The Bering Strait Proposal

[neverdie]

In a recent paper entitled ‘Tomorrow’s Arctic: Theatre of War or Cooperation?’ I introduced readers to the US-Russian grand design which shaped not only the sale of Alaska in October 1867 to the USA for $7.5 million, but also Russia’s involvement in the American Civil War as Czar Alexander II arranged the deployment of Russian military fleets to San Francisco and New York.


Even though President Lincoln and Czar Alexander II were both known as great reformers and emancipators for their common commitment to free slaves and serfs, both leaders were assassinated before their grand visions could come to fruition.


In this article, I would like to present another chapter of this forgotten history: The creation of modern Canada as a confederation designed explicitly to prevent the inevitable construction of a Russian-American rail connection through the Bering Strait in the wake of the Civil War.

The Strategic Value of the Bering Strait Tunnel in History

For those who are not aware, the Bering Strait Rail tunnel project is a 150 year idea which was formulated by allies of Lincoln and Alexander II after America’s Civil War.


The original grand design was driven by a plan to connect telegraph lines between continents, followed soon thereafter by a connection of the Trans Siberian Railway and America’s Trans Continental Railways through British Columbia, Alaska and into Eurasia, as laid out spectacularly by former Colorado Governor William Gilpin in his 1890 book the Cosmopolitan Railway.



Echoing today’s Belt and Road Initiative which is quickly growing to become a world land bridge, Gilpin described what this new paradigm of human civilization was destined to look like:

“The weapons of mutual slaughter are hurled away; the sanguinary passions find a check, a majority of the human family is found to accept the essential teachings of Christianity IN PRACTICE… Room is discovered for industrial virtue and industrial power. The civilized masses of the world meet; they are mutually enlightened, and fraternize to reconstitute human relations in harmony with nature and with God. The world ceases to be a military camp, incubated only by the military principles of arbitrary force and abject submission. A new and grand order in human affairs inaugurates itself out of these immense concurrent discoveries and events” [Cosmopolitan Railway p. 213]

The idea of the Bering Strait tunnel was supported by Czar Nicholas II who, in 1906 hired a team of American engineers to conduct feasibility studies on the initiative which then had an estimated cost of $350 million.


Sadly a couple of World Wars and disastrous revolution kept this project from blossoming as it was intended.


This idea was revived again by FDR’s great Vice President Henry Wallace who discussed the project at length with Russia’s Foreign Minister Molotov in 1942. In this meeting Wallace declared that “It would mean much to the peace of the future if there could be some tangible link of this sort between the pioneer spirit of our own West and the frontier spirit of the Russian East.”


Again, the Cold War derailed this project and it was only in 2007 that the Russian Government revived it once again with Putin even offering to pay 2/3 of the $65 billion estimated cost to construct the 100 km tunnel across the Bering Strait. This project was offered to the west more loudly in 2011 and in May 2014, China unofficially gave their backing to the initiative. Sadly, unipolar technocrats and neocons controlling NATO foreign policy had not the eyes to see what benefits such projects offered those who joined in its construction, and instead continued onto their zero-sum game plan for full spectrum dominance.


With the 2018 unveiling of the Polar Silk Road extending the east-west development corridors into the Arctic, which have merged increasingly with Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union and Putin’s Northern Vision, the Bering Strait connection has again been given new life. If nations of the west find the courage to let go of the Titanic before the hellish chaos of the oncoming financial meltdown erupts, then the projects animating the new multi polar paradigm will undoubtedly look a lot like the World Land bridge concept illustrated by the Schiller Institute below.



Arctic development remains one of the best strategic points of alliance and cooperation needed to re-organize the collapsing world economic order around firm principles of multipolar cooperation and value and as such is not too different from the dynamic shaping the world when Lincoln took office in 1860.

The 19th century Clash of Two Systems

Lincoln’s economic advisor and leader of the international export of the American System of Political economy, Henry C. Carey, described this clash between two systems in his 1851 Harmony of Interests:

“Two systems are before the world; the one looks to increasing the proportion of persons and of capital engaged in trade and transportation, and therefore to diminishing the proportion engaged in producing commodities with which to trade, with necessarily diminished return to the labor of all; while the other looks to increasing the proportion engaged in the work of production, and diminishing that engaged in trade and transportation, with increased return to all, giving to the laborer good wages, and to the owner of capital good profits… One looks to pauperism, ignorance, depopulation, and barbarism; the other in increasing wealth, comfort, intelligence, combination of action, and civilization. One looks towards universal war; the other towards universal peace. One is the English system; the other we may be proud to call the American system, for it is the only one ever devised the tendency of which was that of elevating while equalizing the condition of man throughout the world.”

Carey, just like the British Empire’s Lord Palmerston, clearly recognized that America had not completed “the mission of 1776” since not one but TWO Americas existed within Washington: One positive America representing the anti-slavery/anti-colonial principles of the 1789 constitution vs. another hypocritical slave power that never believed that “all men were created equal”. Just as two antithetical impulses existed within America, so too did two opposing views of “Manifest Destiny” co-evolve since 1776: One hellish version driven by the ‘principle’ of spreading slavery and suppressing the weak while the other more noble impulse was represented by the spirits of Lincoln, Carey and Gilpin illustrated above.

full article here.

It's an interesting fact that commentators and economists look at the world, projected 30 years into the future, and see a top ten table of economies wherein the only representatives from what I'm calling "Oceania" are the United States (in 3rd place), Japan (7th), and Germany (9th). The Asiatic rise, as well the rise of Middle Eastern and South American/African states, is that which sees "Oceania" (the US, its loose alliance of NATO and "NATO+", Japan and Korea being + members, hypothetically) falling from a centuries' long position of either relative or absolute economic and geopolitical dominance. Hegemony, as we move forward, would seem to have died a forever death. The exception, then, is economic hegemony.

If you look at the ring of fire economies, which is North America, South America, and then Russia (is in that list of 10 by most people's projections even though only one European state, Germany, is), China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, India, the Phillippines and so on. Look then at the Belt and Road Initiative.

Now consider the Bering Strait. A 40 mile crossing between Russia and the United States. As an extremely highspeed over/underland freight network, it would beat the Belt and Road Initiative into irrelevancy. I'm living in a hypothetical universe where the war has ended and the current or next regime is somehow able to be intelligent enough to see the potential gains. Putin did float the idea a couple of times, the last being back in 2008 and the Chinese were even on board prior to their announced BRI alternative (2012). Looking at the world, as it is, consider that the Americans and Russians, if they can sort out their "problems", would hold a forever pivot from Asia into North America and thus down into the South American market. Freight by boat can be up to 40 days in various parts of the world. The BRI travels by hybrid, with naval being a large component.

tl;dr - what if the Americans and Russians, in a couple of years, come to a position where they realize that the survival of each is mutually contingent upon establishing the world's most efficient freight network ever known with potential 30~ day turnaround (gains) from any point relative to any point in contrast to the BRI? Surely, considering the world's economy is 100tn now and forecast to grow, being the "truthful" gatekeepers, (because geography is just geography and the Bering Strait is just the most beneficial route for the world's trade to move), moving into the next century but also throughout this, surely that appeals to each despite relations being in the shitter now for obvious reasons?

Not a war thread. Looking at it purely economically or geopolitically or whatever. Not interested in individual remarks so much, more interested in people's ideas about how much sense this does or does not make from economic perspective (just assume there is no war and there is no Putin or whomever for the moment).

For instance, imagine a 6 day turnaround in freight, very hightech/highspeed, from Brazil to South Africa. A 30~ day differential. The Chinese system cannot live with that. The Americans wouldn't let them have access to the infrastructure in the hempisphere and nor would Russia either, most likely. But this network, a few years down the line, could literally span the globe. Could even cut the Chinese out of it because the Indians would go for it. Which nation would or could say no to such a massive improvement on trade differentials?

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

I'm not sure. It's an easy gap to bridge but goods and people are still very far from the major markets and anything coming into North America has to get over/through/around the Rockies, which isn't gonna be easy. Getting across Siberia isn't a cakewalk, either.

 

[Cheimoon]

I'm not sure. It's an easy gap to bridge but goods and people are still very far from the major markets and anything coming into North America has to get over/through/around the Rockies, which isn't gonna be easy. Getting across Siberia isn't a cakewalk, either.

That's it to me - you're nowhere near where you want to be on either end, and getting there is really difficult. And there I'm just referring to getting out of Alaska into the US, and out of eastern Siberia into... well, I guess you'd have to go pretty far west before you get to a relevant population centre. And then you're still nowhere near western Russia, or near US major cities (outside Seattle). It could make sense as a high-speed rail network, but given this is about freight not people, it would have to be (to my knowledge) the world's first high-speed freight rail connection - and that through very inhospitable territory and over enormous distances. I think it would be prohibitively expensive to build, to the degree that, even if it would pay off in the long term (say, a 50-year timeframe), no politician would dare approve getting this started for the budget required.

I mean, I'd love the world to be better connected by high-speed train, and I think it's embarrassing that Canada can't even get round to building a proper high-speed rail network through the Windsor-Quebec corridor (which sees large amounts of plane and car traffic). But that's the reality: governments in North America (same for the US) aren't investing in this. So I think it's very unrealistic to think they would do it for this particular stretch.

Maybe finally an instance where one of those ultra-rich ultra-billionaires can have a serious, positive impact on the world. Cause if the Musks and Bezoses of this world invested a couple of tens of billions into this, it could be done, and could serve a lot of people very positively for a long time.

 

[neverdie]

I'm not sure. It's an easy gap to bridge but goods and people are still very far from the major markets and anything coming into North America has to get over/through/around the Rockies, which isn't gonna be easy. Getting across Siberia isn't a cakewalk, either.

Definitely engineering challenges if it ever gets to a position where we're talking seriously about it. But the economic incentive is enormous. Say it takes 5-10 years, with all nations scheduled along the line funding it, for it makes economic sense for all involved, from South America to the Middle East, then project a world economy of 150-200tn in 10-30 years per year. Almost all of that, which isn't consumed internally, so just export, would go along this line. That's in the order of trillions and trillions revolving around the Bering Strait pivot every single year. And no one can say, "unfair" to either the US or Russia because geography is just geography.

it would have to be (to my knowledge) the world's first high-speed freight rail connection - and that through very inhospitable territory and over enormous distances.

I just look at the technological advancements and wonder how it cannot be done. With Russia prioritizing icebreakers in the Siberian region. I mean, it was the Russians' proposal, twice over, going back a century. Surely the Japanese, with their inter-island networks, and the Saudis, with their various desert apparatuses, and the world, moreover, in various climes, - surely, by now, we, globally, have the means to construct such a freight network? Maybe not. If it can be done, technologically, the rewards outweigh any initial expenditure moving into the next few decades by many orderinals. For all nations, too, though the major nations will, obviously, see major benefits.

 

[Cheimoon]

I just look at the technological advancements and wonder how it cannot be done. With Russia prioritizing icebreakers in the Siberian region. I mean, it was the Russians' proposal, twice over, going back a century. Surely the Japanese, with their inter-island networks, and the Saudis, with their various desert apparatuses, and the world, moreover, in various climes, - surely, by now, we, globally, have the means to construct such a freight network? Maybe not. If it can be done, technologically, the rewards outweigh any initial expenditure moving into the next few decades by many orderinals. For all nations, too, though the major nations will, obviously, see major benefits.

Oh, I didn't mean to say that it cannot be done. I'm sure it could be! Put the right people to it, and there must be ways to transport cargo over a high-speed rail network. You'd even have to worry less about discomfort than for passenger rail - although there must be other challenges, given it has not happened yet in countries with big high-speed passenger rail networks, like Germany, France, and Japan (and now also China?).

My point was rather that, on top of having to cross huge distances and difficult terrain, they'd also have to be pioneering new technology - adding another barrier to the political decision-making process. (Which is where I see the real stumbling block.)

 

[neverdie]

My point was rather that, on top of having to cross huge distances and difficult terrain, they'd also have to be pioneering new technology - adding another barrier to the political decision-making process. (Which is where I see the real stumbling block.)

yeah, to be fair, the only things I know about Alaska, parts of Canada, and the Siberian region is "mountainous, rocky, cold, and not easy to live in" so fair points!

 

[Murder on Zidanes Floor]

Could you do a road and a rail line?

 

[Cheimoon]

yeah, to be fair, the only things I know about Alaska, parts of Canada, and the Siberian region is "mountainous, rocky, cold, and not easy to live in" so fair points!

Yeah, that's really something. It also makes service more difficult, cause you'd be going through huge stretches of difficult terrain without much habitation where lots of bad things might very well happen (extreme cold, blizzards, avalanches, forest fires, falling trees, mud streams, and so on). This freight network would only be profitable if it's used a lot, for which it has to be reliable - which in turns means being able to resolve issues with the railroad quickly. So I suppose the railroad might have to be accompanied by a road to allow service workers to reach any point quickly - although the additional cost of that is probably relatively small compared to the size of the overall project.

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

Definitely engineering challenges if it ever gets to a position where we're talking seriously about it. But the economic incentive is enormous. Say it takes 5-10 years, with all nations scheduled along the line funding it, for it makes economic sense for all involved, from South America to the Middle East, then project a world economy of 150-200tn in 10-30 years per year. Almost all of that, which isn't consumed internally, so just export, would go along this line. That's in the order of trillions and trillions revolving around the Bering Strait pivot every single year. And no one can say, "unfair" to either the US or Russia because geography is just geography.

Super challenging. A direct route to Seattle would require a rail line cutting through mountains all the way from Nome. Thousands of kms. It might actually be after to build it to Whitehorse and then go east to get out of the mountain into the tundra and shortly after the great plains. Then connecting transport all the way down to South America could leverage existing infrastructure while new lines are built.

 

[neverdie]

Yeah, that's really something. It also makes service more difficult, cause you'd be going through huge stretches of difficult terrain without much habitation where lots of bad things might very well happen (extreme cold, blizzards, avalanches, forest fires, falling trees, mud streams, and so on). This freight network would only be profitable if it's used a lot, for which it has to be reliable - which in turns means being able to resolve issues with the railroad quickly. So I suppose the railroad might have to be accompanied by a road to allow service workers to reach any point quickly - although the additional cost of that is probably relatively small compared to the size of the overall project.

I just look at it, geographically, and think, "that's the future". The road idea seems sound. For repairs, and upgrades, continuously. Especially as fusion comes online. When that happens, in 10 years or so proper, the line itself could, in theory, via quantum grid, actually generate energy. But a different futurist topic. I'd just say get the infrastructure down now, or obviously post-War (again, this is the most hypothetical of threads, assuming somehow it works out in a few years), and then deal with the rest as it comes.

Super challenging. A direct route to Seattle would require a rail line cutting through mountains all the way from Nome. Thousands of kms. It might actually be after to build it to Whitehorse and then go east to get out of the mountain into the tundra and shortly after the great plains. Then connecting transport all the way down to South America could leverage existing infrastructure while new lines are built.

Precisely what i had in mind; minus your exact geographical knowledge. Use existing infrastructure, simultaneously, relative to the construction of the new; and not just rail but defense budget increases, packaged as national security, which such a line, via economic stability, would absolutely be. No one, whether Republican or Democrat, ever says no to increased defense budget! Easiest way to get it done via public-private partnerships, just leverage existing contractors like Halliburton or whomever to build constructive apparatuses for high speed freight lines. This, I think, could work internationally, if to a lesser extent, by infrastructural development through defense budgets in the major war economy states. The US, Russia, China, and maybe even Brazil being the easiest (you'd assume all the BRICS are in, hypothetically, if only the "C" registers a few grunts).

That kind of mountain busting project might cost what? 400bn? But the Qatari world cup cost 200bn!. The CHIPS act was about 400bn iirc. Over ten years, it's just a 30-40bn dollar increase into a siloed fund for existing and new constructive defense contractors. I mean, the largest infractsturctural edifices ever built, the three gorges dam as an example, even if you add labour and material expenses for the american market, only came to about 30-40bn in total. Multiply that by ten or so and you surely have the funds required.

Would also generate enormous economic opportunities all along the line. Massive amounts of construction and engineering jobs to be had.

 

[neverdie]

https://thecradle.co/article-view/26332/iran-in-americas-backyard-raisis-defiant-latin-america-tour

Raisi’s trip as a political message


Speaking to reporters in Tehran upon his return from the five-day trip, Raisi described Latin America as a “strategic region” with an abundance of natural resources and educated people who he said have bravely resisted “arrogant powers” and the “unjust world order” for years.


He also signed 35 cooperation agreements and memoranda of understanding between Iran and the three Latin American countries in the fields of energy, industry, mining, and others.


The Iranian president’s power-packed speeches and media interviews in all three countries revolved around the themes of “circumventing US sanctions,” “boosting cooperation between independent countries, “ending US hegemony,” and establishing “a new world order.”


“Relations between Iran and Venezuela are not normal diplomatic ties. They are strategic,” Raisi said in Caracas after meeting his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro, adding that the two countries have “common enemies that do not wish us to live independently,” a clear reference to the US.


The two sides agreed to boost their annual trade from $3 billion to $20 billion, in two phases, in line with the 20-year cooperation pact signed during Maduro’s visit to Tehran in June last year.

Bumping this. Lots of things have happened since I created the thread, in geopol terms.


The Saudis are attempting to make moves in Somalia, and Ethiopia, as well as cease-fire within Yemen; Iran-Saudi normalization is continuing; Israel is being pushed by the surrounding nations, as consequence, to get its house in order (its far right settler issue); the Chinese have reopened and Gates (private) and Sullivan (public/admin) have visited. Turkey is doing all kinds of weird things only Erdogan has a clue about. Iran to South America, OPEC/Venezuela, is an interesting move.

I say it again. In a hypothetical scenario, two or three years in, when the war is over and new regime (Putin is 71) has taken hold (Biden et al are 70+ as well), there is still the Bering Strait. The pacific ring of economic fire, the Fertile Crescent, and into Africa. Via Jordan (Yemen-Saudi normalization), through Israel across the Sinai (that sliver) into Egypt and thus Saudi-Somali-Ethiopia-Eritrean relations.

There is the same sliver between Israel and Egypt, via the Sinai, as there is between Russia and North Korea at the outer-south-eastern most part of the Russian border. Thus, ten/twenty year scale, possible, over that time, Korean re-unification.

A new Russia which holds the Bering "gate" with the United States and thus the pivot from the Asian, and North/South-American trade route (with the United States). The Chinese would have to link the BRI infrastructure into the Bering Strait Infrastructure or else be out-done by the simple contiguous fact of national hedging (Korean/Russian/Indian/Fertile Cresent/African, general).

Now, the seaports which are used for freight in the South America, North America, Siberean Regions, China, across the entire coast, Korea, and so on. Just turn these into super rail transit hubs with limited acceptance of freight capacity from sea (for the Japans and Australias of the world).

By sheer contiguous geographic fact, entirely non-ideological - economic turnaround 30-60~ days return mitigation, exponential, over time - the US and Russia (and thus, the world, if we can get there) benefit enormously.

Again, not a "war" thread. Just look into the future and assume it has ended. Two years or so. The EU has moved 50bn into Ukraine, as Marshall light capital rebuild. That, to me, suggests a post-war plan. The US, likely, will move capital into Ukraine as well (China, too - Wilsonian China, now, which has its 12 point end the war plan which keeps them from proximity to the Russians and allows Ukraine to be the pivot, with Turkey, for the EU market). So assume the war has ended: the Bering Strait is the obvious thing to do.

The "prize" for the next few decades is Africa and the Fertile Cresent. The non-colonial scramble for share in trade-gdp. Africa, with a population (continental/union) the size of China but with a GDP of under 3 trillion compared to one of almost 30 trillion, is the obvious boomer (lowest starting position) within the emerging world order of tomorrow.

 

[4bars]

I always thought that out technology is not enough advanced to bridge the bering strait

 

[Wibble]

I always thought that out technology is not enough advanced to bridge the bering strait

I don't think that it is a particularly difficult engineering task as the water isn't very deep and the currents aren't very strong. Of course that doesn't make is easy, cheap or politically feasible.

 

[4bars]

I don't think that it is a particularly difficult engineering task as the water isn't very deep and the currents aren't very strong. Of course that doesn't make is easy, cheap or politically feasible.

Had to be another of this "what if we made that bridge", then

Nice to dream, but as you said, not politically feasible if they dont even agree to open the darien gap road to unite north and south america that should be a low investment

 

[Salt Bailly]

"Non-colonial scramble."