the great circle route to/from any of northeast ports of the US and Canada to places like Rostock, Germany, Copenhagen, Denmark, Oslo, Norway and Edinburgh, Scotland.
This is why maps matter. It is a shame that everytime the National Assessment of Educational Progress comes out it shows our student steadily declining in geography skills.
There was a big deal article in USNI Proceedings about one our amphibious being so bold as to use celestial nav to get from Pearl Harbor to California. Big whoop, says a former old school destroyer navigator. I was shocked when I heard USNA had re-started celestial nav classes because I had no idea they had ever stopped teaching that class.
Judging from the signed off PQS of every SWO I ever knew I'd have to say, "Yes, 100% still can". I remember our QMC(SW) teaching the JO's and my CWO2 self the joy of celestial navigation and how to manipulate that Torquemada instrument of torture called the "sextant". Our XO was a former QM3. Just hours before he transferred out to the Yellow Brick Road that led to Command At Sea he got me aside, said, "The QMC hates you...gimmee your PQS book...you have some redeeming qualities that the Chief does not see." <--or words to that effect. Voilà. There were no questions about celestial navigation at my SWO board. But that question about how I would get two generators to line up in phase was a toughie. The Captain told me afterward to brush up on that one. I did. About two months later I was the permanent GQ OOD until I transferred some 32 months later as a 38 year old SWO-pinned LTjg. Radar & visual navigation, LORAN, DR? ...easy.
GPS is/will be nothing unless you have a 5500W generator and gasoline after the lights go out and Amazon isn't delivering batteries anymore. I have 1500W Honda generator to brew coffee with. And I can read a chart (map). I'm pretty much set except for the stamina and surviving ambushes parts.
I have to say that the youth today still have the capacity to learn how to work a map and compass despite their usage of electronics. Up until a few years ago I taught orienteering for the local NRA YHEC (Youth Hunter Education Challenge) group. I have no doubt that any of my kids could kick butt if they decided to join any of the services and do it competitively.
In 1974 my first CO had a chart on the bulkhead of his stateroom, a chart centered on the North Pole, because he believed it to be the best point of view of our national defense.
NAS Keflavik seems to be up and coming (since 2016 per wiki) as a patrol base for P-8 and a reception installation for other US aircraft including B-2.
In early 1980's I worked with a USAF NCO who married an Icelander....... met during the time USAF ran the Keflavik missions.
Trick is we would need to pick another genset and then we are off to the redesign races. The juice might be worth the squeeze, but good luck selling that.
As an old VP acoustic operator, that used to det to Fairbanks Alaska, the former USSR used to transfer submarines from the North sea fleet to Petropavlosk. Of course we maintained a naval presence in the Aleutian Islands (Adak, Shemya were a couple of fun spots). We also sent crews to Greenland. None of this is new, it's just in today's Navy, if the mission can't be done with a drone or Seal Team Six, it's not going to get money or attention. Just the humble opinion of an old sailor. (Damn proud of the men and women operating in the Red Sea) Oh, one more comment we currently have the Air Force's RC-135 and the Navy's P-8 searching for illegal immigrants, a hell of a waste of an asset.
Bering Strait is the key but the command organization in the Bering Sea has to many chiefs and not enough Indians. NORTHCOM, INDOOACOM, and even EUCOM for Asian Russia.
“…the People’s Republic of China…” LOLOLOLOLOLOL…Sal, you crack me up! You might as well throw in “Democratic” while you’re at it.
That place is about as much a, ahem, “People’s Republic” as I am a former Mercury astronaut. Do not dignify that place with that name, or even “PRC.” Refer to it as what it is: Communist China.
Think this is bogus? Well, for work a few years ago, I needed a Chinese visa. On the application, I REFUSED to write, “People’s Republic of China.” I wrote, “Communist China.” If that meant denial, so be it. Want to know what happened? (drum roll, please)…I got the visa with no push-back.
So, “People’s Republic of China” and “PRC” can kiss my fanny. Communist China. Period. Oh…and when I’d walk by the ChiCom embassy in DC, I’d look in the camera and give ‘em the finger. Juvenile? Sure! But it made me feel good…plus, I’m a Naval Aviator, so “juvenile” is part of the designation, I’m pretty sure ;-)
Canadian armed forces have found Chinese anti-submarine surveillance buoys in Canadian Arctic waters. In Feb 2018, the Trudeau government (inexplicably) allowed the PLA to send observers to watch our soldiers winter survival exercises. A joint observation of winter training planned for 2019 was cancelled (apparently, there’s still someone at DND with a brain).
Or we could just accept the Finnish ships as-is and deal with local transformers as needed. Not a clean solution, but decades faster than any other plan.
It’s not a coincidence that Davies, the Quebec-based shipbuilder, has recently bought the Finn icebreaker builder. Canada already has close to 20, including a couple hovercraft, but needs more, and there are rumblings that the US Coast Guard has plans to buy or build some too.
Greenland was such a vital base for weather information in WW2 that the Germans sent a covert team to set up a weather station. China has already set their not-at-all-covert weather stations up in Greenland before any war begins. You have to admire the foresight.
"Our Navy project in China wasn't even in the sampan stage in March, 1942, when I started to that land. A one-man force, I had verbal orders to investigate and carryon any work that might be of help to the United States Fleet in the next two or three years.
Admiral Willis A. ("Ching") Lee, later of the battleships, had told me the morning after Pearl Harbor to "get on my horse" and go to China to see what I could do about setting up intelligence and weather services there. During the first two months of 1942 when the war was going from bad to worse, we had been making tentative plans that were more nearly hopes. We had negotiated with Chinese officials, had made the necessary preliminary arrangements, and Admiral King had assigned me as U. S. Naval Observer, attached to the Embassy in Chungking."
Nome is fine, but it's also really all about the NW passage opening. The US has spent decades declaring that UNCLOS requires the Canadian archipelago to be considered international waters; our change of heart would require the Canooks to defend it--they can't. So, unless they become the 51st state, the logistics routes will be unchallenged, and we will be supremely screwed.
I'm not sure there's a thing we can do regarding Svalbard. Considering the nature of the legal regime there, Svalbard Treaty, unless they're doing something that violates it, there's no way to extract the PRC short of a war.
Even then, the archipelago is a DMZ, so what happens when it turns out the research party is carrying Type 95 Assault rifles and hoists the flag of the People's Liberation Army?
It all comes down to whether or not global warming makes the Northwest Passage navigable. If yes, then everyone, even ships too big for the Panama Canal, has a shorter route to Europe. I note there’s a petrified tropical forest on Axel Heiberg Island (see map) so it was open water once. Plus, Eric the Red wasn’t being ironic when he and his Vikings came west and called their new home “Greenland.” Also, Canadians of a certain age might recall when Dome Pete found what my pals in the ‘owl bidness” used to call a shit-ton of oil and gas in the Mackenzie Delta (1.9 trillion cubic meters) and then weren’t allowed to build a pipeline to access any of it. Fifty years later, and Prime Minister Zoolander still insists that there’s “ no business case for LNG.” The Beaufort Sea gas may be what China has its eye on. Among other things.
It really is all about Nome, yet not a word of it from the administration yet. Just pushing to rename a mountain.
I'm sure this was set up by the outgoing Biden operation but it is good to see that there is some signal way down in the DoD noise.
Special Operations colonel holds presentation on Arctic exercises
Thu, 01/30/2025 - 9:20pm
http://www.nomenugget.com/news/special-operations-colonel-holds-presentation-arctic-exercises
Do you remember “Ice Station Zebra”?
The ghost of Howard Hughes appears.
Agree 100%
Iceland investments by the CCP gets the added bonus of being immediately adjacent to the great circle route to/from any of northeast ports of the US and Canada to places like Rostock, Germany, Copenhagen, Denmark, Oslo, Norway and Edinburgh, Scotland.
This is why maps matter. It is a shame that everytime the National Assessment of Educational Progress comes out it shows our student steadily declining in geography skills.
Map reading? Why Boomer? I have GPS!
Sad but true. Can anyone in the Navy still use a sextant?
Does the fleet still train to fight mode III or is hit alpha a wrap? I would hate to think the Aegis mafia is still that cocky.
There was a big deal article in USNI Proceedings about one our amphibious being so bold as to use celestial nav to get from Pearl Harbor to California. Big whoop, says a former old school destroyer navigator. I was shocked when I heard USNA had re-started celestial nav classes because I had no idea they had ever stopped teaching that class.
Judging from the signed off PQS of every SWO I ever knew I'd have to say, "Yes, 100% still can". I remember our QMC(SW) teaching the JO's and my CWO2 self the joy of celestial navigation and how to manipulate that Torquemada instrument of torture called the "sextant". Our XO was a former QM3. Just hours before he transferred out to the Yellow Brick Road that led to Command At Sea he got me aside, said, "The QMC hates you...gimmee your PQS book...you have some redeeming qualities that the Chief does not see." <--or words to that effect. Voilà. There were no questions about celestial navigation at my SWO board. But that question about how I would get two generators to line up in phase was a toughie. The Captain told me afterward to brush up on that one. I did. About two months later I was the permanent GQ OOD until I transferred some 32 months later as a 38 year old SWO-pinned LTjg. Radar & visual navigation, LORAN, DR? ...easy.
GPS is/will be nothing unless you have a 5500W generator and gasoline after the lights go out and Amazon isn't delivering batteries anymore. I have 1500W Honda generator to brew coffee with. And I can read a chart (map). I'm pretty much set except for the stamina and surviving ambushes parts.
My dear friend, I do hope that you purchased a couple spare AVR modules and tucked them away in an old metal lard can.
I have to say that the youth today still have the capacity to learn how to work a map and compass despite their usage of electronics. Up until a few years ago I taught orienteering for the local NRA YHEC (Youth Hunter Education Challenge) group. I have no doubt that any of my kids could kick butt if they decided to join any of the services and do it competitively.
https://armedforcessports.defense.gov/Sports/Orienteering/Schedule/
(Caveat: Kids participating in NRA events are a bit atypical)
Why globes matter even more
In 1974 my first CO had a chart on the bulkhead of his stateroom, a chart centered on the North Pole, because he believed it to be the best point of view of our national defense.
NAS Keflavik seems to be up and coming (since 2016 per wiki) as a patrol base for P-8 and a reception installation for other US aircraft including B-2.
In early 1980's I worked with a USAF NCO who married an Icelander....... met during the time USAF ran the Keflavik missions.
So swap a few more F-35 for a couple of those ice-hardened Finnish corvettes?
Trick is we would need to pick another genset and then we are off to the redesign races. The juice might be worth the squeeze, but good luck selling that.
The Exercise referred to hear did not include the Coast Guard. A mistake since only the Coast Guard has ships continuously in the Bering Sea.
I'm rather more concerned about the Chinese 'research stations' in the north Atlantic
China and PLA are more of a threat than Russia.
Do you know why?
Russia has the largest Arctic landmass and is hugely undeveloped.
It might take another 20 years before the Bear is on the prowl for more Arctic-related land. They have enough resources on hand meanwhile to develop.
China, on the other hand, is a resource-hungry nation: from oil to minerals, fishing stock, timber, coal, food, etc
BRI projects are neocolonism in disguise bought off by contract bribes and corruptions and Chinese honeypots.
The Chinese are always on the prowl for opportunities and resources.
I suggest that the first glimpse of PLAN warships at those “research stations” should be grounds for sinking said warships.
Monroe doctrine!
As an old VP acoustic operator, that used to det to Fairbanks Alaska, the former USSR used to transfer submarines from the North sea fleet to Petropavlosk. Of course we maintained a naval presence in the Aleutian Islands (Adak, Shemya were a couple of fun spots). We also sent crews to Greenland. None of this is new, it's just in today's Navy, if the mission can't be done with a drone or Seal Team Six, it's not going to get money or attention. Just the humble opinion of an old sailor. (Damn proud of the men and women operating in the Red Sea) Oh, one more comment we currently have the Air Force's RC-135 and the Navy's P-8 searching for illegal immigrants, a hell of a waste of an asset.
Considering how many hundreds of thousands of Americans have been killed by fentanyl, I don’t see that as a waste of military assets.
Bering Strait is the key but the command organization in the Bering Sea has to many chiefs and not enough Indians. NORTHCOM, INDOOACOM, and even EUCOM for Asian Russia.
Santa Claus and his elves threaten China’s control of the toy market.
“…the People’s Republic of China…” LOLOLOLOLOLOL…Sal, you crack me up! You might as well throw in “Democratic” while you’re at it.
That place is about as much a, ahem, “People’s Republic” as I am a former Mercury astronaut. Do not dignify that place with that name, or even “PRC.” Refer to it as what it is: Communist China.
Think this is bogus? Well, for work a few years ago, I needed a Chinese visa. On the application, I REFUSED to write, “People’s Republic of China.” I wrote, “Communist China.” If that meant denial, so be it. Want to know what happened? (drum roll, please)…I got the visa with no push-back.
So, “People’s Republic of China” and “PRC” can kiss my fanny. Communist China. Period. Oh…and when I’d walk by the ChiCom embassy in DC, I’d look in the camera and give ‘em the finger. Juvenile? Sure! But it made me feel good…plus, I’m a Naval Aviator, so “juvenile” is part of the designation, I’m pretty sure ;-)
Canadian armed forces have found Chinese anti-submarine surveillance buoys in Canadian Arctic waters. In Feb 2018, the Trudeau government (inexplicably) allowed the PLA to send observers to watch our soldiers winter survival exercises. A joint observation of winter training planned for 2019 was cancelled (apparently, there’s still someone at DND with a brain).
Or we could just accept the Finnish ships as-is and deal with local transformers as needed. Not a clean solution, but decades faster than any other plan.
It’s not a coincidence that Davies, the Quebec-based shipbuilder, has recently bought the Finn icebreaker builder. Canada already has close to 20, including a couple hovercraft, but needs more, and there are rumblings that the US Coast Guard has plans to buy or build some too.
Trump admin needs to get the 40 icebreakers in the ICE consortium(US-Canada-Finland) to get going ASAP.
The latest US Coast Guard icebreaker addition is an old clanker fit for the scrapyard.
https://www.fastcompany.com/91267715/the-u-s-desperately-needs-icebreaker-ships-the-one-it-has-is-a-design-failure
It pains me to see the US struggle with building even a single icebreaker. Are they that difficult?
We build aircraft carriers, submarines, and destroyers and yet are floored by an icebreaker.
Inconceivable. Sad. Very sad.
https://www.wsj.com/world/trumps-arctic-goals-demand-icebreakers-but-u-s-struggles-to-build-them-e13a33b9
Greenland was such a vital base for weather information in WW2 that the Germans sent a covert team to set up a weather station. China has already set their not-at-all-covert weather stations up in Greenland before any war begins. You have to admire the foresight.
And GPS coordinates are very useful.
"Nice weather station you have there USA, would be a pity if something happened to it"
And that’s why we plan things before we take action.
Which, of course, is why we had meteorologists in China with Kai-shek's forces in WW2. As good as this article was in the Navy Times a few years ago, (https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/12/30/how-naked-world-war-ii-sailors-ended-up-riding-mongolian-ponies-in-the-gobi-desert-to-shoot-bazookas-at-the-japanese/) I prefer the first person account of by-then RADM Miles in Proceedings. (https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1946/july/u-s-naval-group-china)
"Our Navy project in China wasn't even in the sampan stage in March, 1942, when I started to that land. A one-man force, I had verbal orders to investigate and carryon any work that might be of help to the United States Fleet in the next two or three years.
Admiral Willis A. ("Ching") Lee, later of the battleships, had told me the morning after Pearl Harbor to "get on my horse" and go to China to see what I could do about setting up intelligence and weather services there. During the first two months of 1942 when the war was going from bad to worse, we had been making tentative plans that were more nearly hopes. We had negotiated with Chinese officials, had made the necessary preliminary arrangements, and Admiral King had assigned me as U. S. Naval Observer, attached to the Embassy in Chungking."
Nome is fine, but it's also really all about the NW passage opening. The US has spent decades declaring that UNCLOS requires the Canadian archipelago to be considered international waters; our change of heart would require the Canooks to defend it--they can't. So, unless they become the 51st state, the logistics routes will be unchallenged, and we will be supremely screwed.
I'm not sure there's a thing we can do regarding Svalbard. Considering the nature of the legal regime there, Svalbard Treaty, unless they're doing something that violates it, there's no way to extract the PRC short of a war.
Even then, the archipelago is a DMZ, so what happens when it turns out the research party is carrying Type 95 Assault rifles and hoists the flag of the People's Liberation Army?
Yes, that's a crucial point about the Svalbard Treaty.
Anybody can go live there without restriction. Of course, there's nothing to do and the weather's bad.
It all comes down to whether or not global warming makes the Northwest Passage navigable. If yes, then everyone, even ships too big for the Panama Canal, has a shorter route to Europe. I note there’s a petrified tropical forest on Axel Heiberg Island (see map) so it was open water once. Plus, Eric the Red wasn’t being ironic when he and his Vikings came west and called their new home “Greenland.” Also, Canadians of a certain age might recall when Dome Pete found what my pals in the ‘owl bidness” used to call a shit-ton of oil and gas in the Mackenzie Delta (1.9 trillion cubic meters) and then weren’t allowed to build a pipeline to access any of it. Fifty years later, and Prime Minister Zoolander still insists that there’s “ no business case for LNG.” The Beaufort Sea gas may be what China has its eye on. Among other things.