Kenneth R. Weinstein (left) and Dan Sullivan
Alaska’s Strategic Importance in Indo-Pacific & Arctic Discussed at Hudson Institute
By Elaine Pasquini
Washington: Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska was the featured guest at the Hudson Institute on December 4, 2024. Kenneth R. Weinstein, chair of the institute’s Japan program, interviewed the Republican lawmaker on Alaska’s strategic importance for the Indo-Pacific and Arctic in light of the multi-dimensional challenges facing the United States in the region, to which Alaska offers numerous solutions.
Kicking off the discussion, Sullivan repeated the statement of US Army Colonel Billy Mitchell, considered the “Father of the United States Air Force,” to Congress in 1935 that Alaska “is the most important strategic place in the world.”
The senator quickly assured the audience that “we’re going to be sure every Trump nominee knows that quote.” Frequently, he added, “Alaska can often be out of sight, out of mind because we are a little bit far away for policymakers.” Since his election to the Senate in 2015, Sullivan has worked to bring awareness of Alaska’s strategic importance to the Department of Defense and other agencies, “but they don’t always get the message,” he lamented.
One of the strategic advantages of Alaska is the state’s incredible natural resource wealth. However, according to Sullivan, over the years some US administrations did not understand this. But Russia and China, he said, understand Alaska’s strategic importance, even undertaking “unprecedented joint military actions” in the Arctic region.
Sullivan noted that this past summer Russia and China staged a joint strategic bomber task force exercise that came into Alaska’s ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone), which was intercepted by a Canadian CF-18. “We had some very aggressive Russian intercepts that we did just about a month ago…that got within seven feet of a US F-22 that was intercepting one of the Russian strategic bombers.”
He went on to point out other joint Russian-Chinese naval exercises that encroached on the state’s EEZ (exclusive economic zone), including a Russian submarine and Russian destroyer that were off the coast of Pt Hope, Alaska. “So, our adversaries understand Alaska,” he observed. “This is going to continue, in Alaska, in America, and we need to be ready, and “sometimes what the policymakers in DC don’t know, or don’t follow, the rest of the world is following.”
Due to Alaska’s strategic location, the state is of “huge military importance” to the rest of the United States, Sullivan said. In addition, “we are the cornerstone of missile defense for the entire nation…because all of the ground base missile interceptors protecting the US are in Alaska with the exception of four that are in Vandenberg Air Force Base,” he noted. “That is a key component of who we are, what we provide in terms of military importance to our country.”
In addition, expeditionary forces can launch from Alaska to anywhere in the world in the northern hemisphere within six to seven hours.
Alaska has large training ranges for ground, aerial, and maritime training. “We bring Japanese, Korean, Indian, Singaporean…all of our allies for joint training in Alaska and it is literally the best training on the planet, and it is growing,” he said.
The state’s abundance of natural resources and critical minerals place it in the top 10 of any country in the world, Sullivan continued. This is important because “we are too dependent on China; they use that very aggressively against us and our allies and we need to develop the critical minerals we have in Alaska,” he insisted.
According to the senator, Alaska’s wealth of natural gas is enough to “supply Alaskans, first and foremost, but also our allies in Asia for 50 to 100 years. I mean, it’s not even a close call.”
And, also, “Alaska has the highest environmental standards in the world,” Sullivan related. “We don’t flare our gas; we reinject the gas in Alaska. It is the environmental thing to do. We have incredible strategic advantages to be the top liquid natural gas supplier for Japan, Korea, and Taiwan,” noting the US has been Japan’s most reliable supplier for over 50 years.
Another area of importance for the 49th state is being the hub of air combat power for the Indo-Pacific region and the Arctic. For example, the state has over 100 fifth-generation fighters now headquartered in Alaska, F-35s and F-22s, supersonic stealth fighters. “There’s no place in the world that has that fifth-generation combat power,” he stated.
Lastly, Sullivan also stressed the importance of US Navy shipbuilding and noted “we can learn a lot from our Japanese and Korean allies on naval shipbuilding and icebreaker shipbuilding,” particularly with reference to US presence in the Arctic.
The Russians and Chinese understand the need for an Arctic presence, and the US “needs to counter that and understand it,” he concluded.
In a recent statement, the US Department of Defense expressed concern about China’s growing presence in the Arctic.
(Elaine Pasquini is a freelance journalist. Her reports appear in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and Nuze.Ink.)
