
The Coast Guard continues to develop requirements and put resources toward its current goal of having a new fleet of at least six polar icebreakers, but if funding were available it could use a force of nine icebreakers capable operating in the high-latitudes, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Karl Schultz said on Wednesday. Schultz said he was asked by the U.S. “national security apparatus” what the “real needs of the nation” would be in the polar regions if there were not…