Why is the US buying icebreakers from Finland?

While President Donald Trump continues to insist that the US should own Greenland, his broader focus on the Arctic region has seen Washington order new icebreakers.

For these ships, which can sail the seas covered with solid ice, the US went to the world expert – Finland.

Temperatures are sub-zero inside the ice laboratory of Aker Arctic Technology, as a scale model of an icebreaker sails in a 70m-long simulation tank.

It plows a smooth path through the frozen surface of the water.

Undergoing testing at a facility in Helsinki, capital of Finland, this is a design for the country’s next generation of icebreakers.

“It is important that it has enough structural strength and engine strength,” said the ice performance engineer, Riikka Matala.

Mika Hovilainen, the company’s chief executive, added that the shape of the vessel is also important. “There has to be some form of hull that breaks the ice by bending it down,” he said. “It’s not cutting, it’s not slicing.”

Finland is the undisputed leader in the world when it comes to icebreakers. Finnish companies designed 80% of all currently operating, and 60% built in Finnish shipyards.

The country is leading the way from demand, explained Maunu Visuri, president and chief executive of the Finnish state-owned company Artica, which operates a fleet of eight icebreakers.

“Finland is the only country in the world where all ports can freeze during the winter,” he said, adding that 97% of all goods in the country are imported by sea.

During the coldest months, icebreakers keep Finland’s ports open, and work as wayfinders for large cargo ships. “This is a necessity for Finland. We say that Finland is an island.”

It was this skill that saw Trump through will be announced in October that the US plans to order four icebreakers from Finland for the US Coast Guard.

An additional seven of the ships, which the US calls “Arctic Security Cutters”, will be built in the US, using Finnish designs and expertise.

“We buy the best icebreakers in the world, and Finland is known for making them,” Trump said.

Under US law, the nation’s naval and coastguard ships must be locally built, but in this case the president waived that requirement on national security grounds. He cited the “aggressive military posture, and economic attacks of foreign enemies”, by which he meant Russia and China.

This US concern comes as climate change continues to make the Arctic Ocean more navigable for cargo ships, at least if icebreakers lead the way by cutting a passage. It opened up trade routes from Asia to Europe, either over Russia, or north to Alaska and the Canadian mainland, and down to Greenland.

Shrinking ice levels also mean that oil and gas fields under the Arctic are more accessible.

“There’s a lot more traffic in that part of the world now,” said Peter Rybski, a retired US Navy officer and Arctic expert based in Helsinki.

“You have an active oil and gas exploration and extraction industry in Russia, as well as a newly emerging trans-shipment route from Europe to Asia.”

After Trump’s outline announcement last fall, the first contracts awarded on December 29.

Finland’s Rauma Marine Constructions will build two icebreakers for the US Coast Guard at its shipyard in the Finnish port of Rauma. The first ship should be delivered in 2028.

An additional four will be built in Louisiana, with all six using Aker Arctic Technology’s diesel-electric powered design.

The US orders are part of an effort to catch up on the number of Russian icebreakers. Currently Russia has about 40, including eight nuclear powered.

In contrast, the US currently has only three in operation.

While China operates around five polar-capable ships. “None of them are technical ice breakers,” Rybski said, pointing out their design doesn’t meet the strict criteria. “But they have enlarged their ships.”

He added that China is increasingly sending these “research” ships into Arctic waters between Alaska and the far east of Russia, including areas that the US considers an “exclusive economic zone”.

“With limited means of response it becomes a problem (for the US).”

Trump’s desire to expand its icebreaker ships beyond the practicalities of operating in the ice-covered Arctic seas, analyzed Lin Mortensgaard, a researcher at the Danish Institute of International Studies. He said it was also about projecting power.

“No matter how many aircraft carriers you have and how much you use them to threaten states, you cannot sail your aircraft carrier in the center of the Arctic Ocean,” he said.

“Icebreakers are really the only type of naval vessel that communicates that you are an Arctic state, with Arctic capabilities. And I think this is part of much of the US discourse.”

Back in Finland, the Helsinki Shipyard occupies a dock on the capital’s waterfront. Half of the world’s icebreakers are built here. Now owned by the Canadian firm Davie, it also hopes to win new contracts from the US Coast Guard.

“The geopolitical situation has really changed,” said the shipyard’s managing director, Kim Salmi.

“We have a neighbor to the east here (Russia). They are building their own (new) fleet. And the Chinese are building their ships.”

He added: “The US, Canada and the western allies in general, are looking for a balance of power.”

Inside a cavernous shipbuilding hangar, workers are cutting and welding steel for the yard’s newest icebreaker, a heavy-duty Arctic vessel called the Polarmax intended for the Canadian coastguard.

The Finns are able to make these complex ships incredibly fast – it takes between two and a half and three years – thanks to a streamlined production method, and decades of experience.

“For more than 100 years, we have been practicing this,” said Artica’s Visuri. “You have this cycle of designers, operators, builders. That’s why Finland is the strongest of the ice breakers.”