Two crucial tasks for the U.S. Navy are to provide security for sea lines of communication (SLOCs), and to defend the U.S. homeland from afar. But the shape of the landscape for 21 st century sea power is changing fast -- figuratively and literally. China's growing naval strength -- especially submarine strength -- has already been widely discussed by many defense analysts and the Pentagon. The resurgence of Russia's nuclear sub fleet, both fast-attacks (SSNs) and boomers (SSBNs), is also getting headlines of late -- and not reassuring ones. And while the U.S. Navy's newest sub classes have made quantum leaps in stealth and sensors, in “green water” or land-strike combat payloads, and in counter-terror capabilities, the too-slow build rate of those great subs is quickly reaching a crisis state for future national security and our current shipbuilding industrial base.

At the same time, due to an increasing trend in average worldwide temperatures, the North Pole ice cap is shrinking; it might even, in foreseeable decades to come, break up into several huge chunks with open water in between. The fact that the globe is warming seems to me inarguable -- after all, it's gradually been getting hotter since the “Little Ice Age” in the 1400s. Worse, scientists estimate that between 30% and 70% of the recent extra heat derives from factors outside all human control. These factors range from unpredictable volcanic activity to subtle periodic changes in the size and brightness of the sun, to long-term wobbles in Earth's orbit caused by Jupiter's gravitational pull, to random fluctuations in the rate of bombardment by cosmic rays from deep space.

As the ice cap shrinks, SLOCs will be dramatically redrawn. The famous (or infamous) Northwest Passage, where surface ships trying to go between Atlantic and Pacific pass the coast of Canada, will for the first time actually become passable on a constant, cost-effective basis. The North Sea Route, along the shores of Siberian Russia, will be navigable year-round without the aid of icebreakers. Cargo vessels may be able to take great-circle routes (the shortest possible) between harbors in Arctic Canada or Alaska and ones in northern Russia and Scandinavia, across the top of the world. Countries would hurry to construct railroads and highways to link to these previously backwater or seasonal ports that become transformed into vital and vibrant nautical transhipment nodes. Patterns of maritime trade -- including oil wealth and mineral resources -- would be substantially altered. Considering the weak rule of law in portions of Russia, and the sparse population of parts of Canada's complicated littorals, modern pirates might even move in and begin to prey on these SLOCs.

So, what does this New Arctic have to do with submarines? Old roles will remain or return, including cat-and-mouse games between American and Russian SSNs and SSBNs, and also undersea espionage activities in such a strategic area as the very deep Arctic Ocean. New problems will emerge for the U.S. Navy and its submarine force, as any country with air-independent-propulsion (AIP) diesel subs will be able to operate far in under the ice cover. Conventional diesels might even infiltrate this theater of ops, as more and bigger leads (polynyas) of blue water and thin ice propogate across a dwindling cap where sonar conditions can be poor. Submarine-launched terrorist or rogue state intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), armed with weapons of mass destruction, could menace America from a whole New threat axis -- due north.

The pressing responsibility for our subs with their SEALs and torpedoes to covertly detect, track, and interdict possibly hostile merchant ships while still well out into the SLOCs (or suspiciously distant from well-plyed SLOCs) will extend to an unforgiving realm with difficult oceanographic and meteorological conditions all its own. For instance, enemy-controlled tramp steamers, fitted with camouflaged, makeshift IRBM launchers, might sneak close through this same New Arctic “back door” -- then anchor or dock in the south Hudson Bay, and be within less than 1,000 miles of New York, Chicago, or Washington, DC.

China poses a particularly serious challenge in the coming New Arctic era. Nowadays good chums with Russia, the People's Republic might arrange submarine basing rights on the Kamchatka Peninsula, much closer to the Bering Strait than our nearest subs based around Bangor, WA. (The Bering Strait, a naval choke point that -- just like a minefield -- has no friends, leads between Siberia and Alaska directly into Arctic seas.) This creates a third theater, besides the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific, in which Chinese undersea muscle might seek to harrass or surprise the U.S., thus amplifying one already-identified important Chinese strength: leveraging regional tensions for global purposes.

More SLOCs to patrol and more potential Cold War-style jousting in the emerging New Arctic means more work for our Navy. The potential (inevitable?) added strain applies in particular to the submarine force. This is where the New London Submarine Base, the Portsmouth (Maine) Naval Shipyard, and nearby sub construction and maintenance facilities of General Dynamics Electric Boat come into play. Collectively, they represent our submarine basing and upkeep facilities closest to the Arctic. In addition, as ice caps and glaciers melt and the oceans rise, they're the least vulnerable SSN support facilities along the East Coast. A map in the Science Times section of the June 20, 2006 The New York Times makes this point clearly: The entire Virginia coastline (including Navy bases in and near Norfolk) is listed as being at “very high” risk from the effects of future sea level rises. The entire coast of Connecticut and Maine is listed at “low” risk -- at exact opposite ends of the spectrum of danger displayed on the map.

Though I don't recall this last point coming up during the BRAC debates a year ago, there appear to be indications here that the commission did the right thing. The real question now is, can the Navy as a whole, and the submarine force in particular, adapt to handle additional missions in this century's New Arctic, without getting too overstretched to stay operationally effective elsewhere? All signs point to the globe warming up with more, and more serious, military hot spots where sea power is relevant, if not primary. As the temperature rises, a bigger budget for shipbuilding and crew training is starting to look like a smart investment indeed.