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Russian nuclear submarine off us coast8/25/2023 "If you're trying to keep track of what a Russian undersea operation is doing or some kind of Russian exercise, missing a week means you're probably going to miss the whole thing," Clark said. Some missions, like mapping parts of the Arctic, can be paused without much issue, but others are more time-sensitive. "This way, you can get that guy off the boat right away or you can get those parts right away and be right back out there in a day, so it's a huge difference." Returning to Faslane for spare parts or to disembark a crew member "could be a week-long endeavor depending on how far out you are, and we routinely miss mission time and even have to cancel missions because of stuff like that," said Clark, now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think-tank. Reducing travel time has a significant impact on what subs can do at sea. On April 26, the Navy said attack sub USS San Juan had made "a brief stop" for supplies and personnel off Iceland's west coast, the first such visit by a US submarine.īritish Royal Navy attack submarine HMS Astute sails to the base at Faslane in November 2009. Houston said at the event that the Navy was "working very closely" with Iceland on permission for "brief stops" there, and on April 18, Iceland's minister for foreign affairs said US subs not carrying nuclear weapons would be allowed to make "brief" stops in Iceland for supplies and crew exchanges, calling the decision part of Iceland's "policy to support increased monitoring and response capacity of Allied countries in the North Atlantic." (In August 2022, the US Navy published a graphic indicating that USS Georgia, a cruise-missile sub, was in or near the Faroe Islands.) "Denmark just opened up Faroe Islands for our ability to conduct brief stops for personnel, which is absolutely a key position for us," Houston added. "Tromsø gives us a place where we can pull in submarines, fix material things, do personnel exchanges," Houston said at the April 3 event. The visits reflect increasing defense cooperation between Norway and its NATO allies. ![]() Royal Navy submarine HMS Ambush in Grøtsund harbor in April 2022. In August 2020, the Navy said USS Seawolf, a West Coast-based attack sub, made "a brief stop for personnel in the vicinity of Tromso." That was followed by visits by USS New Mexico in May 2021 and USS Washington, USS Albany, USS South Dakota, HMS Ambush, and USS Newport News - all attack subs - in 2022. Since 2020, when Norway allowed NATO subs to use a port near Tromsø, announcements of such visits appear to have increased. ![]() "There was a time when we sort of backed off on that because the Russian threat" was diminished and there were higher priorities elsewhere, but the Navy "has been increasing the number of deployments they've been doing with submarines up to the high north," Bryan Clark, a former US Navy submarine officer, told Insider.Ī Norwegian navy officer said in January 2018 that allied submarines were entering Norwegian waters or ports for supplies or personnel exchanges three to four times a month. The US Navy focused less on submarine activity in the high north after the Cold War, but its attention has increased over the past decade, as shown in its sub operations and its anti-submarine-warfare exercises. USS New Mexico in Grøtsund harbor, near Tromsø in Norway, on May 10, 2021. "So it gives us an incredible opportunity and an incredible strategic position to do that." ![]() We keep a very close eye on that, and our NATO partners and allies are absolutely critical to that," Houston said at the Sea Air Space Symposium outside of Washington DC on April 3.įor subs in the North Atlantic, access to those ports means "we can exchange people off those submarines in hours when typically it would take us days to pull into Faslane," Houston added, referring to a base in Scotland. "We have increased activity in the Atlantic. William Houston, the commander of US submarine forces. Since late 2020, the Navy has announced multiple visits by its submarines to Tromsø in northern Norway, the Danish-controlled Faroe Islands, and Iceland - locations that reduce the time those subs have to spend away from their operating areas, according to Vice Adm. The US Navy rarely reveals where its submarines are, but it is making those subs more visible in the North Atlantic, demonstrating their presence as US officials warn that Russian submarines are more active and carrying new weapons closer to US shores. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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