Army steps up presence and protection of Alaska, thanks to Sen. Dan Sullivan

By
Suzanne Downing
-
19

The U.S. Army has released its Arctic strategy, “Regaining Arctic Dominance.” The strategy lays out how the Army will generate, train, organize, and equip U.S. forces to partner with Arctic allies and secure our national interests and maintain regional stability.

The new Arctic focus for all branches of the military is a result of work by Sen. Dan Sullivan, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He included in the Fiscal Year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act a provision requiring each branch of the Armed Forces to produce its own Arctic strategy.

“I commend the U.S. Army, under the leadership of former Secretary of the Army McCarthy, acting Secretary of the Army Whitely, and Army Chief of Staff General McConville, for their efforts to rebuild the Army’s Arctic capabilities, which have significantly atrophied over the past decades,” said Senator Sullivan. “The Army’s intent to establish a Multi-Domain Task Force with specially-trained and equipped combat brigades in Alaska highlights the strategic importance of our state, and provides the Army with the tools to create unique challenges for our competitors in the Arctic. This strategy, and those of the other services, sends a strong message to our allies and adversaries that the United States plans to project and sustain power throughout the Arctic now and into the future.”

Among other provisions, the Army’s Arctic strategy places a focus on:

  • properly training and equipping the U.S. Army’s Arctic Warriors for extended operations,
  • improving the physical and mental health of soldiers stationed in the Arctic,
  • highlighting Russian military activity and Chinese interest in the region,
  • developing military concepts and doctrine for operating in cold weather and mountainous regions,
  • prioritizing Arctic training and expertise for certain command positions,
  • examining benefits of establishing an Arctic Army Prepositioned Stocks set,
  • expanding joint and international training with our allies and partners in the Arctic, and
  • cooperating and consulting with Alaska Native communities.

The Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Navy have already released their new Arctic strategies.

“The release of this strategy is timely, especially given increasing levels of great power competitor activities in the Arctic region. Operating in the Arctic allows the Army to powerfully project our forces to enhance our ability to respond in competition, crisis and/or conflict,” the Army noted in a press release.

The Arctic is a vital area containing many of our nation’s natural resources and key shipping channels, and is a platform for projecting global power and a possible avenue of attack in conflict, the Army wrote. Enhanced Arctic capability will increase the Army’s ability to operate in extreme cold-weather, mountainous and high-latitude environments and reflects the Department of Defense’s overarching Arctic Strategy, which was issued in June 2019.

The Department of Defense ― driven by Congress and the National Defense Strategy focus on Russia and China ― took some convincing that Alaska is an economic and strategic stronghold.

“Although it’s changing, the Pentagon has had to be dragged into this. They’ve been the laggard, not the leader,” Sullivan told Defense News last year, when he chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Readiness and Management Support Subcommittee. “I’ve seen the awakening across the board, which is a positive thing, but we still need to get there.”

19 COMMENTS

  1. Yeah, like the Russian hordes are gonna take over our state and make it…
    Wait a minit! Maybe there’s something to this. They’re probably pizzed off that we got it for such a pittance back in the previous millennia and are wanting to………?

  2. It was their idea on the price. If you read your history you’ll see that they had just got through with a bunch of wars and was pretty puny financially so the czar willingly took the cash. But yeah, might be fighting the Russians or the Canadians or the Scandinavians. Maybe the Chileans or the peruvians since they have a winter.

  3. This is good news in comparison to the Canadian trend towards joint training sessions with China even while they are holding canadian CITIZENS, two mikes.

  5. Russkies just need to wait a bit….

    A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.
    -Durant

  6. Let the Rumors of war begin agian. Remember Trump Administration started no new wars, he was finishing the ones Bush and Obama had started. Trump was America’s president whose polices brought peace between nations for world peace as all the peace flag waving anti gun democrats want. If Nobel Peace prize meant anything the man of the year would had been 45th President Trump.

  7. “The Arctic is a vital area containing many of our nation’s natural resources…”
    Most of which is currently unavailable due to the world’s lengthiest, and most capricious permitting process.
    Credits to the Army Corps of Engineers, Trout Unlimited, National Resource Defense Council, Sierra Club, Bristol Bay Native Corp. and etc.

  9. Sullivan’s ‘achievements’ sound like a ‘promotion’ resume for a REMF (military term). Sullivan has no further credibility. Alaska has been militarily important since and during WWII. First and foremost during the cold war. Probably the most strategically important place in the world for America. Sullivan shouldn’t try to take credit for something that was initiated and established before he was born. Remember the Nike sites on the mountain by Anchorage? Shemya and what that brought in the 50’s (nuclear testing)? Adak, Dutch Harbor, Cold Bay, Kodiak and all points north, east and south from there. All military services update their strategy, plans, equipment, training and tactical awareness on a regular basis, whether a ‘senator’ wants them to or not. By the way, where are the two big icebreakers that Sullivan promised a few years ago? Not a peep since the big ‘announcement’ that Sullivan had done that ‘for Alaska’. Maybe they will be a ‘surprise’. Like Napoleon said, “for a politician to succeed, promise everything, deliver nothing”.

  10. Have they been training them in speaking Chinese in time for the inevitable selling out by the new president* Traitor Zho?

  12. But they’re still in a standown and enforced navel gazing over BadThink. They are conducting a social media background check on members to see if they have any currently unapproved thoughts. They are relaxing PT and dress regs so everyone can compete. They are in the midst of being fully politicized.

    The AK NG still tolerates a Captain who believes the US Constitution is a fundamentally racist document (calling Forrest).

    I bet the ChiComs are laughing themselves silly. Cheers –

  13. Newsflash: the boondoggle force loses the next war.

    .

    Because unlike the U.S. citizen, the enemy gets a vote.

  14. If you want to defend the Arctic we will need icebreakers and more of a naval presence. A company of jarheads is probably better suited to be a fast response team of select infantry or landing group than a large force of dough boys. 300 full time cold weather specialized infantry or force recon marines and half again as much in the reserves would be a good start. That said, without proper naval/coast guard vessels the Arctic is already lost to the Russians and Chinese.

  15. It is a start. But there should also be a co ordinated effort to form and involve the people of Alaska, to prepare as the back up of the soldiers if they are ever really needed. The Governor needs to to something in that area. The few soldiers may not be enough if they had to defend Alaska/America.

  17. Sullivan, you and Murkowski and Young are traitors to the Alaskan people. Go back to DC and crawl under the BIDEN rock you came out from under!!!

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