This content was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
In October 2024, the US Coast Guard spotted two Chinese sea police vessels operating alongside a pair of Russian frontier guard boats as they transited the Bering Sea, merely km from Alaskan waters.
It was the fourth consecutive season that a combined Russian-Chinese military convoy sailed through the proper waterway. A year prior, the two countries staged joint marine activities in the region with 11 ships — a clear indication of their growing military cooperation near US territory.
The October travel, which China said continued through the Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean, came less than three weeks after the first mutual flight of Chinese and Russian tactical bombers over the Bering Sea.
The uptick in Russian and Chinese engagement near Alaska — home to America’s largest ships of advanced fighter jets and a core of its missile defence structures –is fueling calls to restore Cold War-era military infrastructure on the Aleutian Islands.
Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of US Indo-Pacific Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 10 that he supports reopening the shuttered marine service on Adak Island and upgrading Eareckson Air Station on Shemya, the northernmost outpost of the network.
Features on Adak and Shemya would give the United States “time and mileage on any power capacity that is looking to penetrate” National lakes or airport, Paparo said. Reactivating Adak would allow the United States to increase maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft ( MPRA ) coverage in the region by a factor of 10, he told lawmakers.
A Gateway To The Arctic
The Aleutian ring, made up of 14 massive volcanic islands and 55 smaller people, stretches more than 1,600 km from the Arctic island toward Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. The archipelago sit astride the fantastic group roads, the quickest paths between Asia and North America, and function as a doorway to both the Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea.
Kamchatka — 800 kilometers east of Shemya — is home to Russia’s Pacific underwater fleet and regiments of long-range soldiers. Paparo described Russia’s Pacific Fleet as a “growth enterprise ” that now operates “frequently ” along the great circle routes.
General Gregory Guillot, captain of the US Northern Command, testified in February before a Senate committee that reviving Adak may provide significant “maritime and heat exposure. ”
The Pentagon is currently evaluating future uses for Adak, which features a deep-water port with three piers, two 7,000-foot ( 2,100-meter ) runways, multiple hangars, de-icing platforms, and one of the largest bulk fuel storage facilities in the United States.
During the Cold War, Adak served as the primary anti-submarine war center in the Pacific, with P-3 Orions constantly patrolling the surrounding lakes. The area also stored B57 nuclear degree weapons designed to ignite submerged and kill enemy submarines.
At its top, the area was home to 6,000 military personnel and their families. The center was actually closed in 1997. Currently, fewer than 200 individuals live on the island. Alaska Airlines operates a second professional way to Adak using Boeing 737s.
Eareckson Air Station on Shemya hosts a 10,000-foot ( 3,000-meter ) runway and hangars. Shemya is also home to the Cobra Dane detector system — an innovative device used to monitor ballistic missile launch and satellites. The air station also serves as an emergency diversion airport for civilian flights crossing the North Pacific.
‘A Real Challenge’
US forces in September carried out an exercise on Shemya in response to the joint Russia-China bomber flight.
“Every time a state vessel or aircraft enters the area, it ’s collecting information, ” said Troy Bouffard, an Arctic security expert at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “The only way to respond is to intercept and push them out. ”
“This is a real challenge, ” he added. “And places like Adak provide outstanding positions to base the assets needed to meet it. ”
Adak, which will be part of Indo-Pacific Command’s Northern Edge exercise in August, could host P-8A Poseidon aircraft — America’s most advanced maritime patrol aircraft and the successor to the P-3. Based on the Boeing 737 airframe, the P-8 is designed to detect and destroy both surface ships and submarines.
The P-8 plays a central role in US and allied anti-submarine warfare. The US resumed P-8 flights from its airbase at Keflavik, Iceland, in 2018 amid renewed Russian activity near the GIUK Gap, a key maritime chokepoint into the Atlantic.
Allies including Canada, Germany, and Norway have announced plans to purchase the aircraft to replace their P-3s. Norway reversed plans to close an Arctic air station after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and will now use it for maritime drone flights that complement the P-8s.
Shortest Missile Flight Path To The US
Russia’s Pacific Fleet is expected to grow to 45 modernized warships by the early 2030s, including 19 submarines. Some of its newest vessels are armed with Zircon hypersonic missiles, which can reach speeds over Mach 5 and strike targets hundreds of kilometers away.
Meanwhile, China is expanding the world’s largest navy by hull count. The Congressional Research Service estimates its fleet could grow from 370 to 435 ships by 2030. Intelligence reports suggest Russia is helping China reduce the acoustic signatures of its submarines — critical to making them harder for US forces to track.
Experts warn that, if Chinese nuclear-armed submarines reach the Arctic, it would significantly enhance Beijing’s second-strike capability against the United States. The shortest missile flight path to the continental US is over the Arctic.
Russia’s air presence in the Bering and Arctic regions is also growing. A senior Alaskan commander told reporters in 2021 that US intercepts of Russian aircraft near or inside the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone had reached a post-Soviet high.
The spike coincides with Moscow ’s rapid expansion and renovation of dozens of Arctic military installations, including airfields and radar sites.
In the event of a reopening, the United States is not expected to station many military personnel on the islands, which are renowned for their high winds, dense fog, persistent overcast skies, and freezing temperatures. A 1937 Naval War College assessment described them as having “some of the worst weather in the world. ”
Imperial Japan captured two of the islands in June 1942, marking only the second time in US history that its territory had been seized by a foreign adversary. Though US forces recaptured the islands, the 14-month Aleutian Campaign cost 225 American aircraft, most lost to the region’s extreme weather.
