AMERICA'S LAST FRONTIER

摘要

In the second of our series reviewing all the current military installations in the US states, Tom Kaminski examines the 49th and largest state - Alaska. ALASKA'S STRATEGIC LOCATION has long been seen as critical to the defense of the United States. Even before World War Two, General William 'Billy' Mitchell, who is considered be the father of the US Air Force, considered Alaska to be strategically important. "I believe that in the future, whoever holds Alaska will hold the world. I think it is the most important strategic place in the world," he told US Congress in 1935. Admitted to the Union as the 49th state in January 1959, Alaska is the northernmost and westernmost US land mass. Because the Aleutian Islands chain extends into the Eastern Hemisphere, Alaska is actually also the easternmost state. It is the largest of the 50 states and its more than 663,000 square miles of land makes up around 20% of the nation's area; yet it is the most sparsely populated. Although it is part of the continental US (CONUS) it is not contiguous and is bordered by Canada's Yukon Territory and the province of British Columbia. The Aleutian Islands reach 1,200 miles into the Pacific Ocean and just 55 miles separate the state from the Russian mainland. But its territorial waters extend to meet the Russian border in the Bering Strait, where just 2.5 miles separate two islands.