Alaska’s junior Senator, Dan Sullivan (R-AK), has apparently been looking across the Bering Strait at Russia (figuratively speaking, of course; nobody this side of the Diomedes can actually see Alaska from their porches) and is a little worried about Russian and Chinese challenges for the North Pacific. Alaska is, obviously, in a strategic location; we sit atop the largest ocean on the planet, and we control one side of the entry from that ocean into the Arctic. Since President Trump resumed office, there has been a military buildup in Alaska, but Senator Sullivan, who is up for re-election this year, is calling for beefing up that presence even more.
The Alaska Republican — who chairs the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation’s Subcommittee on Coast Guard, Maritime and Fisheries — convened a field hearing at the University of Alaska Anchorage focused on Arctic security infrastructure, with five expert witnesses, including a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the nation’s first Arctic ambassador.
“We are now undergoing the largest military buildup and expansion, billions of dollars in investment in Alaska, since World War II,” Sullivan said in his opening statement. “My belief is we’re doing a lot, but we need to do more.”
The hearing comes as joint Russian-Chinese military operations near Alaska’s coastline have occurred with “increasing frequency and sophistication,” according to Sullivan. He noted a Russian incursion occurred 10 days before Saturday’s hearing.
The incursions, we should note, aren’t into actual Alaska airspace, but rather into the Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ. It’s still considered a provocative act, but the aircraft are still technically in international airspace, just as Russian and Chinese ships remain in international waters while trailing their coats down the Alaskan coast. It’s an old Cold War game, and we do it to them, too. But Russia and China are picking up the pace of these events, and these are not only provocative, but they are also intelligence-gathering and testing our responses.
Sullivan presented charts showing joint Russian-Chinese strategic bomber flights and naval task force operations near Alaska — activity he said is “not happening anywhere else in America, only in Alaska.”
In an interview following the hearing, Sullivan explained his decision to bring a Senate hearing to Alaska.
“That panel of five Arctic experts, that would be an all-star panel in D.C. Those were all Alaskans,” Sullivan said. “The people of Alaska came out in ways that had a huge impact, stopping bases from being shuttered, stopping big military units from being cut or completely disbanded.”
It’s happening in Alaska in part because of its relative isolation, and in part because of its geographic significance.
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Alaska is, as General Billy Mitchell once said, some of the most strategic real estate on the planet. Russia and China both have designs on the Pacific. Whether they can pull anything off or not against the resurgent United States is another matter, but both of those nations have to know that time isn’t on their side.
So, the Cold War games are back, and we don’t yet know how it will end up this time.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s leadership, the warrior ethos is coming back to America’s military.
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