The relationship between the USA and Russia is complicated.
JFK: "It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile,
launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by
the Soviet Union on the United States."
*Intense laughter*
JFK: "We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things.
Not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
Their rivalry defined the second half of the 20th century.
Reagan: "Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall."
Millions are spent each year trying to improve relations,
and even more spent undermining them again.
To many their opposites; chalk and cheese, vodka and apple pie,
Oceania vs Eurasia, East vs West. It's easy to forget that only 51 miles separates them.
If we're going to spend so much time, energy and money
trying to build bridges between Russia and America, then why not just build an actual bridge?
In 1986 Ronald Reagan gave engineer Tung Yun Lin a National Medal of Science, Lin handed back to him a 16-page plan for an
intercontinental peace bridge. Whether for environmental, financial, or political
reasons a bridge across the Bering Strait has been on someone's agenda ever since. Most of this talk has come to nothing,
but in 2015 Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping started to make some actual plans.
*Theme music*
The Bering Strait is a 51 mile sea passage separating Siberia and Alaska. In 1867 the US
bought Alaska for 7.2 million dollars or 2 cents an acre.
This created a new border right down the middle
separating two small islands, Big Diomede (Russian), and Little Diomede (now American). The same boundary is followed today by the
International Date Line, giving the Diomedes the adorable nicknames of "Tomorrow Island" and "Yesterday Isle".
Ever since the Cold War Big Diomede and most of Russia's Eastern Shore has been a military zone.
No travel is permitted. In fact, you can't arrive or depart there even with a Russian visa.
The closest you can get is the port of Provideniya, and even then you should probably get permission before rocking up.
This hasn't stopped people trying though, in 2006 Karl Bushby and Dimitri Kieffer navigated the strait's ice floes on foot.
However Lynne Cox swam between the Diomedes in 1987,
The public support was so immense that Reagan and Gorbachev thanked her at the signing of the nuclear forces treaty.
Gorbachev: "It took a daring American girl by the name of Lynne Cox a mere two hours to swim the distance separating our two countries,
By her courage she showed how close to each other our two peoples live."
Trump: "We're not gonna let them violate a nuclear agreement,
and go out and do weapons. So we're going to terminate the agreement. We're gonna pull out."
We could really do with another Lynne Cox right now.
Something to bring the US and Russia together. The whole world a little closer.
Even if it has to be marketed to us as a trade deal or a "Trans-Pacific
Infrastructure Investment". A bridge would be a common project,
a physical link forcing superpowers to cooperate. But ignoring all political and financial hurdles for now. Is it even possible?
Currently the world's longest sea bridge is 34 miles across,
Connecting Hong Kong to Zhuhai and Macau in China. And although the Bering Strait is 51 miles,
the longest bridge you'd actually have to build would only be 26. The Diomedes make two perfect stopping points. You could build a US
bridge on one side and a Russian bridge on the other. In fact, make it a race
the loser has to build the three-mile bridge connecting the two. Construction would be slow, for seven months of the year
the temperature is well below freezing, and although the Strait rarely freezes
large chunks of ice are funneled through the passage from the Arctic.
These ice floes would exert enormous pressure on any structure we built. There may be engineering solution around this,
but perhaps the simplest would be to scrap the bridge and dig a tunnel. Tunnels may not lend themselves to metaphors as well,
but they're warmer, often cheaper over long distances, you can lay gas, oil, and electricity alongside.
They're protected from harsh weather, and ships can still pass above them. With the Arctic ice caps melting, the Bering Strait could become a
very busy shipping lane in the next 20 years. The Strait is relatively shallow, the maximum depth is only 55 metres.
The Channel Tunnel is a hundred metres below sea level. That opened in
1994 connecting the UK to Europe, and that relationship is going swimmingly.
A tunnel (unlike a bridge) doesn't have to intersect the Diomedes, it can start and end at more convenient points.
But therein lies the problem. There are no convenient points. Here's a map of the Alaskan and Siberian road networks,
the closest highways are 2,000 miles apart. In Russia
anything east of Magadan is impossible to get to by car. And although there are plans for major Alaskan routes,
anything west of Fairbanks is tricky. Tunnelling under the Bering Strait would be the easy part,
you'd also have to build thousands of miles of roads, over rough terrain,
in incredibly harsh conditions. And after all that you've still got to persuade people to drive it.
The only sensible option would be a train.
You'll still face all the same obstacles during construction,
but a warm high-speed railroad from Anchorage to Vladivostok is way more convenient than a 60 hour drive through the Arctic.
The main use of such a railroad would be freight. If we extend the network through North America and into China, it could transport a
significant amount of the world's cargo. But now we've got one of the biggest
engineering projects in the world, costing hundreds of billions of dollars.
Is there a need for it? An Arctic railroad would have to compete with our existing freight network,
boats and planes. The busiest shipping route in the world by cargo is China to North America.
So let's say we want to ship one metric ton between the two busiest ports, Shanghai to Vancouver.
We've got four options; ship, air, rail ,and road. A boat can do it in 15 to 20 days, cost us $300, and produce
225kg of CO2.
Plane: 1 day, $3,500, 4,400kg. A train: 2 to 4 days, $400, 630kg.
And a truck: 7 to 10 days, $900, 1,050kg.
If speed is the priority and money
no object, a plane is the way to go. But if speed doesn't matter and you want the best value for money then
shipping is the clear winner.
Ships and planes account for 90% of global trade, that is a lot of fuel being burned all day, every day.
Diesel trains are not environmentally friendly, but both Alaska and Siberia have stores of untapped geothermal energy.
We need to replace as many major transport routes as possible with renewable alternatives, and
high-speed electric trains are one of them. There'd definitely be a market for an Arctic railroad,
it would dramatically improve travel time without an enormous increase in price. Whether it would be
profitable for whoever built it though is another matter.
It would have to be a financier with very deep pockets, and probably an ulterior motive. That pretty much leaves three options;
Russia, America, or China.
China are building railways and shipping ports everywhere.
They're already building high-speed railways connecting Europe, Africa and Asia. All with China as the central hub.
They don't just want to be at the crossroads. They want to be the crossroads, for all future international trade and transport.
That means North and South America are definitely on the agenda. In fact, they proposed a high-speed railway connecting china to the US
in 2007. Putin has given China approval to build through Siberia.
And then in 2015 China and Russia announced they were collaborating, to build the Siberia and Alaska passage together.
This is mostly just talk, but it's getting louder and more frequent.
There's a reasonable chance of it happening with or without US involvement.
It would be a real shame if multiple countries didn't cooperate on this project. Not to mention the dangerous power dynamic
it could create. An Arctic railroad connecting China, Russia, and the US would be an amazing achievement.
An opportunity for three superpowers, currently jostling for their place in the century, to collaborate on a common project.
One that could genuinely improve the world,
environmentally, financially, and politically.