The United States is in the process of deploying, over the next 15 months, 150 advanced fighter jets — F-22 Raptors and F-35 Lightning II jets — to Alaskan air bases, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) announced at a Woodrow Wilson Center conference, “The U.S. Air Force Arctic Strategy, Alaska and the New Arctic,” Sept. 14. This is the biggest single U.S. deployment of fifth generation stealth fighters anywhere; the aircraft will be stationed at Eielson Air Force Base in central Alaska, only 600 miles from Russia’s border. The organizers of the deployment contend this will send a “message” to Russia and China about U.S. “power projection capabilities” in the Arctic.
The U.S. Air Force operates a fleet of 187 F-22s and approximately 250 F-35s of such aircraft worldwide. The 150 of these fighter jets scheduled to be stationed in Alaska constitutes a significant amount of the total fleet deployed to this single place. At the same time, as part of this change in force doctrine, the Pentagon is sending about 1,500 airmen, nearly doubling active-duty personnel at the Eielson base, and will spend $500 million to accommodate aircraft and troops. Six of the aircraft have already been sent to Alaska.
This fighter force will face off against Russia and China. The policy for this shift is set forth in the Department of Defense’s June 2019 “Arctic Strategy” report, which flows directly from, and is a component of the 2018 National Defense Strategy. The “Arctic Strategy” report baselessly charges, “In different ways, Russia and China are challenging the rules-based order in the Arctic.” and “U.S. interests include … limiting the ability of China and Russia to leverage the region as a corridor for competition that advances their strategic objectives through malign or coercive behavior.”
