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EXCLUSIVE: After U.S. officials detected a sharp rise in Russian and Chinese military incursions near Alaska — including a growing number of joint operations — Sen. Dan Sullivan is warning that the Arctic has become an active security front. And he’s pushing Congress to accelerate icebreaker construction, reopen Cold War–era bases and bolster U.S. defenses in the region.
Sullivan’s warning comes as new data show foreign military traffic near Alaska climbing sharply, a trend he says has gone largely unnoticed outside the region even as Moscow and Beijing coordinate more closely. He argues the activity has exposed how thin U.S. Arctic capabilities have become and why Washington is now scrambling to catch up.
“Let’s just say the world’s largest fleet of oceanographic survey ships wasn’t off the coast of Alaska to ‘save the whales,’” Sullivan told Fox News Digital in an interview.
President Donald Trump’s ongoing friction with Denmark over Greenland reflects the growing importance of the Arctic for the administration, Sullivan said. As melting ice opens new shipping lanes, energy access and military routes, Alaska is becoming a front line in the contest for economic and strategic dominance.
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Plans to reboot far-flung military operations off Russia’s back door — recently revisited in Tom Cruise’s latest “Mission: Impossible” installment — along with crucial new port infrastructure and a major cash infusion to the U.S. Coast Guard are all efforts to demonstrate the only thing America’s adversaries respect, Sullivan said: “Power.”
Sullivan, R-Alaska, recently chaired a Senate Commerce Subcommittee hearing examining the U.S. Coast Guard’s Arctic presence and discussed a new U.S.-Finnish deal to secure crucial new icebreaker craft and funding from the recent tax-cut law funding for at least three USCG Arctic security cutters amid a record $25 billion total investment in Coast Guard prowess.
The U.S. currently has two, one of which is out of service, while the Russians have 54 icebreaker craft, “nuclear-powered and weaponized,” he said.
Sullivan shared data with Fox News Digital showing a sharp rise in Russian, Chinese and joint Sino-Russian military aircraft and maritime incursions into the U.S. Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ, a security buffer stretching beyond 12-nautical-mile sovereign U.S. airspace where foreign craft are required to identify themselves.
Since 2019, there have been more than 100 Russian aircraft, four Chinese vessels and, most alarmingly, more than a dozen joint operations that have entered the ADIZ, Sullivan said.
Trump’s recent focus on Greenland underscored the urgency of Arctic national security, Sullivan said, echoing warnings from NATO commander USAF Gen. Alexus Grynkewich that China’s expanding “research” presence in the region is becoming increasingly aggressive.
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While the Russians identify with the Arctic, China’s self-moniker of a “near-Arctic power” is confounding and concerning, he added, pointing to its actual location on the globe.
Sullivan said the situation is reminiscent of Vladimir Lenin’s mantra that when you probe an enemy with a bayonet, “if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw.”
The U.S., he said, must steel itself against these threats, and Congress must be on the front lines, ensuring the resources and defenses are ready and in service.
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“The only thing authoritarian regimes that are our adversaries understand is power. That’s U.S. energy security, Coast Guard, military assets and infrastructure.”
As the chairman of the Senate Commerce Coast Guard subcommittee, Sullivan said he is working hard to ensure that is what Moscow and Beijing will see, noting the new Storis icebreaker vessel received funding to home port in Juneau, along with 16 more icebreakers and $4.5 billion in shorefront infrastructure.
In addition, a World War II-era base on far-flung Adak in the Aleutian Chain is on track to be reopened, Sullivan revealed.
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The base, somewhat dramatized in “Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning,” which featured a counter-Soviet listening post on nearby St. Matthew Island, was key to Allied defenses as Japan bombed present-day crabbing port Dutch Harbor and invaded Attu and Kiska islands, events less remembered than the Axis’ other Pacific attack at Pearl Harbor.
Adak’s Base largely closed down in 1994 after the end of the Cold War.
Sullivan revealed he secured $115 million to begin rebuilding Adak, paired with $500 million to establish a deepwater port in Nome, one of the closest cities to both Russia and the Arctic Ocean.
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The state of Alaska matched that Nome investment and put $30 million of its own funds toward the new Adak project, Sullivan said. Gov. Mike Dunleavy separately told Fox News Digital that enhancing Alaska’s icebreaking capabilities and expanding the Coast Guard’s presence to safeguard the state’s coastline are key.
“[Further,] supporting life-saving missions and countering foreign influence in the Arctic are vital not only to our state but to the nation as a whole. Alaska stands ready to receive these icebreakers and leverage our geostrategic position to advance Trump’s America First agenda,” Dunleavy said.
Brent Sadler, a naval warfare expert and veteran at the Heritage Foundation, said the Arctic — and Antarctic — are also critical for space-based sensors detecting long-range missile attacks.
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“China and Russia have impacted our fishermen’s livelihoods with military exercises in our EEZ (exclusive economic zone) … (and) should be viewed as a threat. It needs to be deterred and pushed back on appropriately with an increased Coast Guard presence,” Sadler said.
Many of Russia’s incursions lately have originated in Anadyr, directly across the Bering Strait from Nome, and Adak sits just a few hundred miles east of Kamchatka, Russia.
Paired with Trump’s Golden Dome security initiative, Sullivan said now is the time to “plus-up” Arctic defenses as malign activity continues in his backyard.
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The “peace through strength” mantra is best served this way, he said, as each area targeted in the latest appropriation brings U.S. might right to Russia and China’s face, versus more populated but less strategic areas to build up like Kodiak and Anchorage.
“We’ve got to keep pedal-to-the-metal, and I give President Trump and his team a lot of credit. He was talking about Arctic issues and icebreakers and missile defense during his first term, and now we’re doing it,” Sullivan said.
“It’s important because the Chinese and Russians understand one thing: power — big flashy speeches without backing it up with military force don’t really mean anything.”
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