Defending America (Part One)- 253

One memorable job I had in Alaska was flying to do a cleanup at a deactivated Defense Early Warning (DEW) radar site east of Deadhorse Airport, Alaska.

The DEW system was a 3000-mile picket line of 63 massive radar sites built in the 50s to give the US, Canada, and NATO early warning of Russian Bear Bombers or ICBMs.

During previous flights in Alaska, I had seen other DEW sites. They are hard to miss with radar antennae looking like a movie screen from a drive-in movie establishment, only much larger and robust.

The cleanup site was like others I had seen. In addition to the massive antennae, there were support buildings which had housed machinery, people, and diesel generators.

When we first flew in, we could see hundreds of black dots scattered about the tundra. These turned out to be 55-gallon diesel oil drums. They had been emptied and tossed out in every direction. These drums turned out to be our primary focus. The laborers pried the steel drums out of the tundra and filled my large helicopter cargo nets. Then they attached them to my cargo hook as I hovered above them. I flew them to a disposal site near Deadhorse Airport. We kept busy with this for a week.

Before we started the cleanup, we investigated the inside of the DEW buildings. It was like entering a well-appointed museum. Everything was still there. In the main dining/living area books were on the shelves, beds were made, plates and silverware were still on the dining table.

The arctic is mystifying enough without surprises like an abandoned DEW station. In the winter white rules. For as far as you can see pristine snow and ice dominate. The expanse of scenery stretches your senses.  

In the summer it greens rapidly erupting with life. Both birds and animals use the arctic grounds as nurseries to give birth and raise their young. There is lots of action along the arctic shoreline for a couple of months each summer.

I found the DEW site intriguing. It did not fit the landscape, but it did pique my imagination. What did it take to build these massive antennae? The station we cleaned up was a long way from any transportation infrastructure. What was it like to be “stationed” at such a remote base? As a helicopter pilot I have had my share of remote jobs but working at a DEW site may have taxed my sanity.

Unfortunately, the oil drum mess reconfirmed my observations of how man behaves. When a mine plays out, an oil field goes dry, or a radar site becomes obsolete, we often turn our backs on the area once needed. We certainly have not lived by the motto “Leave no Trace”, or “Clean up after Yourself.”

The DEW system was deactivated in the late 1980s and replaced by 13 long-range and 36 short-range radar sites called the North Warning System (NWS). These serve us today.

The men and women who serve at the sites make our early warning system work. These men and women are supported by engineers and scientists who must meet many challenges. Traditionally, the radar must be upgraded to meet new threats. Since Russia has successfully developed hypersonic missiles, I suspect our scientists and engineers are working diligently to counter this new threat. I anticipate significant upgrades to the NWS.

Anyone who works in harsh remote regions must be backed with what it takes to survive mentally as well as physically. Our military has done the support mission well and I expect will continue to do so in the future.

Today climate change presents a new challenge to sites built in the far north. Luckily, in the dark days of climate ignorance during the Trump administration, the Department of Defense did not buckle to the denier nonsense. While some verbiage in official political/policy documents was stripped of climate science wording, the DOD remained an island of climate action. Men and women responsible for our national security and international stability had to ignore denier nonsense and press on with the mission of keeping us safe.

Climate change creates severe weather. The key factor is we are getting warmer. While the earth is heating about ten times faster than any other identifiable period in the earth’s past, the arctic is heating three times faster than the average.

The engineers who built our early warning sites realized the buildings and equipment must be insulated from the permafrost. This wasn’t so much to keep staff and equipment warm but to keep the supporting earth in a stable frozen state. In those days permafrost was permanent. All you had to do was either raise structures off the icy tundra or super-insulate the structures’ bases. This worked until about a decade ago.  

Today, scientists and engineers must design new structures and fixes for old structures. Often this means refrigerating the permafrost to keep things stable.

In addition to the NWS picket line, we have Thule Air Force Base (AFB). It is the United States’ most northerly air base only 900 miles south of the North Pole.  It is so far north in Greenland it can monitor all of Russia’s missile activity. Our arctic defenders can detect a missile launch and send out a warning to DOD decision-makers in 60 seconds.

As the arctic ocean melts, new maritime shipping routes will open on Greenland's east and west sides. Thule is in a perfect location to watch these sea lanes. Thule also boasts a 10,000-foot runway and support hangers.

To give you an idea of how important the base is, its construction was begun in secret in 1951 when 120 ships from Navy Station Norfolk left under the code name “Operation Blue Jay”. Onboard were 12,000 men and 300,000 tons of cargo. The base was completed in 1953. The construction of Thule is considered an engineering marvel comparable to the Panama Canal.

Unfortunately, Thule is under attack. The foe is not an armed adversary but climate change. Due to the unprecedented warming, the permafrost is no longer stable. Structures and the runway are cracking. We cannot afford to let Thule deteriorate and if we cannot save the buildings, we will have to construct new ones.

Thule was built well and proved itself critical to our defense during the previous cold war. Now we are in a new cold war. The Oil Czar, Putin, by invading Ukraine has opened our eyes to Russia’s ambitions forcing us re-identify the Russian nuclear threat to the north. To meet this threat, Thule and the NWS must be modernized. This time, when engineers redesign the equipment and infrastructure, they will be consulting climate scientists. Luckily, the men and women of our Department of Defense know the climate threat. Even if we elect another climate-illiterate president to the White House, the educated men and women of the DOD know climate change is a threat multiplier impossible to ignore.

We’ve met the totalitarian threat before. The DEW and NWS systems were crucial in meeting the challenge of early warning. Now with a climate-savvy DOD, we’ll do it again.  

More in-depth information:

Search:  Defense Early Warning, North Warning System, and Thule Air Force Base. 

Inside Climate News Military Preparedness.

Union of Concerned Scientists Climate and the Military

DOD.gov DOD Preparing for Climate Change Impact by David Vergun