U.S. soldiers assigned to the 1st Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 11th Airborne Division, are training outside Utqiagvik, Alaska. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army/Pfc. Brandon Vasquez.
In March 2026, Sen. Dan Sullivan said Alaska is undergoing its largest military buildup since World War II, driven by increasingly frequent and sophisticated joint Russian-Chinese operations near Alaska’s coastline.
Sullivan noted that a Russian incursion into the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) occurred just ten days before his Senate field hearing in Anchorage. Since 2019, his data shows more than 100 Russian aircraft incursions, four Chinese vessel incursions, and more than a dozen joint Sino-Russian operations inside the ADIZ.
NORAD commander Gen. Gregory Guillot confirmed the activity has become more frequent and coordinated. Russia and China are conducting joint patrols along Russia’s northern coast, north of Alaska, and near Canada.
NATO’s European commander said the activity “is not for peaceful purposes,” describing it as bathymetric surveying intended to counter NATO capabilities on and under the sea.
The threat extends across the North American Arctic, including Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. In January 2026, President Trump declared Greenland “imperative for National and World Security,” calling it essential to the planned Golden Dome missile defense system.
In late August 2025, U.S. aircraft intercepted Russian surveillance flights four times in one week. NORAD also acknowledged at least eight separate Russian incursions into the Alaskan ADIZ in 2025.
In February 2026, NORAD and USNORTHCOM conducted Arctic Edge 2026, a major multi-domain exercise across Alaska and Greenland involving U.S., Canadian, and Danish forces. The exercise focused on cruise missile defense against long-range precision weapons approaching via polar routes.
That same month, NATO launched Arctic Sentry, a new enhanced vigilance activity led by Joint Force Command Norfolk that consolidated allied Arctic operations under a single command.
The U.S.-Canada defense relationship underpinning these efforts is also under strain. The Pentagon recently paused the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, the bilateral body overseeing NORAD modernization and Arctic security cooperation, while Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney declared that “the days of our military sending 70 cents of every dollar to the United States are over.”
These events reflect a deteriorating strategic environment that was already alarming in 2024. On July 24 of that year, NORAD detected and intercepted Russian and Chinese aircraft operating in the Alaska ADIZ. In May 2024, NORAD also tracked four Russian military aircraft in the zone. Throughout 2023, multiple incidents involved Chinese warships, aircraft, and surveillance balloons in the region.
The growing frequency of Russian and Chinese military activity around Alaska and the Arctic underscores the region’s importance to the defense of the U.S. homeland, Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark, and NATO. The U.S. Department of War’s 2024 Arctic Strategy seeks to counter Russia and China by expanding defense capabilities across the theater.
The strategy is also driven by environmental changes. Melting Arctic ice is increasing human activity and opening new shipping lanes such as the Northern Sea Route, reducing transit time between Europe and Asia. Control of these routes and resources is increasingly important for global trade and energy security.
“Alaska is the most strategic place on earth,” declared Brig. Gen. Billy Mitchell to Congress in 1935. Its position at the Bering Strait chokepoint and along the Great Circle Routes makes Anchorage a key hub for international shipping, and decreased Arctic ice has opened the Northern Sea Route and Northwest Passage. Russia and China now effectively dominate both routes, with over 1,800 ships traveling Arctic polar waterways in 2025, a 40 percent increase from 2013.
The same routes that favor shipping also favor missiles. The Great Circle path is the preferred trajectory for nuclear and conventional weapons targeting North America, making Alaska central to ballistic missile defense. Russia’s Arctic-based capabilities provide a direct approach to the U.S. homeland and threaten America’s ability to project power to Europe and the Indo-Pacific.
The region holds vast natural resources, oil, gas, coal, rare-earth metals, and fisheries, increasingly accessible as ice retreats. Russia, which derives 20 percent of its GDP from Arctic activities, has filed expanded territorial claims with the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf and refurbished military bases to back them.
Russia has also deployed long-range cruise missiles capable of targeting the U.S. and Canada through northern approaches, introduced its first SEVERODVINSK-class nuclear-capable submarine to the Pacific Fleet in 2022, and sent Bear bombers through the G-I-U-K gap while deploying GPS jamming systems across the region.
China, declaring itself a “near-Arctic state,” has rebranded trans-Arctic shipping routes as the Polar Silk Road under the Belt and Road Initiative, using nominally civilian research operations to advance military objectives. In summer 2025, it deployed a five-vessel icebreaker fleet near Alaska, its largest Arctic operation to date. Russia operates 45 icebreakers, including eight nuclear-powered. The U.S. has three, one of which is 50 years old. In 2025, the Coast Guard deployed two simultaneously for the first time in over a decade, but the first new heavy icebreaker, the USCGC Polar Sentinel, is not expected until 2030 and has already ballooned to nearly $2.4 billion in cost.
The Northern Sea Route along Russia’s Arctic coast offers a shorter path between Europe and Asia than the Suez Canal, bypassing the Strait of Malacca entirely. Murmansk, an ice-free port in northwestern Russia, provides year-round access. Both nations see the NSR as a tool for controlling global shipping and expanding geopolitical influence.
Their Arctic partnership is now formalized. In April 2023, China and Russia signed a coast guard cooperation memorandum, with China invited to observe “Arctic Patrol 2023.” The “Arctic Cruise 2023” and “Northern Interaction 2023” exercises followed. Sen. Sullivan has argued that joint bomber flights and naval task force operations now entering U.S. Arctic airspace could not occur without direct authorization from Putin and Xi personally.
The U.S. is responding across the full North American Arctic. The DoD 2024 Arctic Strategy targets Alaska, Canada, and the broader theater, with Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership adding allied depth. The U.S. supported Arctic Edge 2024 for cold-weather training, and in July 2024, announced the ICE Pact with Canada and Finland for joint icebreaker production. The Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill allocates $4.3 billion for the Polar Security Cutter series and $3.5 billion for medium icebreakers. The buildup also includes reopening the Navy base at Adak and a $25 billion Coast Guard package with $4.5 billion for a deepwater port in Nome.
The U.S. decision to intensify Arctic defense priorities is necessary to counter growing threats from China and Russia. However, the effort is complicated by the military’s commitments in multiple theaters, including the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East, and Europe, all of which demand significant resources and attention.
Balancing global commitments while maintaining adequate Arctic resources is critical to readiness and response capability. The Commission on the National Defense Strategy recommended that the Department of War and Congress prioritize agility, interoperability, and survivability in military systems while investing in cyber, space, and software capabilities and canceling outdated programs.
Congress should also support multiyear investments in national security innovation, industrial capacity, and workforce development. Increased defense spending and greater resources for national security agencies are necessary, alongside fiscal reforms to manage the deficit.
This is probably the last thing the American public wants to hear while the U.S. is involved in conflict with Iran and conducting ongoing counter-narcotics operations in Central and South America, as well as anti-ISIS strikes in Nigeria, Syria, and elsewhere.
However, the world is large, and the U.S. has foreign policy interests across the globe. The Arctic is crucial to national security because it represents an open back door that China and Russia could exploit. This is particularly important now that Canada is signaling it may no longer fully cooperate with the U.S. on defense.
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