US Arctic Commander Highlights Growing Security Challenges Near Russia

In one of the United States’ coldest, most isolated and strategically vulnerable regions, American forces are rehearsing how to wage war across land, sea and air. Troops are moving rocket systems into western Alaska, F-35s and F-16s are responding to simulated threats, and U.S. and Canadian warships are coordinating operations in the Bering Sea.

The activity is part of Tundra Merlin, an ongoing U.S. military campaign designed to demonstrate that American and allied forces can quickly concentrate combat power across Alaska’s immense distances and harsh Arctic terrain to defend the northern approaches to the homeland.

The show of force comes as Russia and China play an increasingly influential role in the region’s evolving security environment.

“I think what’s changed is primarily two things,” Lt. Gen. Robert Davis, commander of Alaskan Command, told News Outlet. “One is that the melting sea ice has made the Arctic more accessible. And we’re seeing increased activity both commercially and militarily in the Arctic, particularly during the summer months.”

China, Russia and other countries are also expanding their military capabilities and capacity, with a growing interest in demonstrating that they can operate in the Arctic, Davis said.

The Pentagon has reached a similar assessment. Its 2024 Arctic Strategy warned that closer cooperation between Russia and China could “alter the Arctic’s stability and threat picture.” The document called for a stronger U.S. presence, more exercises and greater military readiness as the region becomes easier to access. Defense officials have emphasized that forces operating in the Arctic must be prepared not only to train in extreme conditions, but also to survive them.

Few places demonstrate the stakes more clearly than Alaska.

The state lies where the Arctic meets the Pacific, making it a vital center for homeland defense and a launch point for U.S. military operations toward the Indo-Pacific and other regions. At their closest points across the Bering Strait, the Russian and American mainlands are separated by about 55 miles. Russia’s Big Diomede Island and Alaska’s Little Diomede Island are only roughly 2.5 miles apart.

Alaska is also home to major air bases, early-warning systems, missile-defense infrastructure and tens of thousands of service members. U.S. Northern Command says Alaskan Command has more than 22,000 active-duty personnel from across the military services, in addition to about 4,700 Guard and Reserve members.

Air Force officials have called Alaska the “crossroads of the Arctic and the Pacific,” citing its importance for homeland defense, regional awareness and the global reach of U.S. forces.

Davis described the state’s strategic geography in even more direct terms.

Referring to the fifth-generation fighter aircraft stationed in Alaska, he told News Outlet that U.S. forces can “project from the Arctic to almost anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere in about 10 hours of flight time.”

Tundra Merlin is intended to convert that geographic advantage into a range of usable military options.

Davis characterized the operation as a set of military options — essentially “plays in a playbook” — that could be used either to discourage an adversary or respond if hostile action begins.

“Our hope is that we don’t have any adversarial activity because we’ve effectively deterred it,” Davis said. “But if we do see it, we have a play in the playbook ready to go for a response.” One of the clearest demonstrations took place on Alaska’s western edge.

U.S. and Canadian forces quickly transported a U.S. Army HIMARS mobile rocket system and an AN/TPQ-53 radar to western Alaska aboard a Royal Canadian Air Force C-17. Once there, the ground units linked up with American F-35s, F-16s and a KC-135 tanker operating overhead.

The exercise combined air defense with long-range strike capability in a single mission. According to U.S. Northern Command, F-35s and HIMARS coordinated against a simulated ground target about 135 miles away, while F-16s simultaneously intercepted F-35s serving as simulated incoming aircraft.

Davis said the point was not simply to prove the individual weapons worked, but to show how quickly forces could be moved into a remote part of Alaska and linked together.

The operation demonstrated that U.S. forces can rapidly move capabilities into Alaska “both to defend Alaska, but also, if necessary, to put other adversary targets at risk,” he told News Outlet.

Tundra Merlin pushed that same concept out to sea in September.

From Sept. 18–22, U.S. and Canadian forces conducted a joint maritime strike scenario roughly 100 nautical miles north of Dutch Harbor, integrating U.S. Coast Guard and Royal Canadian Navy surface and subsurface vessels with Canadian maritime patrol aircraft and Alaska-based U.S. Air Force F-35 fighters and E-3 airborne warning and control aircraft.

The forces practiced multiple simulated maritime target engagements, testing whether information collected by different ships and aircraft could be rapidly passed across the force and used to identify, track and engage a potential threat.

“The most impressive part to me was seeing the high degree of cooperation and integration amongst units that day in and day out don’t necessarily operate together,” Davis said.

“To see the joint nature on the U.S. side integrated together with the inter-agency of the U.S. Coast Guard and with our allies, with Canada as an example, was just an amazing thing to see,” he added.

That ability to operate at scale is complicated by Alaska itself.

Extreme cold can affect equipment and personnel, while the enormous distances and limited infrastructure of the North American Arctic make moving and sustaining forces unusually difficult. The Pentagon’s Arctic Strategy specifically identifies those distances and the region’s infrastructure limitations as obstacles to military operations and says maintaining infrastructure in Alaska is essential for missile defense, surveillance and rapid power projection.

Davis said military equipment brought into Alaska cannot simply be expected to function as it would elsewhere.

“It needs to be conditioned. It needs to be properly outfitted to operate in sub-zero temperatures for a long period of time,” he said, adding that troops also require specialized clothing, training and procedures to avoid cold-weather injuries and continue fighting in Arctic conditions.

The pressure to master that environment comes as Russia and China increasingly demonstrate their own ability to operate near North America.

In July 2024, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, detected and intercepted two Russian Tu-95 bombers and two Chinese H-6 bombers flying together in the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone . It was the first time NORAD had intercepted Russian and Chinese military aircraft operating together in the zone. The aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter U.S. or Canadian sovereign territory, and NORAD said the flight itself was not considered a threat.

The episode nevertheless highlighted the very kind of cooperation U.S. defense planners are watching.

For now, Davis said Alaska is positioned to deal with the military threats commanders expect under normal conditions.

“We’re postured very well for any of the anticipated threats that we think would come our way in the very near term,” he said. But if commanders saw indications of a significant escalation, Davis said Alaskan Command would likely request additional forces and capabilities.

That, ultimately, is what Tundra Merlin is intended to prove: that in a theater defined by enormous distances, punishing weather and growing Russian and Chinese activity, the United States can move forces across Alaska, connect them across land, sea and air and have combat power ready before a potential adversary decides to test the northern edge of the homeland.