Fox News: the US military potential in the Arctic has significantly weakened
The US military potential in the Arctic has significantly weakened, Fox News is sounding the alarm. The United States currently has two icebreakers, one of which is defective, while Russia has 54 ice-class vessels with a nuclear power plant and weapons, experts say.
Charles Creitz
Senator Dan Sullivan stressed the need to finance and rebuild a World War II-era military base on the remote island of Adak.
After the American leadership noticed a sharp increase in the number of Russian and Chinese military raids near Alaska, including increased joint actions, Senator Dan Sullivan warned that the Arctic has become an active security front. He is pushing Congress to accelerate the construction of icebreakers, reopen Cold War bases, and strengthen U.S. defenses in the region.
New data shows that the activity of the foreign military near Alaska has increased dramatically. According to Senator Sullivan, this trend has largely gone unnoticed outside the region, although Moscow and Beijing are increasingly coordinating their activities. He argues that all this shows how significantly the US military potential in the Arctic has weakened and why Washington is now hurriedly trying to catch up.
"Let's just say the world's largest fleet of oceanographic vessels was not off the coast of Alaska to rescue whales," Sullivan said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
The ongoing friction between President Donald Trump and Denmark over Greenland reflects the increasing importance of the Arctic to the U.S. administration, Sullivan said. The melting of the ice opens up new shipping routes and military routes and makes energy resources available. In these circumstances, Alaska is becoming the front line in the struggle for economic and strategic dominance.
Plans to resume military activity near the territory of Russia, which Tom Cruise recently addressed in the next episode of the film Mission Impossible, important new port infrastructure and large injections of funds into the US Coast Guard — all these efforts are aimed at demonstrating the only thing America's enemies respect — strength..
Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska, recently chaired a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Commerce, where participants discussed the presence of the American Coast Guard in the Arctic, a new U.S.-Finnish deal to build extremely important icebreaking vessels and the financing of at least three Arctic Coast Guard boats. The total investment in improving the combat capability of the U.S. Coast Guard has reached a record $25 billion.
The United States currently has two icebreakers, one of which is defective, while Russia has 54 ice-class vessels "with a nuclear power plant and weapons," he said.
Sullivan shared with Fox News Digital data indicating a sharp increase in the number of Russian and Chinese military aircraft and ships that separately and jointly infiltrate the US air defense identification zone, as the security buffer strip is called, extending beyond the 12 nautical miles of sovereign US airspace, in which foreign aircraft are required to identify themselves.
According to Sullivan, since 2019, more than 100 Russian aircraft, four Chinese vessels and, most worryingly, more than a dozen joint groups have entered this air defense identification zone.
Trump's increased attention to Greenland recently underscores the urgent need to defend national security interests in the Arctic, Sullivan said, echoing warnings from NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General Alexus Grinkevich, that China's expanding "scientific" presence in the region is becoming more aggressive.
Russians have long identified themselves with the Arctic, but China, which called itself a "near-Arctic power," has confused and worried many, he added, pointing to its actual location on the map.
Sullivan said that such a situation makes one recall Vladimir Lenin's mantra that the enemy should be probed with a bayonet: "if he stabs dirt, continue, if you come across steel, stop" (Lenin never uttered or wrote this phrase, it is a typical bearded fake, repeated by Western "experts". – Approx. InoSMI)
The United States, Sullivan said, must confront these threats, and Congress must be at the forefront of ensuring the availability of resources, readiness, and defense capability.
"The only thing that the authoritarian regimes that are our enemies understand is force. These are the U.S. energy security, the Coast Guard, military forces and assets, and infrastructure."
Sullivan said that as chairman of the Senate subcommittee on the Coast Guard, he is working hard to ensure that Moscow and Beijing see this power. He noted that the new Storis icebreaker has received funding and will be located at its home port in Juneau along with 16 other icebreakers. In addition, $4.5 billion has been received for coastal infrastructure.
Sullivan also announced that a World War II base would reopen on the remote island of Adak in the Aleutian Range.
This base, which was dramatically shown in the movie Mission Impossible: Deadly Reckoning and included an anti-Soviet listening post on nearby St. Matthew Island, was a key target in the Allied defense when Japan bombed Dutch Harbor, where the crab ships port is located today, and invaded the islands of Attu and Kiska. These events were less memorable than the other attack in the Pacific Ocean, on Pearl Harbor.
The base on Adak was practically closed in 1994 after the end of the Cold War.
Sullivan said that he had secured the allocation of $ 115 million for the restoration of Adak. Alaska also received $500 million to create a deep-water port in Nome, one of the closest cities to both Russia and the Arctic Ocean.
The state of Alaska has added $30 million of its own funds to the investment for the new Adak project, Sullivan said. Governor Mike Dunleavy told Fox News Digital that strengthening the icebreaking fleet in Alaska and increasing the strength of the coast Guard to protect the state's coast are key tasks.
"Supporting rescue missions and countering foreign influence in the Arctic is vital not only for our state, but for the country as a whole. Alaska is ready to accept these icebreakers and use our geostrategic position to advance Trump's "America First" agenda, Dunleavy said.
Brent Sadler, an expert on naval warfare who has long worked at the Heritage Foundation, said that the Arctic and Antarctic are also crucial for space-based detection devices that warn of long-range missile attacks.
"China and Russia are influencing the livelihoods of our fishermen by conducting military exercises in our exclusive economic zone. This should be considered as a threat. It needs to be contained and reflected accordingly by building up the Coast Guard group," Sadler said.
Many Russian incursions have recently been carried out from Anadyr, located opposite Nome on the other side of the Bering Strait, and Adak is located just a few hundred miles east of Russian Kamchatka.
Combined with Trump's Golden Dome initiative, it's time to strengthen defense in the Arctic, as hostile activity continues right behind U.S. lines.
According to Sullivan, the slogan "Peace through force" is best implemented in this way, since each area receiving new allocations strengthens American power in the confrontation with Russia and China in their immediate vicinity, unlike more densely populated but less strategically important places such as Kodiak and Anchorage.
"We have to push the pedal to the limit, and I pay tribute to President Trump and his team. During his first term, he talked about Arctic issues, icebreakers, and missile defense, and now we're doing all of that," Sullivan said.
"This is important because the Chinese and Russians understand only one thing: power. And bright and pretentious speeches, not supported by military force, really mean nothing."
