Alaska
US soldiers are fighting to get back lost skills for war in the 'most challenging environment on the planet,' Army general says
Out on the Alaskan tundra, the US Army is pushing soldiers to their limits and recovering lost skills needed to fight in the sub-zero temperatures and ever-changing conditions of the Arctic.
The ability to fight in this part of the world, which a commanding general called “the most challenging environment on the planet,” is a renewed priority for the Army after many years of shifting focuses caused readiness for Arctic combat to atrophy.
In February, USARPAC led the third annual Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center training near Fairbanks, Alaska, which Business Insider was able to observe. Throughout the training, soldiers with the US Army’s 11th Airborne Division and troops from over a dozen international allies and partners drilled in Arctic warfare, running combat scenarios while adapting their essential gear, kit, and equipment to freezing conditions.
The training, carried out in what many described as the harshest part of winter in Alaska, pushed more than 8,000 troops to challenge themselves, Army leaders said, innovate in an unpredictable environment, and learn how to fight, survive, and thrive. It comes at a time when the US military has identified readiness to fight in the Arctic, and the Pacific region more broadly, as vital for the American military.
U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Elijah Magaña
For the last 20 years, Maj. Gen. Brian S. Eifler told Business Insider during the training, “we were focused on Iraq, Afghanistan, and really the forces up here, really two maneuver brigades developed up here because of that, were not here for anything other than deploying from and getting to Iraq and Afghanistan.”
During the Cold War, the Army’s forces in Alaska were focusing on cold weather combat, but JPMRC demonstrates a new and unprecedented investment. Troops told BI they felt like they were writing history with these exercises, doing something not seen across other divisions in the Army and US military.
Army leaders conduct the JPMRC training in the middle of winter, when conditions can be especially rough. On the flip side, JPMRC also does an annual rotation in Hawaii, training soldiers to fight in the wet, humid jungle.
USARPAC leaders have identified these environments as the ones in the Indo-Pacific region Army forces need to be able to effectively fight in. Last fall, USARPAC commander Gen. Charles Flynn said the vast Pacific was “likely to remain the geostrategic center of gravity well into the 21st century.”
Regional tensions require preparedness. Flynn noted that aggression, particularly from China, was reinforcing a focus on both maintaining readiness and deterring potential conflict in the area.
U.S. Army Photo by Pfc. Brandon Vasquez
To do that, specifically in the Arctic, the Army reorganized its forces in Alaska back in 2022. US Army Alaska officially became the 11th Airborne Division, a newly reactivated unit, with the focus on Pacific and Arctic combat.
“Our mission is to deter the threats and be ready to fight and win both in the Indo-Pacific and the Arctic,” Eifler said at the time. “And yes, that’s a unique and difficult mission.” The general told reporters US Army Alaska had “sort of lost the Arctic ethos” because of its focus on counterinsurgency in the Middle East.
“We were a brigade, and we had an airborne battalion, then it was going away,” he said. “Then we had the Strykers. Then [we were] deploying to Iraq. You know, all over the years, we were all over the place.”
Following the release of the Army’s new Arctic strategy, Eilfer, along with another Army officer, then laid out the plan for how best to regain that “Arctic ethos,” in a 2022 paper called “Forging the Arctic Warrior.” Throughout it, they reiterate the need reprioritize the Army’s ability to fight in cold weather conditions in order to counter regional threats in the Pacific such as Russia and China.
The Army, they said, had already “embarked on this path and remains committed to success.”
“It must continue to adjust and adapt to ensure the Army is ready to thrive, fight, and win in the most challenging environment on the planet,” they wrote.
U.S. Army Photo by Pfc. Brandon Vasquez
Now, with a renewed focus on the Arctic, USARPAC hopes to regain the cold weather fighting skills that had, as Eifler told BI, atrophied across the full spectrum, from operations and functions to training, leading, and combat capabilities.
Some skills that were lost, Eilfer said, included the ability to engage in combat with the right gear and equipment in a variety of cold weather conditions, including subzero temperatures and heavy snow. He added that the Army’s presence in the area, particularly its relationship with the community, had also dwindled.
At this year’s JPMRC, troops told BI the progress was palpable. Some of the exercises conducted during the training, such as a 150-mile helicopter deep strike, were the largest and most complex in the training’s short history.
Soldiers also drove five new cold-weather, all-terrain vehicles, tested new kits and gear, and ran simulated missions involving a host of air defense threats, jamming, and fire tools.
Eifler explained that these exercises demonstrated movement in the right direction. “We used to say, every year we take a step forward and [a] step back with Arctic skills,” he said. “Now we’re taking about four steps forward and one back each year.”
This story was originally published by The 19th.
This story was originally reported by Grace Panetta of The 19th. Meet Grace and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.
Former Rep. Mary Peltola is challenging GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan in Alaska, potentially putting a tough race in reach for Democrats.
Peltola, a Democrat who served one term as Alaska’s at-large U.S. House representative from 2022 to 2025, was widely seen as a prized top recruit for the race and for national Democrats, who have an uphill battle to reclaim control of the U.S. Senate in 2026.
Peltola, the first Alaska Native person elected to Congress, focused on supporting Alaska’s fisheries while in office.
“My agenda for Alaska will always be fish, family and freedom,” Peltola said in her announcement video Monday. “But our future also depends on fixing the rigged system in D.C. that’s shutting down Alaska while politicians feather their own nest.”
“It’s about time Alaskans teach the rest of the country what Alaska first and really, America first, looks like,” she added.
A 2025 survey by progressive pollster Data for Progress, which regularly polls Alaska voters, found that Peltola has the highest approval rating of any elected official in the state. She narrowly lost reelection to Republican Rep. Nick Begich in 2024.
Elections in Alaska are conducted with top-four nonpartisan primaries and ranked-choice general elections. In the Data for Progress poll, 46 percent of voters said they would rank Sullivan first and 45 percent said they would rank Peltola first in a matchup for U.S. Senate. Sullivan won reelection by a margin of 13 points in 2020.
Republicans control the Senate by a three-seat majority, 53 to 47, and senators serve six-year terms, meaning a third of the Senate is up every election cycle. For Democrats to win back the chamber in 2026, they’d need to hold competitive seats in states like Georgia and Michigan while flipping four GOP-held seats in Maine, North Carolina and even more Republican-leaning states like Alaska, Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas.
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FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTUU/KTVF) – Growing food during the Alaskan winter requires a lot of energy use, but research at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) aims to use existing technologies to make the process more efficient and allow more gardeners to cultivate plants year-round.
This research ultimately comes with the goal of increasing local food production in the Interior, leading to greater food security.
“We don’t want to be dependent on other regions because you never know what can happen. We can be cut off and then food security becomes really important that we can sustain ourselves with what we can grow locally,” said Professor of Horticulture Meriam Karlsson.
UAF is hosting an hourlong seminar starting at noon on Tuesday to show members of the community where their research into light-emitting diode (LED) technology has taken them.
“There is a lot of technology and new innovations that are being developed, but not necessarily for growing plants,” Karlsson explained, “so we need to be observant and take advantage of what’s being developed in other areas, engineering and marketing, and all these other areas as well.”
These lights, which are able to be purchased by anyone, tend to be more efficient than older technology in generating light, which is a necessity for many plants to grow.
“Of course, up here, we don’t have much natural light at this time of the year, so we do need to have supplemental lighting, and that has become much more affordable… In the past, it really cost a lot of money and took a lot of energy,” Karlsson said, who is presenting the seminar.
She added that LED lights also allow for more control of the quality and spectrum of light emitted, and the university has been researching which factors are ideal for plant growth.
“It’s very different for plants depending on if we are trying to find crops that will produce… leafy greens or microgreens or just have the vegetative parts or the leaves versus reproductive and flowering because flowering often have very specific requirements, both in form of light quality and the day length,” Karlsson explained.
Currently, the university is growing fruits, vegetables and flowers at its Agriculture and Forestry Experiment Station Greenhouse, attached to the Arctic Health Research Building.
With the knowledge gained, Karlsson hopes the growing season in the Interior could be expanded for both those in the industry and those who grow in their home.
“We can do it commercially, but also there is a lot of applications and a lot of opportunities for gardeners or those who want to grow something in the winter, even in their kitchen or their garage or their basement, because some of this technology can be adapted and used in all kinds of different sizes of production,” she said.
The seminar, part of a monthly series covering issues with agriculture in circumpolar regions, is open to UAF students as well as the general community, with both in-person and online attendance provided, and is expected to be available online sometime after it is completed.
Karlsson said the university is also planning a conference for a couple of years from now, dealing with agriculture in polar regions to expand collaboration with other arctic nations.
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Democrats are going after Alaska’s Senate race this year, and they’ve landed probably the only candidate that can make it competitive: Mary Peltola.
The former congresswoman on Monday jumped into the race against GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan, adding yet another hard-fought campaign to what Democrats hope is shaping up to be a wave year that could carry them in red states like Alaska.
Peltola certainly doesn’t sound like a typical Democratic candidate as she starts her bid: She’s proposing term limits, is campaigning on “fish, family and freedom,” and has already name-dropped former Republican officials in her state multiple times.
“Ted Stevens and Don Young ignored lower 48 partisanship to fight for things like public media and disaster relief because Alaska depends on them,” Peltola says in her launch video, referencing the former GOP senator and House member, respectively.
“DC people will be pissed that I’m focusing on their self-dealing, and sharing what I’ve seen firsthand. They’re going to complain that I’m proposing term limits. But it’s time,” she says.
Peltola is clearly appealing to the state’s ranked choice voting system and its unique electorate, which elevated moderate Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, over a candidate supported by President Donald Trump. The last Democrat to win an Alaska Senate race was Mark Begich in 2008, though Peltola won the state’s at-large seat twice — even defeating former Gov. Sarah Palin.
Sullivan defeated Begich in 2014, followed by independent Al Gross in 2020; Sullivan also recently voted to extend expired health care subsidies, a sign of the state’s independent streak.
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