Sen. Sullivan touts Alaska’s military presence and strategic location as key parts of national security

With several high-profile wars going on in Ukraine and Gaza, and the recent missile attacks on the Houthi rebels in Yemen and retaliatory attacks to US and allied vessels in the Red Sea, national security is a challenge that Senator Dan Sullivan has identified as a priority this year.

“I focus a lot on national security issues, serving on the Armed Services Committee, the Veteran Affairs committee, and with my own military service, and seeing there are some really big challenges. I don’t think we’ve seen these kind of challenges in our country since the end of World War II. We’re in what I refer to as a new era of authoritarian aggression.” Senator Sullivan looks at world leaders like China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s President. Vladimir Putin, and Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader in Iran as some of the most dangerous people in power in the world.

He believes that the Biden administration is especially weak as they continue to make cuts to the US military and defense budgets, going after energy, and failing to recognize the strategic importance of Alaska.

“We can play a huge role in helping our country win this new era of authoritarian aggression with our strategic location and our military build-up.” The Senator is referring to the new F-35 fighter jets, among the stealthiest jets in the world, making radar detection difficult for the enemy. It also has the ability to supercruise, which means that it can fly at supersonic speeds without using its afterburners. This gives it a significant advantage over other fighter jets.

“At Eielson Air Force Base, we have over 100 fifth-generation fighters including F-22s, F-35s, stealth, supersonic, and no place on Planet Earth has that kind of fighter power,” he says, adding: “All of that, plus our natural resources and our critical minerals means we are poised to play a critical role against all of these big aggressors if our federal government would let us.”

Senator Sullivan is adamant that Alaska has an enormous role to play in the strategic defense of the United States and making the country a safer place and points to the work Alaska did during World War II, the Cold War, and the state’s role in shooting down a high-altitude object by an F-22 fighter jet last year over Alaskan waters as just two examples.

“Our state constitutes three pillars of America’s military might-we are the cornerstone of missile defense, with the radar systems on the ground base missile interceptors; we are the hub of air combat power for the Arctic and Asian-Pacific waters; and we are the expeditionary platform for a really well-trained ground forces like the 11th Airborne Division,” he says, then adds a burgeoning fourth pillar.

“The fourth pillar, which I am trying to build up, needs to be that we are the center of gravity in logistics hubs for Arctic operations.” He also lists the work on acquiring a Coast Guard Icebreaker in Juneau and the Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies as additional components for increasing the military readiness here. And as for the future?

“We’re building out a deep water strategic Arctic port in Nome. We’ve got a lot more work to do, but we are finally turning it around.”

He also recently joined 11 of his Senate Armed Service Committee colleagues on a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, after the Secretary recently failed to notify his chain of command in the Department of Defense, White House, and Congress about his recent hospitalization, raising basic questions about the failures related to his incapacitation and transfer of authority.

“The failures displayed constitute an alarming threat to our continuity of government and national security during a very dangerous time for our nation.”

The Senators have requested an accounting of the full timeline of the events over the last two weeks and want answers to more than 15 specific questions, as well as demanding more information about the role that staff at the Department played in delaying the transmission of critical information, and if similar transfers of authority have occurred in the past without Congressional notification.

Since he first took office in 2016, Senator Sullivan has sponsored or co-sponsored many, many bills aimed at improving the lives of veterans through access-to-care bills, transferring beneficiary payments to surviving spouses of Medal of Honor recipients, enhance and/or improve current defense systems, and health care for veterans exposed to burn pits.

He recently announced his support for U.S. ad British forces conducting airstrikes on Houthi terrorist groups in Yemen

“I support the coalition strike, which is long overdue, but these actions alone will not reestablish deterrence. That is going to take a much more systematic, strategic approach to Iran,” he said on January 12 in a press release.

And just this week, on January 17, Senator Sullivan released a statement after the Biden administration announced it will redesignate the Houthi rebels as a “specially-designated global terrorist group.” Previously, the Houthis had been designated both a “specially-designated global terrorist group” and a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” (FTO) by the Trump administration, but both designations were reversed by the Biden administration in February 2021. Senator Sullivan has advocated strongly for both re-designations for over a year, in addition to a number of other actions aimed at deterring Iran and its terrorist proxies.

“For over a year, I’ve been pressing the Biden administration to reestablish deterrence with regard to Iran and its terrorist proxies strategically across a number of fronts, including re-designating the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO),” he said. “The designation of the Houthis today as a ‘specially-designated global terrorist group’ is a step forward, but it doesn’t go far enough—specifically, the FTO designation—and it took far too long. The Biden administration needs to finally abandon its disastrous appeasement strategy of the past few years that has only emboldened the terrorist regime to continue its malign activities in the Middle East. We need to see more tough action against Iran and its terrorist proxies to protect American service members and our allies, and to deter a wider conflict.”

The Senator is also working on the National Security Supplemental, that had previously been called the Ukraine Supplemental, fighting to have military assets included to help Israel and Taiwan, but also adds in a significant portion of spending, nearly 60%, is to build up industrial military capacity to produce weapons, submarines, and other assets and hardware.

“It has completely atrophied, the ability to produce Stingers, Javelins, really good, important missiles, we’ve lost it. So, a lot of what we are working on is the ability to build our own industrial capacity if we have to go to war.” The fly in the ointment for getting it passed is the lack of significant changes to address the southern borders, which Senator Sullivan views as a component needed to strengthen national security.

“What we’ve been working on is this national security component has to build up our military capacity to produce weapons and do something about the border. A lot of members won’t vote for the bill without it.”

** Editor's note: This is second half of a two-part series. For more, see the Friday, Jan. 19 print edition and frontiersman.com.