At the end of last week, the Senator from Alaska Dan Sullivan called on Washington and its allies to strengthen the US military presence in this state. According to the politician, it is necessary to give an answer to the actions of the Russian Defense Ministry, which dramatically increases its armed forces in the Arctic.

Senator proposes to deploy more troops in Alaska and speed up the construction of new icebreakers. Now they have only two US, whereas Russia - forty. And in general, the development of the Arctic is one of the few areas where Russians are noticeably ahead of the Americans.

Earlier similar fears were expressed by the ex-governor of Alaska Sarah Palin, who in 2008. Was a candidate for Vice-Presidents of the United States. On CNN, she said that Russia is applying for state natural resources. According to her, for many years now the Russian Federation literally marks the seabed areas where the fossil storages belonging to America are located, while behaving "really aggressively".

However, Palin did not specify where exactly the notorious tags are located, and what specific resources are being discussed, noting only that there are minerals, oil and gas reserves under the water. But she expressed her hope that now the US administration will be more attentive to Alaska, which is a stone's throw away from Russia, which makes the state's position strategically important.

The main motivating motive for such statements was the incidents with the Russian bombers, which in late April and early May repeatedly flew to the coast of Alaska, while remaining within the neutral airspace.

It is noteworthy that in the Pentagon these maneuvers reacted quite calmly, noting only the professionalism of Russian and American pilots who did not create threats for each other. The representative of the Command of the North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) John Cornelio did not see anything provocative in the flights of Russian bombers near Alaska. The White House also did not find the situation something out of the ordinary, as all flights were conducted in accordance with international protocols and regulations.

Russia really pays a lot of attention to the Arctic, including from the military point of view. New types of armaments are appearing, the network of Arctic airfields is being restored, from the middle of April on the site of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation it is possible to make a virtual tour of the newly built military base of the Northern Fleet "Arctic shamrock". It is the world's only fully autonomous capital construction site erected at the 80th degree of the northern latitude.

But all this is still several times less than the potential that the Soviet Union possessed in the Arctic, Russian experts note, so it is incorrect to speak of the militarization of the region.

It is not excluded that the representatives of Alaska simply use the moment to draw attention to their state and new money injections from the state. Of course, the region where 20% of American oil is mined, plus gold, silver, zinc and other minerals, "Cinderella" in the structure of the US economy can not be called.

"Alaska is the key oil production staff, which is constantly expanding there. And in this sense it plays a very important role. And the access to the Arctic zone makes it even more important, "recalled the" Utro "deputy director of the Institute of the USA and Canada Victor Supyan.

But the development of the Arctic shelf at the moment raises doubts in terms of profitability and is associated with a large number of contentious issues, not only territorial. "There is a fairly powerful lobby, both political and environmental, which generally opposes the development of the Arctic for economic purposes. And it is quite strong in the US, "the expert notes..

Under the former US President Barack Obama, environmentalists defeated. Donald Trump, on the contrary, included a "green light" for the development of the extractive industry and has already reopened several projects for both coal miners and oil industry workers. However, his stay in the White House will not be infinite, and it is not known where the scales will swing at the next administration.

Meanwhile, servicing military facilities in Alaska is also an important component of the state economy. And their growth, of course, will give a significant bonus in terms of its development.

"The deployment of a new grouping of troops in the area, the strengthening of the US Navy there, the deployment of an aviation grouping will require the corresponding infrastructure to be very broad. The road network will have to be developed, conditions will be created to ensure the vital activity of these military contingents, the corresponding repair enterprises, storage facilities for weapons and military equipment. This is a very large range of various supply facilities that will give jobs to local residents, will force there to deploy and civil infrastructure, "- summed up the military expert, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Military and Artillery Sciences Konstantin Sivkov.