When most Americans think of the Arctic it’s more likely in the context of scientific explorations of the North Pole and Discovery Channel documentaries than homeland security.

It may seem curious then that late last week both DHS chief Michael Chertoff and US Coast Guard commander Admiral Thad Allen took a trek together up to Alaskan Arctic.

Neither did so for a vacation. In fact they were each there on a joint fact finding tour to assess a topic which, though it’s so far escaped the attention of most American media, is emerging as an increasing focus of national and homeland security planners, the breaking up of the polar ice cap and the possibly profound implications it may have for the Coast Guard's northern operations and security mission.

The trip generated minimal national coverage and was accompanied by no planned public events or even as much as a DHS press release. Secretary Chertoff himself made no public statements. Yet, as reported by Canadian and local Alaska media, the visits of the two men revealed a significant planned shift in US policy from its recent focus on scientific research to a new focus on developing a stronger security presence in the region.

The reason? Rapidly retreating sea ice is creating a cluster of emerging threats to US sovereignty of the waters off the Alaskan border.

  In an interview with Alaska Public Radio Admiral Allen described the nature of the shift. “For about the last 20 years,” the admiral said, “the conventional view for policy-makers in Washington is that any activity in the Arctic and Antarctic is basically related to science.” The rapid recession of the multi-year ice, however, is creating a new reality, he added. To address it, Allen told the interviewer, a presidential national security directive likely to be issued in the next few months will lay out a new policy in the Arctic.

 The prospect of an active Arctic shipping corridor, of course, has the potential to be an enormous boon the world economy and ecology. Shorter shipping routes linking European, Asian and American economies would dramatically cut fuel consumption and carbon emissions, for one thing.

However as the Arctic heats up so might a panoply of pressures on the sovereignty of and security of the Alaskan border. Barry Zellen, a specialist on Arctic politics and security issues at the Center for Contemporary Conflict in the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, has written of a few scenarios.“There might be efforts by a future Chinese navy or Islamic trading entity to test claims to the Arctic, perhaps to divert American and trans-polar military resources from other theaters of conflict,” he wrote in his recently published book . “Such potential for an indirect collision by a non-Arctic power and the United States or a future trans-polar bloc of nations increases in time - and this may lead to more forward Arctic deployments of military assets, greater efforts to protect northern industrial assets from potential sabotage or terror attacks, and enhanced surveillance and perimeter defense efforts in the Arctic region - perhaps even eclipsing those of the Cold War. But this all depends on what military threats emerge from Asia that could be projected over the top to the Arctic states.”

In his testimony last month before a House Transportation and Infrastructure Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee hearing on the Arctic Allen cited a more immediate threat, a growing gap between US polar ice breaking capacity and that of Russia, Germany and potentially China.

“While US strategic interests in the Arctic region expand, both domestically and internationally, our polar icebreaking capability is at risk,” Allen said on July 16. “I am concerned that we are watching our nation’s domestic and international ice breaking capability decline as reliance on foreign icebreakers grows.”

Of the Coast Guard’s three polar icebreakers, Allen said, two, the Polar Star and the Polar Sea, have outlived their originally designed service lives of 30 years. One, the Polar Star, has actually been put on caretaker status for over two years and is now docked in Seattle port.

The third ship, the Healy, though far younger, has less ice breaking capacity than the two ships that entered service in three decades ago.

Russia, on the other hand, now has 20 icebreakers in its fleet, seven of them nuclear powered, including the largest ice-breaking vessel in the world. The Russians have staked out terrtitorial claims in the region on the basis of their claim that the Arctic seabed and Siberia are linked by a single continental shelf. They have proposed to establish new outer limits of the continental shelf of Russia beyond the previous nautical boundary zone.

In pursuit of this claim last summer a Russian expeditionary crew descended to the seabed below the North Pole, where they planted the flag of Russia and took water and soil samples for analysis, continuing a mission to provide additional evidence related to the Russian claim of the mineral riches of the Arctic.

At the same hearing Mead Treadwell, chair of the US Arctic Research Commission called the lack of up to date polar ice-breaking capability a dangerous gap not only for American economic competitiveness but for the Coast Guard’s ability to maintain emergency responsiveness in the region.

"Polar-class icebreakers are the largest and most capable of ice-going ships. Indeed, an accessible Arctic Ocean also means new or expanded routes for the US military sealift to move assets from one part of the world to another. The Commission believes polar icebreakers are an essential maritime component to guarantee that this U.S. polar mobility exists," Treadwell said.

Another key area the directive may address is an overhaul and upgrade of Coast Guard command, communication and control to meet the stepped up needs and higher stakes maritime and border security in the Arctic are likely to face going forward. In this area the Coast Guard already has made some progress, as outlined by Allen in his visit during a meeting with active duty personnel and members of the Coast Guard auxiliary at Mariner Theatre, Homer, Alaska. Allen said that Rescue 21, a program to improve communication, command and control capabilities in coastal areas had in spite of the vast geographic expanse of Alaska made possible increased communication coverage in Shelikof Strait, Bristol Bay and the Kuskokwim area, with enhanced capabilities also in Southeast and South central Alaska.

Important as both ice-breaking ships and new technologies are to operating in the region, they barely scratch the surface of changes ahead. At the very least reconceptualizing the Arctic as a security “hot zone” will take up significant planning and strategizing focus for the next director of DHS, and the next administration.