Alaska State Legislature
News from the House Majority

Ken Freeman, Press Secretary
State Capitol
Juneau, AK 99801
phone: (907) 465-3804
web site: http://www.akrepublicans.org
Actuality line: 1-800-478-6540

Alaska May Be Vulnerable to Future Ballistic Missile Attack

For Immediate Release: April 25, 1997 Contact: Rep. Beverly Masek (907) 465-2679

JUNEAU - Assessing Alaska's vulnerability to Ballistic Missile Attack was the topic of a meeting of the House Military and Veterans Affairs (MVA) Committee on Thursday.

Representative Beverly Masek, Chair of the MVA committee, said the purpose of the hearing was evaluate the future threat Alaska faces from a Ballistic Missile Attack from the Pacific Rim.

"We heard from a number of high ranking experts in the field of Ballistic Missile defense that had some very unsettling information about our vulnerability from the Far East," said Masek. "The risk of missile attack may not be on the minds of Alaskans and Americans as it was during the height of the cold war, but we need to think about the future threats that Alaska may come under and the fact that the time to plan for a defense is now."

Recent national intelligence estimates assessing America's risk of Ballistic Missile Attack indicate the United States has the capability to defend itself against a missile attack in the future - at least to a limited degree. A proposal by the Clinton administration to protect America would put an anti-missile base in Fort Banks, North Dakota. This particular system proposed by the federal administration indicates two states would be left vulnerable -- Hawaii and Alaska.

Testifying before the Military and Veterans Affairs committee Thursday were David Tanks with the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, Daniel Fine with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Brian T. Kennedy with the Claremont Institute.

David Tanks is with the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, a Southern California Research Institute that studies pacific rim issues. He said his organization became interested in the issue of Ballistic Missile Defense last year when the U.S. expressed concern over the potential threat of a Chinese missile attack on Taiwan and when the State of Alaska was omitted from the National Intelligence Estimate when looking at potential nuclear threats in the next 15 years.

Brian Kennedy has spent the last year and a half studying missile defense and the future political and economic situations in the Pacific Rim. He said there are several central issues which emerged from his studies.

"There are several threats emerging in Asia that are going to be capable of targeting the United States before the year 2010. Specifically, North Korea is working on a missile system that could launch a missile anywhere from 4000 to 6000 kilometers. That puts Pt. Barrow, Anchorage and Fairbanks in range," said Kennedy.

Kennedy said similar missile threats exist when looking at the future of China's missile development and the proliferation of missile technology coming out of Russia.

"If an effective missile defense is going to be developed for the future, then we will need to come up with a way to cover Alaska and Hawaii," said Kennedy.

Daniel Fine, Research Associate at MIT, said the threat to Alaska and the United States is a resource threat - the potential strategic missile threat in the 21st century may not be aimed at populated areas, but at targets that have remote and complex regions with rich natural resource concentrations.

Fine said this puts Alaska, and in particular the North Slope, at the top of the list of potential missile targets. Fine said Prudhoe Bay is within striking range by advanced missiles from North Korea and China.

"Certain economic and political factors in China and Russia, combined with a need for resources, makes Alaska a prime target in the near future," said Fine. "The need for a missile defense becomes a preemptive move to prevent economic and financial chaos in the United States if Alaska was targeted."

Fine pointed out that Prudhoe Bay constitutes 25% of the United States oil production and almost the same in terms of reserves.

"If the U.S. would one day sanction a Chinese source of oil, we think that could lead China to consider not a missile strike necessarily, but potentially missile launch blackmail. Prudhoe Bay is the only potential resource concentration that could lead to such a threat," said Fine.

"It appears that if you were to select one target in the United States from the outside which is sparsely populated, is resource rich and has a capacity to disrupt the American economy both financially and industrially, you find Prudhoe Bay at the top of the list."

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