(mechanical whirring) – [Kasim] The United States
position in the Arctic, thanks to Alaska, is of
enormous strategic significance. Alaska, one of the richest U.S. states thanks to its abundance
of natural resources, is the country's only connection to the energy rich Arctic region. In the foreseeable future,
the U.S. is expected to increase its military
presence in Alaska, as it might use the state as a base for its operations in the Arctic Ocean. I'm your host Kasim and thanks for joining
me for another KJ Vid. In this video, we will discuss the geopolitical importance of Alaska. Just before we begin, we would like to give a special shout out to Humphrey Hawksley. Hawksley is the author of two thrillers of the "Rake Ozenna" series which is set at each end of
the Northern Sea passages. "Man on Ice" right on
the U.S. Russian border and "Man on Edge" in Northern Norway in the Russian Bastion of Defence.
The books are a must read. To learn about the
potential type of scenarios that could occur if a clash
occurred over the Arctic. You can buy a copy of the
books on www.manonice.co.uk. We strongly recommend them and can promise you you
will not be disappointed. The roughly 29,000 active
duty, National Guard, reserve, and defence civilian personnel is the equivalent of about
9% of Alaska's workforce. The military plays a
major role in the state. It is expected that Alaska will soon boast the largest concentration of the U.S. fifth-generation military aircraft on the planet. The state is also a key part
of the U.S. defence system, with military bases located
in Anchorage and Fairbanks. Alaska is also a central
component of the U.S. ballistic missile defence system, as it provides a perfect
location to monitor Russian intercontinental
ballistic missile launches via the radar bases sited
in this American state.
Billy Mitchell, a United States
Army general who is regarded as the father of the
United States Air Force, in 1935 told the U.S. Congress that Alaska is "the most important,
strategic place in the world." 85 years later, many researches and army
persons agree with him. According to Air Force
General Paul Hester, the Pacific arena is critical
for the next 100 years. "If I need F-22s somewhere
deep in the Pacific, "I can get there the fastest from Alaska. "If I need them in Europe, "they go right across the
pole and jump into Europe. "And in the Middle East,
if they're needed there, "I can get them there,"
said General Hester who was the Commander
of Pacific Air Forces, and Air Component Commander for the U.S. Pacific Command from July
2004 to November 2007. Apart from the geostrategic, Alaska also has a high
geoeconomic significance for the United States. It has vast amounts of natural resources, such as petroleum,
gold, natural gas, zinc, as well as large coal reserves. Petroleum production peaked in the 1990s and has been steadily
decreasing since then.
Alaska's potential oil
reserves are still very large. However, attempts to drill for petroleum along the Beaufort Sea coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as well as in the
National Petroleum Reserve has been met with continuing
environmental opposition. It is feared that oil
exploration in the region could require energy
companies to use water from the area's limited supplies, and result in a loss of
habitat for wildlife. The heavy use of machinery could also cause additional injuries and deaths of wildlife due to collisions.
In spite of that, the State of Alaska has collected $157
billion in today's dollars from oil since 1959. The petroleum industry supports
1/3 of all Alaska jobs, and even with falling production, the state estimates 90% of its revenue will continue to come from
the oil and gas industry. It is estimated that 13%
of the undiscovered oil and 30% of the gas
worldwide is in the region, along with a host of other
resources such as water. Alaska's waters are believed
to contain more than 30% of the nation's known
recoverable offshore resources. According to Sean Clifton,
policy and programme specialist at the Alaskan Department
of Natural Resources oil and gas division, the future
of oil in Alaska is bright, as there are significant new
discoveries on the North Slope, and they are expected
to come into production in the next few years.
Oil continues to be Alaska's
most important resource, and remains an inexpensive,
abundant form of portable energy which continues to be highly
valued by world markets. However, in spite of oil
reserves and production, in 2017 the State of Alaska had fiscal deficit of around $3 billion. According to Kara Moriarty, the president and CEO of the
Alaska Oil and Gas Association, prior to 2014 production
had been declining from five to 7% per year, a trend that was expected to continue. Still, with growing populations and billions in need of energy
to raise living standards, demand is only expected to grow. Even under optimistic
scenarios for renewable energy, data shows natural gas and oil will remain the largest energy sources for the next decades and beyond. Recently the U.S. President Donald Trump called Alaska's coastal plain one of the greatest potential
fields anywhere in the world. Prudhoe Bay Oil Field, located
on Alaska's North Slope, is the largest oil field in North America.
The field is operated by British Petroleum whose partners are ExxonMobil
and ConocoPhillips Alaska. With the North Slope recently reclassified as a super basin due to
its massive oil reserves, Alaska can continue to play a
vital role in helping provide a sustainable supply
of energy to the world. In the meantime, the
U.S. Federal Government is expected to keep working
on the Willow project. Once developed, the project would add an estimated 130,000 barrels per day into the trans-Alaska oil pipeline and bring billions of
investment dollars to the state. That would be a notable boost, since in 2019 an average daily throughput down the trans-Alaska pipeline has been just over
500,000 barrels per day.
Reportedly, the Russian Federation already derives 20% of
its gross domestic product from economic activity in the Arctic. Alaska's economy depends on a
thriving oil and gas industry, and if Russia had not sold this territory to the United States, it could have had not only more income, but also a strategically
important huge piece of land. There are many theories
that are trying to explain why Russia sold Alaska
to the United States. The most common one is that Alaska was difficult to defend and Russia was short on cash due to the
costs of the war in Crimea. On March 30th, 1867, the
U.S. Secretary of State William Seward and Russian
envoy Baron Edouard de Stoeckl signed the Treaty of Cession. Tsar Alexander II had ceded
Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million. The sum, amounting to just $113
million in today's dollars. From today's perspective,
that was a grave mistake. At the time, however, from
the Russian point of view, the deal made a lot of sense.
In Alaska, the Americans
foresaw a potential for gold, fur and fisheries, as well as more trade
with China and Japan. The Americans worried that England might try to establish a
presence in the territory, and the acquisition of Alaska, it was believed, would help the
U.S. become a Pacific power. The purchase of Alaska
brought drastic changes to the native tribes. "The Russian era was about
paternalistic control, "but the Russian goal was not
to transform life radically, "but to harness the people
for economic purposes," said Sergei Kan, a professor
of Native American studies at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. "With the Americans, it was accompanied "with a much more
forceful Westernisation." In spite of that, Alaska still
has the greatest percentage of indigenous people of any
state in the United States.
Alaska is by far the largest
state in the United States, with only 700,000 inhabitants, almost all located on the south coast. In the foreseeable future, this region might play a significant role. In the context of
progressive global warming, the increase of temperature in the Arctic is expected to melt the polar ice cap, exposing new oil fields and gas reserves that countries such as the United States, Russia, Canada, Norway and
Denmark will claim their own. From that perspective, Alaska is an extremely important place for control of this energy-rich area. After all, energy is the
key to Alaska's future. That's all for today, guys, thanks for watching another KJ Vid. We hope you enjoyed the video and would love to hear your
thoughts in the comments below, especially if you are from Alaska. We would like to give a special shout out to author Humphrey Hawksley
whose two thrillers of the "Rake Ozenna" series are set at each end of
the Northern Sea passages.
"Man on Ice" right on
the U.S. Russian border and "Man on Edge" in Northern Norway in the Russian Bastion of Defence. We strongly recommend you
buy a copy of this book which is hugely entertainment,
full of suspense and has had some fantastic reviews. You can buy the books
on www.manonice.co.uk. Thanks for watching again
and see you next time..