Kenneth R. Rosen

I think it's ironic because we haven't done what we could do in Alaska, the U.S.

could do in Alaska, and yet the White House is focusing on a country that is much more destitute and hard to access and difficult to build infrastructure on.

But they can't even do it in Alaska.

And they were not even focusing on Alaska and yet want to shift gears to a whole other country.

It seems wildly naive to the fact that the capabilities just aren't there.

Well, for one, the trans-Alaska pipeline is slowly becoming less and less viable over the years.

It's losing its barrels per day.

It's not producing the same as it was before in the 80s and 90s.

And we just don't have...

infrastructure for launching expeditions from Alaska, for instance, they're only now considering building a deep water port in Nome, and that project is still 10 years out.

Ask the Russians how long it'll take them to build a deep water port, and it would take a quarter of the time, or the Chinese take a quarter of the time.

So the people living in Alaska aren't receiving the benefits that they need, but we also just don't have the infrastructure, like the plain, simple runways and ports necessary to launch military excursions or even scientific excursions from Alaska.

Not only, I mean, yes, strategic significance, but a whole litany of other issues too.

I mean, I don't know if I told you this, Alistair, but I lived in Europe, Central Europe for five years before moving back to the States recently.

And I was ashamed.

of being American for most of that time for, like I said, a litany of other reasons.

But when I started to look into the Arctic and go to Sweden and visit with the Finnish border guards and live in Norway and spend a month in Iceland and then circumnavigate Greenland, making my way back to Alaska, I thought, wow, all these other countries get it.

And then I spent a month and a half in Alaska and felt, what the heck are we doing?

You know, I can't even get a train between these major cities because it's closed during the winter.

Aren't we an Arctic nation?