As climate change opens up the Arctic for transit and exploration, Russia is increasingly militarizing the region. To prevent Russian military dominance in the region, the United States is also building up its forces there and conducting exercises, writes The New York Times..

The first of its kind for the U.S. exercise outside Fairbanks, involving about 8,000 troops, was planned long before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, partly driven by Russia’s aggressive moves in recent years to militarize the Arctic, the part of the world where the U.S. and Russia have.

Tensions in the region have been rising for years as countries lay claim to shipping routes and energy reserves opened up in Alaska by climate change. Now that the geopolitical order has shifted following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, competition for sovereignty and resources in the Arctic could intensify.

On the west coast of Alaska, the federal government is investing hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the port at Nome, which could become a deep-water hub serving Coast Guard and Navy ships sailing above the Arctic Circle.. The Coast Guard is waiting for the launch of three new icebreakers, although Russia already has more than 50 in operation..

And while the United States denounces Russia's aggressive military expansion in the Arctic, the Pentagon has its own plans to increase its presence and capabilities: working to rebuild cold-weather skills partially lost during two decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.. Air Force donates dozens of F-35s to Alaska. Last year, the US Department of Defense unveiled its first strategic plan, Restoring Power in the Arctic..

The Navy, which has been conducting training above and below sea ice inside the Arctic Circle this month, has also drawn up a plan to protect US interests in the region, warning that weakness will mean the risk of increased influence from Russia and China, whose interests and values \u200b\u200bdiffer sharply from those of the West..

Russia, whose eastern mainland is only 55 miles across the Bering Strait from the coast of Alaska, has been prioritizing its expansion in the Arctic for years, upgrading airfields, adding bases, training troops and developing a network of military defense systems on its northern border..

With a warming climate reducing sea ice in the region, valuable fish stocks are moving north, and rare minerals and significant fossil fuel reserves in the Arctic are becoming an increasing target for exploration.. Boat traffic could increase due to both trade and tourism.

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Russia has repeatedly sent warplanes to the borders of US airspace, forcing US planes to try to intercept them..

This month, in response to tightening international sanctions against Russia, a member of the Russian parliament demanded the return of Alaska, which the United States bought from Russia in 1867..

Perhaps this is a rhetorical gesture, nevertheless reflecting the worsening relations between Russia and the United States.

For centuries, the vast waters of the offshore Arctic have been largely a no-man's-land covered in ice, whose exact territorial boundaries - claimed by the US, Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark and Iceland - have remained uncertain.. But as the melting sea ice opened up new shipping routes and a new opportunity for mining, countries' territorial claims intensified..