Russia is building laser-armed nuclear ‘combat icebreakers’

More details are emerging about Russia’s trump card for control of the Arctic: laser-armed, nuclear-powered “combat icebreakers.”

In addition to a warship-sized array of weapons, the 8,500-ton Ivan Papanin–class vessels will mount powerful lasers that can cut through ice—and possibly through enemies as well. They will join a fleet of forty existing Russian icebreakers. The United States is now down to two, even as the United States, Canada and other nations are focusing on the Arctic, where melting ice offer the lure of fresh mineral deposits and new commercial shipping routes…

A laser powerful enough to cut through six feet of ice would probably prove equally formidable against missiles and drones, and perhaps even other ships. However, what’s really significant here isn’t the lasers. It’s the attention that Russia is paying to fighting in the Arctic, from icebreaker-warships to rugged antiaircraft missiles. That’s more than the United States is doing, and more than a small but Arctic-savvy nation like Canada can afford.

Russia has proven prescient at anticipating future warfare, from devising mechanized-warfare theory in the 1930s to unconventional hybrid warfare today. Does Moscow know something about the Arctic that America doesn’t?