Battleground Alaska: The Promise and Peril of the Arctic Arms Race

This series of stories will look at the ongoing militarization of the Arctic through the lens of the Golden Dome missile defense initiative, which has been described by Lockheed Martin as a “Manhattan Project-scale mission” and, according to some estimates, could cost well over half a trillion dollars. In the next few years, Alaska will likely be one of the largest recipients of this federal largesse, funding which will fundamentally transform the Arctic.

But who will benefit? Towns and communities in Alaska? Or defense contractors and Trump administration officials and allies? And how will coastal ecosystems, where most launch facilities and military installations are located, be impacted?

The project will place missile defense in the context of a much larger push to scale up the U.S. military presence in the Arctic even as climate change—the Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the planet—increases the risks associated with such endeavors.