U.S. Navy Responds to Increased Arctic Activity
The loss of seasonal sea ice in the Arctic will have ramifications for the U.S. Navy in terms of future missions, force structure, training and investments. To get a better handle on planning for future Arctic missions, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Jonathan Greenert asked me to provide an unambiguous assessment of how ice coverage will change in the Arctic and how human activity in the Arctic will change in response to decreased ice coverage and other factors. To understand this challenge, let me give you a little background.
When Will New Arctic Maritime Crossroad Open?
Rear Adm. Jon White, 
Oceanographer & Navigator of the Navy, Director Task Force Climate Change, was tasked by the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Jonathan Greenert to provide an unambiguous assessment of how ice coverage will change in the Arctic and how human activity in the Arctic will change in response to decreased ice coverage and other factors. "The loss of seasonal sea ice in the Arctic will have ramifications for the U.S. Navy in terms of future missions, force structure, training and investments. To understand this challenge, let me give you a little background.
Navy: U.S. Forces Cannot Handle Growing Threat of Mine Warfare
U.S. naval forces are poorly equipped to counter a growing mine warfare threat and are about to lose the potentially decisive ability to plant sea minefields of their own, a report for the Navy released on Thursday said. A committee of the National Research Council cited the "largely unregulated sale" of underwater mines by Italy, Sweden, Russia and other ex-Soviet bloc states as contributing to the danger to U.S. mobility. More than 50 countries now possess a sea mining capability, it said. "U.S. naval forces are not now likely to be able to adequately handle the plausible near-term threat of mines either offshore or inshore," said the report, prepared at the request of the chief of naval operations, Admiral Vernon Clark.
