The U.S.-owned island chain stretches westward off the coast of Alaska for 1,200 miles in the Bering Strait. The rugged islands are an important asset for the Pentagon because Russia-owned islands, known as the Commander Islands, sit approximately 50 miles to the west.
Russian military aircraft routinely skirt U.S. airspace around Alaska several times a year.
In the latest back-and-forth military chess game, however, the Pentagon has now deployed about 130 troops to one of the U.S. islands after Russia and China conducted joint military drills near Alaska in July. In that summer exercise, Russian and Chinese bombers were working together for the first time ever when they were intercepted in international airspace by U.S. aircraft.
The U.S. troops now facing Russia just miles away operate HIMARS, an advanced mobile artillery system. They were deployed to Shemya Island in mid-September. Just weeks after their deployment, Russia sent four more military aircraft to skirt the islands in an obvious provocation.
Military analyst Bob Maginnis tells AFN every provocative incursion near U.S. airspace is a test of NORAD and its early-warning system.
“If a nation crosses into our sovereign territory, we send up fighters to escort it away,” he says.
Maginnis suspects Russia is also testing the resolve of the Biden-Harris administration.
“Our relations with the Kremlin have deteriorated significantly since February 2022, when the Russians invaded Ukraine,” Maginnis advises. “It also has to do with the cozy relationship that the Russians and the Chinese have.”
Putin warns NATO about long-range weapons
Regarding the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War, Maginnis tells AFN he is watching with concern after Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenksy, presented NATO with a “victory plan” last week to attack Russia. That plan, which the Biden administration is considering, involves using long-range artillery systems, supplied by the U.S., to strike targets deep in Russia.
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, publicly warned last week he believes NATO would be directly involved in those future attacks. That is because, he said, Ukraine's army is "not capable" of using cutting-edge, long-range weapons without assistance from NATO.
"This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia," Putin, surrounded by his Security Council, said in public remarks.
Putin also ominously announced he is revising Russia’s nuclear doctrine.
"It is proposed," Putin stated, "that aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear state, be considered as their joint attack on the Russian Federation."
That warning, Maginnis says, is meant to “give pause” to the U.S. and to NATO about supporting Zelensky’s “victory plan.”
“Essentially,” Maginnis advises, “Putin’s revised nuclear doctrine lowers the bar on the use of nuclear weapons.”
