Alaskans: Peace is a big deal for us – Russia's only 4km away

The Australian

2 days ago

When Pope John Paul II met President Reagan in Alaska in 1984, he hailed the 49th US state as 'a crossroads of the world'.
This was not only literally true, serving as a refuelling stop for both leaders as they crisscrossed the globe - the Pope was on his way to South Korea and the Pacific Islands, Reagan returning from China - but it also reflected a turning point in history as they plotted to liberate Poland and the other Warsaw Pact countries from Soviet control.
A few years earlier President Nixon had his own historic meeting in Alaska, meeting in Anchorage with Emperor Hirohito, himself on a stopover to a state visit to Britain.
Now Alaska finds itself again at a crossroads both geographically and politically, this time for two leaders in President Trump and President Putin who are poised to make momentous decisions on war and peace.
It is a fitting venue for a US-Russia summit given the rich shared history of the two nations reflected here but it also underlines that, while the agenda is the future of Ukraine and western European security, this is a discussion between neighbours.
'Peace between Russia and Ukraine is a big deal for Alaska because we're so close to Russia here - the longer this war goes, the more chance there is of more global war and we're on the front lines,' said Father Matthew Howell, pastor of an Antiochian Orthodox Church in Wasilla, an hour's drive north of Anchorage.
For the locals, Alaska does not feel remote at times like these. This is especially true for some of its more recent arrivals.
'I have Ukrainian parishioners in my church,' Father Howell, 41, said. 'They absolutely want peace. They are refugees who want this war to end. As an Alaskan - I've been here for over 20 years, my wife was born and raised here - we absolutely feel like we are on the front lines of any war that starts and so this summit is critical.'
Mainland Russia is 88km away across the Bering Strait, a waterway named after the Danish explorer sent by Peter the Great to chart new territory east of Russia in the 18th century. Russian trappers quickly followed in pursuit of its sea otter pelts and established coastal communities that observed the Orthodox faith, spread by missionaries to native Alaskans. It still has thousands of adherents here, albeit no longer under Russian Orthodox jurisdiction.
Despite the distance to the mainland, Sarah Palin, the former governor, was right when she said during the 2008 presidential campaign that Russia could be seen from Alaska. She was ridiculed for something she didn't actually say - 'I can see Russia from my house!', which was voiced by Tina Fey in a parody of her in a Saturday Night Live sketch.
In fact, Ms Palin told ABC News that 'they're our next-door neighbours, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska'.
Big Diomede, a Russian island in the Bering Strait, is only 4km from Little Diomede, owned by the US. They are visible from each other on a clear day.
Some Russians believe the government of Tsar Alexander II, which was bankrupt after the Crimean War and looking to counter British expansion in the frozen north, blundered in selling the 1,723,337 sqkm territory to the US for $US7.2m in 1867. At the time, though, many Americans nicknamed the purchase 'Seward's Folly' after the secretary of state who completed it.
The Klondike gold rush in western Canada several decades later changed minds about the territory, fuelling a population and building boom that laid the foundations for eventual US statehood in 1959 after its strategic importance was recognised in World War II.
The reminders of Russian influence are all around Anchorage, not least on the huge military base where Mr Trump and Mr Putin will meet. Named in part after Captain Hugh Elmendorf, a brilliant pilot killed while flying a prototype fighter plane in 1933, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is home to the graves of nine Soviet pilots, two military personnel and two civilians who died between 1942 and 1945 while ferrying aircraft from the US to the Soviet Union.
Nearly 8000 aircraft were donated to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease Act, a US policy to provide its allies with military aid, including weapons, supplies and food. Some 300 Russian pilots flew the planes over the Bering Strait and on to the eastern front.
'Thus, the meeting will unfold near a site of profound historical importance - one that underscores the wartime brotherhood-in-arms between our nations,' said Yuri Ushakov, former Russian ambassador to the US, who will be part of the five-man Russian delegation. 'This symbolism is particularly resonant in this year, the year of the 80th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany and militarist Japan.'
There is an irony in Mr Putin and his team being hosted at a US base that has grown to a civilian and military population of 32,000 because of its importance on the front line against the threat primarily from Russia.
But the Russian leader is unlikely to want to venture into downtown Anchorage to try the elk or yak burgers at the 49th State Brewing Company, where he would be more likely to encounter protesters - and perhaps one of the moose that occasional wander the city streets - than on a secure military installation.
'The choice of Alaska is quite significant - first, it's equidistant, almost, in the flight time for each of the presidents to that venue, which symbolically says we're treating Russia as an equal here,' said George Beebe, the former director of Russia analysis at the CIA and director of grand strategy at the Quincy Institute.
'Second, it is not in Europe, which of course was the traditional meeting place during the Cold War. It puts a focus on the bilateral US-Russian relationship, which is I think where President Trump wants it to be. It also says to Putin: 'We are going to engage with Russia.''
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