The Geostrategic Importance of Alaska to the U.S.-Japan Alliance

A Geopolitical Theater for Great Power Rivalry

The Arctic and the Northwest Pacific are currently emerging as two of the main geopolitical theaters for great power rivalry. In both waters around Alaska, China and Russia are rapidly consolidating their bilateral partnership with escalating provocations.

China has steadily expanded its presence in the Arctic amid tensions in U.S.-China relations. Russia has intensively invested in the consolidation of military infrastructure along the Northern Sea Route (NSR), stretching from the Barents Sea and the Kara Sea to the Bering Strait, since the early 2010s. Given the standoff with the West and the subsequent increasing economic dependence on China after the Ukraine War, Moscow has developed a strategic interest in collaborating with China to form a joint front in the Arctic to exert pressure against the United States and NATO. For its part, Beijing, with its ambition of building the “Polar Silk Road,” sees Russia’s NSR as a strategically expedient foothold to back up China’s inroads in the Arctic.

Two Chinese Xian H-6K and two Russian Tu-95MS Bear strategic bombers came within 200 miles off the coast of Alaska and operated in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone in July 2024. Subsequently in October, the China Coast Guard entered the Arctic for the first time to conduct a joint patrol with its Russian counterpart.

Meanwhile, Chinese-Russian joint operations in the Pacific are also increasing in frequency and scale. In September 2024, the People’s Liberation Army Navy and Russia’s Pacific Fleet conducted joint naval exercises around the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan. Two months later, Chinese and Russian fighter aircraft, including nuclear-capable bombers, conducted joint flights in the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea.

In response to these developments, Japan and the United States should urgently reaffirm the geopolitical gravity of Alaska as a bridgehead in their respective Arctic and Indo-Pacific strategies. Alaska’s strategic location must not be neglected amid apparent Chinese-Russian alignment to test the vitality of the U.S.-Japan alliance.

Increased engagement with Alaska by Washington and Tokyo is an indispensable part of consolidating their alliance’s presence in the Northwest Pacific in order to deter provocations by Beijing and Moscow. The U.S. federal government’s serious commitment to the acceleration of Alaska’s economic development would demonstrate the strategic importance of the largest U.S. state, and Japan has good reason to support it as a trusted U.S. ally. Coincidentally, Alaska abounds with natural resources—3.2 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves and 100 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves—which Japan could capitalize on to reinforce its energy security. Development of critical minerals would contribute to tackling a common challenge of the United States and Japan to de-risk from China. Japan’s involvement in Alaska should be understood from a broader geopolitical perspective as addressing a way of burden sharing for reinforcing the U.S. security commitment to the Indo-Pacific.

At the U.S.-Japan summit meeting on February 7, President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba issued a joint leaders’ statement and agreed “to strengthen energy security by unleashing the United States’ affordable and reliable energy and natural resources.” They also referenced a joint venture of some type with regard to Alaska’s oil and natural gas. The time has come for Japan and the United States to launch new flagship projects in Alaska as a pillar of economic security cooperation under the U.S.-Japan alliance.

Strengthening Liquified Natural Gas Security of Japan and Beyond

Although Alaska began exporting liquified natural gas (LNG) to Japan in 1969, shipments ceased a decade ago. In the meantime, the Alaska LNG project, with a planned export capacity of up to 20 million tons per annum, has been on the table for consideration. The estimated enormous upfront cost of $44 billion, including the construction of an 800-mile pipeline from the North Slope and that of liquefaction facilities in Nikiski, Southcentral Alaska, has held back the project’s potential stakeholders from investment decisions. Without government support to finance part of the huge investment, the project will likely remain off the priority list if left to the private sector alone.

However, the strategic value of resuming LNG from Alaska should be weighed against mere immediate commercial viability concerns amid increasing geopolitical uncertainties provoked by Russia and China. The Alaska LNG project would remove Japan’s physical need to import LNG via Russia’s Sakhalin-2 project, whose production capacity is half that of the former. Increased LNG supplies from the United States (including Alaska), which accounted for 10 percent of Japan’s total LNG imports as of 2024, would also reduce Japan’s dependence on the Middle East.

It takes only about a week for an LNG carrier to reach Japan from Alaska, compared to about a month from the Gulf of Mexico via the Panama Canal. Basically, LNG imports from the United States across the Pacific Ocean are free from geopolitical concerns, unlike the sea lanes of communication cutting through the South China Sea and East China Sea from the Middle East. Faced with mounting concerns, especially about contingencies in the Taiwan Strait waters, it is a matter of strategic urgency for Japan to shift the gravity of LNG imports more toward its ally.

Besides, the significance of resuming LNG supplies from Alaska would go beyond the picture of the U.S.-Japan bilateral trade or just Japan’s energy security. In fact, Japanese companies are becoming portfolio players to procure LNG with an eye to reselling to third countries, given that their domestic gas demand is on the gradual decline. According to estimates by the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan, natural gas demand is forecast to increase by 17 percent worldwide in 2040 compared to 2022, while the demand in Asia is projected to increase by 53 percent over the same period. The United States and Japan could collaborate to develop new LNG markets, including South Asia and Southeast Asia, for instance.

The contemporary international gas market is undergoing tectonic changes, benefiting from the steady growth of U.S. LNG exports, while Russia has proven to be an unreliable major gas supplier since the Ukraine War. The share of LNG in global gas trade, having surpassed that of inter-regional pipeline trade in 2021 and being at 60 percent today, is on the rise. Global LNG demand is forecast to increase by 60 percent in 2040 compared to 2022.

Alaska can further expand North America’s LNG export capacity, which is projected to more than double by 2028. The drastic increase in the liquidity of the world’s LNG supplies would not only trigger downward pressure on prices but also reduce Russia’s ability to weaponize gas against the West. LNG exports destined for Asian markets from Alaska would, in turn, increase the availability of LNG supplies from the Lower 48 to Europe.

Critical Importance of Untapped Minerals

The United States and Japan are facing the urgent need to rebuild and strengthen supply chains of critical minerals with an aim to reduce reliance on imports from China, which has weaponized its near-monopoly status in the global market by gradually tightening export controls. China accounted for 70 percent of the world’s mine production of rare earths, nearly 100 percent of gallium, 80 percent each of graphite (natural) and tungsten, and more than 50 percent of antimony in 2023.

China was the largest source of U.S. imports with regard to 29 of the 50 minerals classified as critical by the U.S. Geological Survey in 2023. China currently tops the U.S. list of almost all 12 strategic defense critical minerals. On April 4, Beijing announced restrictions of exporting seven categories of rare earths, following bans on exports of five rare metals (tungsten, indium, bismuth, tellurium, and molybdenum) on February 4 and three rare metals (gallium, germanium, and antimony) in addition to further tightening of graphite exports on December 3, 2024.

Besides diversification of import sources, it is a pressing issue for the United States to increase domestic production of critical minerals from the standpoints of national security and economic security. Alaska has huge amounts of critical mineral resources, including those for which the United States is highly dependent on China, which have largely remained underexplored and underinvested to date. Unlocking Alaska’s potential requires large-scale investments, which could be facilitated by the federal government’s streamlining and expediting of mine permitting processes.

Japan has also striven to diversify the import sources of critical minerals ever since China imposed an embargo on rare earth elements exports to the country in 2010. The Policy on Initiatives to Ensure Stable Supplies of Critical Minerals, published by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in January 2023, sounded the alarm about the danger of overdependence on certain countries, including China in particular, for imports of critical minerals. This policy emphasized the importance of reinforcing government support for providing equity capital, loans, and risk money for exploration, development, and processing of rare earths and rare metals for Japan’s economic security. Alaska’s hitherto untapped rare metals and rare earths overlap with more than 35 critical minerals designated by the Japanese government. Alaska could be one of the candidate sites that Japan should seriously consider focusing its efforts on developing critical minerals.

Takeaways

Alaska’s importance to the U.S.-Japan alliance is growing from a geostrategic perspective. As China and Russia strengthen military cooperation in the waters surrounding Alaska, the alliance needs to reconfirm Alaska’s strategic importance and hasten the expansion of its presence in order to deter China and Russia. Alaska has untapped potential that could contribute to the energy strategy and economic security of the United States and Japan. Washington and Tokyo are advised to factor in the geopolitical changes in the Northwest Pacific and to jointly focus on Alaska’s economic development from a long-term strategic perspective that transcends short-term commercial interests.

Shoichi Itoh is an adjunct fellow with the Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.