Senate Considering Directing DoD To Establish Strategic Arctic Port In Alaska

摘要

The Senate this week as part of its debate on the next authorization bill for the Defense Department is considering whether to direct the Pentagon to establish “at least one” strategic port for Arctic operations to help the U.S. more proactively protect its interests in the region, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) said on Wednesday. Sullivan said that Congress previously in the fiscal year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) mistakenly “gave the Pentagon discretion to look at a strategic Arctic port,” noting that the need is “crying out” given Russia’s overwhelming military presence in the Arctic. “In their great wisdom, they came back and said, ‘No need,’” Sullivan said at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event in Washington, D.C., on the Arctic. “This has been a frustration of mine where I actually think the last organization in town to recognize the importance of the Arctic has been the Pentagon.” He said later in the event that the Pentagon opposes the new requirement for an Arctic port. The Arctic port would have to be able to handle Navy ships up to the size of a destroyer, he said, and allow vessels to resupply. He mentioned Gnome and Port Clarence, which sit along western Alaska near the Bering Strait between the Bering Sea in the south and the Chukchi Sea to the north. The straight also separates Alaska and Russia.