Alaska, The Final Frontier and its role in future Arctic Domination
The Geopolitics and History of the US's largest and most economically viable State
Alaska is a vast territory of 663,000 square kilometres, containing an abundance of natural resources and retaining an important strategic position within America’s future as an arctic power, which is rapidly becoming one of the most important new routes for international trade.
It is also incredibly sparse, for a state that is larger than France in overall size, it contains 1.10% of France’s population. It exhibits a climate of around -20°C as its mean temperature during the winter and a high of 11°C in July. This is therefore linked to it’s low population, and yet despite that, It boasts 9 military bases across the entire region, with 60,000 troops over all and 3 percent of all of the US’s aircraft stock, but why? Why is it so necessary to defend this territory, or not even defend it but simply have a military presence in Alaska at all?
To understand this, we first have to take a look at how the United States gained Alaska in the first place, and why it was important to acquiesce such land in the first place.
In 1867, Russia’s empire was larger than the federation’s territory is today, yet vastly more underdeveloped than modern day Siberia. They possessed influence over China’s Manchuria region, were pushing down into Central Asia just while the British Empire was pushing up from it’s power base in India. Notably, they also owned a massive and uninhabited territory in North America centred around the city of Sitka, unprofitable and inhabited by little over 4,000 people in total, and named in Russian from an Aleut indigenous word meaning “Great land,” Alyeska.
Yet this year also saw Russia suffer massive financial setbacks as their Tsar (king) Alexander II, while introducing major social reforms such as the emancipation of forced labour for the lords (serfdom) still had to guide his nation through many protests, martial law in Lithuania and an uprising in Poland, while dealing with the widespread economic issues leftover by the loss of influence and resources in the Crimean War.
So when the now quite well established economic powerhouse of the United States offered to purchase the territory in 1867, Russia saw an opportunity (or at least the Tsar did) to turn a backwater and extremely underdeveloped region of the Empire into a profit of $7,2 million (around $127 million dollars of today’s money.) Therefore a deal was reached rather quickly and Russia signed away all it’s rights to the territory on the 18th of October.
From an American perspective, they had recently won a diplomatic victory against the British, gaining the entirety of the rich Oregon territory, which was seen as their “Manifest Destiny.” Therefore any opportunity to gain more influence than Britain in the Americas became a national (unspoken) priority, first with the Monroe Doctrine, effectively placing every state in the two continents under American protection, and then with Alaska. Alaska was deemed as vital as Oregon, for containing British Canada’s ambitions.
America also had the intention of increasing it’s trade with China and Japan, which it thought would vastly increase American influence in the Pacific. It would capitalize on the preparation for this acquisition by participating both in the Boxer Rebellion and taking control of port territories and quarters of cities in China, as well as forcing the Japanese economy to open up in the Harris treaty of 1854.
In the Modern Day, Alaska is worth vastly more than the United States originally bought it from Russia. Russia originally believing it to be of little to no value, has now looked on in disappointment as its oil resources were discovered in 1968. It has lead now to accumulate around 400,000 barrels per day of crude oil, transported across 1,288 kilometres of tundra by the Trans Alaska pipeline, completed in 1977. Alaska’s GDP was evaluated all things considered in 2012 to be sitting comfortably at around $63 billion. Massively beneficial for the US being the 4th largest producer of oil for the nation.
“Put simply, Alaska is a resource state. And without the ability to responsibly monetize its rich endowment of resources, Alaska economy will decline and its citizens will suffer.” - Mike Dunleavy
Fishing also constitutes a massive part of why Alaska is valuable to the US, as well as a large cultural tradition for Alaskans, with an estimated revenue of $6 billion in 2021 and an estimated 2.2 billion pounds of fish are shipped from Alaska per day. However in recent years, notable 2022-23, the Alaskan fishing industry suffered a sharp drop in productivity to about 50% of its previous earnings, representing a loss of around $1,8 billion. Alaska also holds a significant amount of unmined gold in it’s mountains and canyons, about 200 million ounces of such, and many venture capitalist projects and government funded expeditions to mountains near Fairbanks ( the second largest city of Alaska) and further north along the Gates of the Arctic mountain range.
Geopolitically speaking, Alaska allows American influence along the Northwest Passage, a trading route along and through the Canadian Islands and through which shipping recently has increased by an impressive 32%. The United States also realises the potential of Alaska to use as a basing point for the Naval Icebreaker fleet that they hope to see developed in the near future.
For the moment, there is a plan to use the Alaskan ports of Juneau and Prudhoe Bay to house some new military models of the US coast guard. The United States as of now however only has 2 Polar Icebreakers, the USCGC Polar Star and the USCGC Polar Sea. But this is far behind the Russian Arctic fleet which has more than 20 different Icebreakers, developed from Soviet times and some new ones commissioned by Vladimir Putin to withstand the extreme conditions further towards the North Pole.
This is done by Russia to prevent and place far more strain on the countries with the intention to pass their cargo through the Northern Sea Gate, that stretches all along the length of Russia and down through the Bering Strait to Eastasia, or the other way down through Scandinavia to Europe.
America has realized the opportunity at this crucial economic chokehold between Russian Kamchatka and Alaska, and has troops stationed along the Aleutian Islands between the Pacific and the passage to the Arctic, for example with the base Eareckson Air Station on Shemya Island. Therefore in the case of an international crisis, or an enforced blockade, the United States could use its military force to shut off trade through the gap to these routes, effectively making a shipping trip from China ( the world’s largest trading partner) to Europe skyrocket from 7,000 nautical miles to 12,000, with an estimated increase in time from 14 to 25!
Recently, America partnered with Canada’s efforts to develop security hubs around it’s Nunavut region and gain more than nominal influence over it’s northern regions, and participated in joint military exercises with Canada from across the Alaskan border. However, the same question of sovereignty has been coming up in regards to the Northwestern Passage, with American military forces on a number of occasions passing through Canadian Waters without explicit permission, simply claiming that the UN stipulates that these areas aren’t Canadian EEZs but free trade regions, and therefore can be used by shipping vessels and military ships.
“Cargo shipping, cruising, mining, oil drilling, fishing - all these industrial activities could expand to the Arctic, one of the last remaining wild places, and with potentially devastating consequences.” - Tatiana Schlossberg
All in all, Alaska was a fantastically lucky gain for the Americans, and represents an important and fascinating economic, military and political region, that will come in to play sometime in the future, and increasingly does so now. As the Geopolitical Axis of power and economic interest increasingly shifts away from Europe , and towards the Pacific nigh on Arctic regions as time goes on.
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