In early March, Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan (R), who chairs the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation’s Subcommittee on Coast Guard, Maritime and Fisheries, convened a hearing at the University of Alaska at Anchorage focused on Arctic security infrastructure.
Sullivan stated in his remarks that the U.S. was “undergoing the largest military build-up and expansion, billions of dollars in investment in Alaska, since World War II,” adding that “my belief is we’re doing a lot, but we need to do more.”
To support this claim, Sullivan shared charts illustrating joint Russian-Chinese strategic bomber flights and naval task force movements near Alaska, emphasizing that Russia is enlarging its Arctic presence with 54 icebreakers—many nuclear-powered and armed—as well as deep-water ports, airfields, and forward operating bases.
Moreover, Sullivan noted that China, despite lacking territorial claims in the Arctic, designates itself a “near-Arctic state” and is swiftly growing its polar capabilities. Chinese research vessels operated along Alaska’s coastline throughout last summer, presumably for military objectives.[1]
Sullivan had earlier explained to The New York Times: “Ukraine just demonstrates even more, what matters to these guys [Russians] is presence and power. And when you start to build ports, when you start to bring up icebreakers, when you start to bring up Navy shipping, when you have over 100 fifth-generation fighters in the Arctic in Alaska, we’re starting to now talk Putin’s language.”
Serving also on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sullivan in June helped advance the $1.15 trillion 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which dedicates a historic $2.6 billion toward military construction and initiatives exclusive to Alaska. The legislation mandates that the Pentagon devise plans to repair and staff previously unused armories in rural parts of the state.
Sullivan hailed the current NDAA as a “grand-slam home run,” highlighting the $2.6 billion investment as “by far the largest investment ever in our great state…bolster[s] Alaska’s role as the cornerstone of America’s missile defense system, the hub of Arctic and Indo-Pacific air combat power, and a vital platform for expeditionary forces.” A signature element is the launch of the historic, multi-year, $7 billion ‘Fighter Town USA’ project at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER), which will create 26 cutting-edge facilities positioning JBER as the world’s most strategically important base.
JBER currently operates F-22 Stealth aircraft and is projected to accommodate the F-47 Stealth fighter jet following the completion of upgrades under the Fighter Town initiative.
According to a March 2022 New York Times report, the Air Force had relocated dozens of F-35 fighters to Alaska and announced that the state would host “more advanced fighters than any other location in the world.”
Alaska is also set to receive some of the most sophisticated U.S. military vessels, including the Coast Guard’s latest polar icebreaker, the Storis, currently moored at Auke Bay in Juneau.
A budget of approximately $25 billion is planned for the Coast Guard’s expansion in Alaska—the largest ever—enabling the acquisition of 16 new icebreakers, 22 cutters, and 40 helicopters.
On Alaska’s western frontier, a $400 million allocation has been set for the Port of Nome, destined to become America’s inaugural Arctic deep-water port. This facility is planned as a forward staging area for both Coast Guard and Navy operations. NORTHCOM commander General Gregory Guillot described the Port of Nome as “a game changer for operations in the Arctic,” as Sullivan recounted in the hearing.
Additionally, Sullivan emphasized that the Adak naval base at the “strategic hinge between the Arctic and Indo-Pacific” received $115 million for reopening initiatives. Supported partly through the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” the project collaborates across military branches, the Aleut Corporation, and the State of Alaska, which contributed $30 million for runway repaving, according to Sullivan.
“The Most Strategic Place on Earth”
Brigadier General Billy Mitchell, regarded as the father of the U.S. Air Force and instrumental in overseeing the installation of a telegraph line in Alaska in 1901, referred to Alaska as “the most strategic place on earth” during his 1935 congressional testimony.[2]
This designation stems from Alaska’s status as the nearest American land to the Northern Hemisphere’s center, positioned along the critical Bering Strait chokepoint and Great Circle Routes between North America and Asia. From a military perspective, this makes it an exceptional platform for power projection, akin to the role of Hawaii.
Alaska’s resource wealth—including minerals and oil—further increases its strategic significance. Its position at the nexus of active commercial shipping lanes connecting East and West, including those operated by Russian and Chinese companies, stands to gain even more importance as Arctic sea ice diminishes.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the Arctic holds 13% of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30% of its gas, along with coal, rare-earth elements, and numerous other valuable resources.
Territorial claims to these resources are made under UN auspices and settled via the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. However, overlapping claims complicate the UN’s ability to mediate outcomes acceptable to all parties.
The Russian Federation presently earns about 20% of its gross domestic product from Arctic-related economic activities. The U.S., in turn, aims to restrict Russian influence in this area as part of a broader strategy to weaken Russia’s geopolitical threat and assert control over the oil-rich Central Asian region.
In response, Russia has launched programs to build new and refurbish abandoned Arctic military bases, simultaneously expanding its fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers—a challenge the 2027 NDAA intends to counter.[3]
Already Most Militarized State
Before this recent military surge, Alaska already ranked among the country’s most heavily militarized states, hosting over 20,000 active-duty personnel stationed at bases such as Eielson Air Force Base, Fort Wainwright near Fairbanks, and Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak.
Major General James Jensen, commander of the Alaskan Air Command from 1963 to 1966, characterized Alaska as a “piece of U.S. real estate increasingly attractive to military planners…a key area in U.S. military strategy offering a base for aerial resupply, reinforcement and redeployment of either air or ground forces to Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East or to the Far East as the world situation may dictate.”[4]
Long considered a “linchpin of America’s air atomic strategy,”[5] Alaska boasts eight military bases including Fort Greely, which houses ground-based interceptor missiles designed to counter intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) threats from adversaries.
The Army’s largest training exercise—the first Combat Training Center rotation in Alaska—has been held near Fort Greely, roughly 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks.
Additional military exercises exploit the approximately 120,000 square miles of airspace covered by the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex, recognized as the world’s biggest combat-training range.
Military’s Dark History in Alaska
Following the 1867 purchase of Alaska from Russia, the U.S. Army was deployed to occupy and manage the territory, leading to tragic consequences for Alaska’s Indigenous peoples.
In 1868, Jefferson C. Davis (not related to the Confederate president), the first military governor of Alaska, ordered an attack on a Tlingit village on Kupreanof Island after a Chilkat chief reportedly retaliated against U.S. troops who had assaulted him, marking one episode in a number of brutal military actions against Native Alaskans.[6]
General John C. Tidball stated that “the most effective as well as the most humane way of coercing these natives into good behavior is to destroy their habitations and canoes.”[7]
During the 1882 Angoon massacre, troops under Commander Edgar C. Merriman burned a Hoochinoo village on Admiralty Island (Xootsnoowu) following the alleged hostage-taking of two white individuals after a Hoochinoo shaman linked to the North West Trading Company was killed. Six children perished from smoke inhalation. Survivors were compelled to gather at the Trading Company post, where they were admonished about their duty to “obey the white man’s laws.”[8]
Military Alaska: World War II and Cold War-Era Build-ups
Thanks largely to Alaska’s proximity to Japan, over 300 military installations were established in the state between 1941 and 1945, costing nearly $3 billion.
During World War II, more than 300,000 U.S. troops cycled through Alaska, and the War Department formed the Alaska Defense Command, which fought to reclaim the Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska after Japanese occupation.[9]
Alaska earned the nickname “Military Alaska” during this period.
Between 1947 and 1957, the U.S. invested $1.2 billion in military construction across Alaska, developing major bases like Fort Richardson and Eielson Air Force Base, along with forward sites at Galena, King Salmon, Shemya Air Force Base, plus radar and communication stations.
Significant upgrades were also made to Ladd and Elmendorf Air Force Bases in Anchorage, which served as key refueling points for C5A Galaxy, C-141, and Lockheed C-131 D6 aircraft supporting U.S. forces in the Vietnam War.[10]
Due to its proximity to the Soviet Union, Alaska became a crucial site for intelligence and surveillance operations, monitoring Soviet space and missile programs, and serving as a training ground for cold weather military tactics.[11]
The top-secret Project Charles, initiated under MIT President James Killian and the Truman administration, involved establishing a sophisticated radar early warning system at Alaskan bases, linking sensors with command centers and fighter squadrons prepared to intercept Soviet bombers.[12]
In the late 1940s, the Air Force established listening stations on Sivuqaq (St. Lawrence Island), with reconnaissance missions conducted near the Soviet Far East from Alaska-based locations.
The U-2 spy planes operated from Eielson Air Force Base where the CIA created a detachment in June 1957.
Furthermore, the CIA set up a station in Anchorage and attempted covert agent insertions into Soviet territory. At a secret facility in Ketchikan, Alaska, the agency reportedly experimented with shellfish toxins as poisons, shipping toxic clams to the U.S. Army Biological Warfare lab at Fort Detrick, Maryland.[13]
In the 1950s, Elmendorf Air Base hosted a covert initiative managed by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations under Major Joseph J. Cappucci, in partnership with the FBI, to develop an underground intelligence network similar to Operation Gladio in Europe, complete with hidden weapons caches.[14]
Designed to activate in case of Soviet infiltration or invasion, this network was developed amid CIA fears of Soviet aggression.
Declassified documents show that Indigenous populations including Eskimo, Indian, and Aleut were excluded from this stay-behind network due to alleged “propensity to drink to excess” and “fundamental indifference to constituted governments and political philosophies.”
The espionage activities currently occurring in the New Cold War remain largely undisclosed and may only partially come to light decades later.
Violating Rights of Native Communities
A March 2022 New York Times article cited Julie Kitka, president of the Alaska Federation of Natives, who expressed that Alaska Natives harbor concerns about the environmental impact of the U.S. military’s expansion in the fragile Arctic, vital for subsistence hunting and fishing.
The Alaska Historical Society notes that many Cold War military facilities were established near Indigenous communities, in one instance forcing the village of Kaktovik on Barter Island to relocate to accommodate an airfield. The activities and installations left a legacy of environmental contamination, alongside discarded infrastructure and debris.[15]
In March 2025, the Alaska Community Action on Toxics filed a complaint with the UN special rapporteur on toxics and human rights requesting an inquiry into military waste on Sivuqaq and its ongoing violation of the Indigenous Yupik’s rights to a clean environment and land sovereignty.
Cold War-era military installations left Sivuqaq contaminated by hazardous substances such as fuel, mercury, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)—the latter known as “forever chemicals” due to their persistence.[16]
A 2022 study revealed that mercury levels in 89% of fish near Sivuqaq exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) thresholds considered safe for communities reliant on subsistence fishing.
Viola Waghiyi, a cancer survivor whose father died from the disease and who has suffered three miscarriages, told the Alaska Beacon that contamination led to the displacement of 130 individuals and left a lasting burden of illness on her family and community. “It’s not a matter of if we’ll get cancer, but when,” she said.
Between 1954 and 1967, the U.S. Army conducted chemical and biological weapon experimentation at a clandestine Gerstle River site on the Fort Greely military reserve.
Biological warfare agents were released into the environment at this site, now deemed a no-go zone where thousands of artillery shells loaded with nerve and mustard gases were detonated, alongside germ-laden munitions.
Many rockets, including nerve gas warheads, sank into a nearby lake at Gerstle River, where they remain indefinitely.[17]
Growing Democracy Deficit
After Senator Dan Sullivan shared a video on Facebook touting what he described as perhaps the “largest military buildup in Alaskan history”—calling it beneficial for national security and the state’s economy—he was met with ridicule and criticism from Alaskan residents in the comments section.
Below are some of the responses:
Duke Russell: “Did somebody call you Dan and said, you know what we really need are some more F-22s and Tony Hawk missiles?”
Garrett Lamb: “How is endless military spending good for our economy? Should be spending on things that improve your constituents lives instead.”
Sandy Xáadkil: “Alaskans are…facing unprecedented challenges at home. The cost of food keeps rising, fuel prices continue to strain family budgets, and medical costs are becoming out of reach for many….As a public servant for all Alaskans,…we need to hear more about your plan to help families afford groceries, fuel their vehicles, access healthcare and make ends meet. For many of us, that’s the issue that matters most right now.”
Rene E. Limeres: “More military? How ’bout more salmon, Dan?”
Spartacus McFeely: “All [Sullivan] does is talk about spending on the military. He is fully owned by the military industrial complex. Our tax dollars and endless debt goes to military hardware so we can go play war games and blow up countries and civilians all around the world. That foreign policy is not only unsustainable and unaffordable, it undermines our national security. All the while, China invests far wiser through soft power approaches that are pennies on the dollar compared to endless weaponry. And worse yet, [Sullivan] continues to cut services to our people while putting more money toward wars. Unbelievable.”
These comments reflect what Noam Chomsky identified as the growing democracy deficit in the U.S., where political leaders prioritize militarism serving corporate and military-industrial interests over constituents increasingly left behind.[18]
According to opensecrets.com, Sullivan received $281,162 in campaign contributions in 2025/2026 from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), $24,000 from Blackstone Group, a leading Wall Street investment firm, and $25,300 from Goldman Sachs, a major investor in military and aerospace industries.[19]
Research indicates that excessive military spending, promoted by disconnected elites like Sullivan, hampers economic growth because it generates fewer jobs compared to civilian sectors and fails to stimulate local industrial spin-offs in service or manufacturing.
Moreover, military personnel stationed in Alaska are often temporary residents, contributing less in local taxes and investment than permanent civilians. The military also occupies valuable land without taxes or productive civilian use.[20]
While many Alaskans once supported their state’s transformation into a military hub, increasing numbers now recognize what Indigenous communities have known all along: militarization is ultimately harmful, bringing many adverse effects and casting a persistent shadow over Alaska.
- In 2018, China launched the Polar Silk Road Initiative to align Arctic interests with the Belt and Road Initiative, focusing on infrastructure development and economic integration with regional and global partners. As part of this, China began establishing new freight routes through the Arctic to facilitate resource extraction and launched a satellite to monitor shipping and sea ice changes.↑
- Matthew Farish, “The First Century of U.S. Militarization in Alaska, 1867-1967,” in Adrian Hawkins and Peder Roberts, eds., The Cambridge History of the Polar Regions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2023), 579. ↑
- Russian divers planted a national flag on the North Pole seabed symbolizing claims over the region’s energy resources. To counter Russian and Chinese Arctic activities, U.S. Marines have been deployed to train for Arctic combat in Norway, and in 2023, then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the opening of the northernmost U.S. diplomatic station in Tromsø above the Arctic Circle. Additionally, Donald Trump’s Greenland takeover talk was part of a strategy leveraging the U.S. presence at Thule Air Base to project Arctic power.↑
- Jonathan M. Nielson, foreword by Peter Karsten, Armed Forces on a Northern Frontier: The Military in Alaska’s History, 1867-1987 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988), 199, 200. ↑
- Farish, “The First Century of U.S. Militarization in Alaska, 1867-1967,” 583. ↑
- Nielson, Armed Forces on a Northern Frontier, 28, 29; Farish, “The First Century of U.S. Militarization in Alaska, 1867-1967,” 568. Colonel Robert M. Scott wrote to Davis after the atrocity that, “fortunately, you are not hampered by a civilian government, Indian Bureau, etc. in Alaska and you have therefore a good chance to pitch in and punish such tribes…such action would have a first-rate effect and would keep their people in a wholesome state of anxiety.” Having overseen a notorious atrocity at Ebenezer, Georgia, during the American Civil War, Davis, according to historian Matthew Farish, oversaw the kidnapping of Tlingit leaders, hostage taking, imprisonment, bombing of villages and execution of Alaska’s natives. After retiring from his duties in Alaska, Davis was pulled out of retirement in 1873 and sent to oversee military operations with former Union General William Tecumseh Sherman that resulted in the extermination of the Modoc people in Oregon and California. More background on Davis can be found in Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes, Jr., and Gordon D. Whitney, Jefferson Davis in Blue: The Life of Sherman’s Relentless Warrior (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002). ↑
- Nielson, Armed Forces on a Northern Frontier, 29. ↑
- Ibid., 33; Farish, “The First Century of U.S. Militarization in Alaska, 1967-1867,” 574. The Hoochinoo village was subjected to naval bombardment. Tlingit oral tradition disputes that there were white hostages involved. In the 1970s, the Tlingit and Haida Central Council hired anthropologist Philip Drucker to research the case. Drucker noted that in the official documents, despite the captive white men being the primary mission that brought the ships to Angoon, neither Merriman or Morris (another naval officer) “even mentions what should have been the climax of the expedition’s achievements, the rescue of the white captives, if there actually was such a rescue. Merriman afterwards said that a “most severe but eminently salutory lesson” was given to the Hoochinoos. A century later, descendants of the Hoochinoo were awarded $90,000 in compensation by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for their property losses. ↑
- Nielson, Armed Forces on a Northern Frontier, 179. So many of the volunteers in the Alaska Defense Command were from Alaska’s Indigenous peoples—Aleut, Inupiak, Yupik, Tlingit, and many others—that the guard was nicknamed the “Eskimo Scouts.” ↑
- Nielson, Armed Forces on a Northern Frontier, 199, 200. A $10 million oil pipeline was constructed between Whittier and Anchorage to meet the demand. ↑
- Nielson, Armed Forces on a Northern Frontier, 199. ↑
- Ibid., 187. President Truman authorized a think tank at MIT, the Lincoln Laboratory, to work on Project Charles, which became a prototype for the electronic battlefield adopted by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara during the Vietnam War. Hydrogen bomb creator Edward Teller, who was involved with Project Charles from its inception, tried to expand it in the 1980s to make it part of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI aka Star Wars). ↑
- Ocean researcher Patricia Tester, who found a trove of documents in Kodiak, Alaska, pertaining to the U-2 flight launched from Alaska, found contracts for clams and a shipping receipt between the Ketchikan facility in Alaska and the U.S. Army Biological Warfare lab at Fort Detrick. Tester said that, “in one of the files, there was a Department of Defense contract for toxic shellfish. And this is what led to the detective journey that brought us through the Cold War history. The contract was from the Department of Defense and it was for toxic clams written in October 6, 1952. The contract was for $10,000 of toxic clams—closer to $100,000 today—to be shipped to the East Coast. The department worked with the CIA to actually develop a replacement for the cyanide poison pill that was provided to U.S. covert agents and spies during that time.” ↑
- Agents who were part of the network were paid $3,000 per year, which converts to more than $30,000 today. ↑
- The Alaska Historical Society claims that “the problems were not addressed until the environmental and social movements of the 1960s and 1970s prompted actions by the military beginning in 1980s to clean up and restore the environment. Later, in the late 1990s, the military established a direct relationship with Alaska’s Native people to address past wrongs.” ↑
- The complaint states that, “by exposing Yupik people of Sivuqaq to polluted drinking water sources, air, and soil, and by contaminating local native foods; by causing pervasive human exposure to hazardous chemicals through multiple routes; by toxifying the broader ecosystem; and by not cleaning up contamination sufficiently to protect human health and the environment, the U.S. Air Force and Army Corps of Engineers violated human rights long recognized in international law.” The U.S. Army now claims to have spent more than $130 million to have cleaned up the contamination in Sivuqaq. ↑
- Nielson, Armed Forces on a Northern Frontier, 210. ↑
- See Noam Chomsky, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and Assault on Democracy (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006). Sullivan is facing a challenge in the November mid-terms from Democrat Mary Peltola, a native Yupik and tribal judge who emphasizes on her website that she is a military mom who will always put veterans first. While supporting certain progressive measures like for the environment which marks her as an improvement over Sullivan and opposing the Iran War, Peltola, who served in the House of Representatives from 2022-2025, is a moderate Blue Dog Democrat and has long supported U.S. aid to Ukraine. Her website does not offer any critique of Alaska’s growing militarism or critique of U.S. foreign policy, which is all too typical of the Democratic Party. ↑
- Blackstone Group invests heavily in aerospace, intelligence and defense tech start-ups. ↑
- For comparison with Hawai’i, see CovertAction Magazine article here. A classic study detailing the parasitic effect of excessive military spending and its negative economic effects is Seymour Melman, Pentagon Capitalism: The Political Economy of War (New York: McGraw Hill, 1970). ↑
Original article: covertactionmagazine.com
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