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by JumpCrisscross 4 days ago
> if the Faroe Islands can build undersea tunnels for fun

One tenth the distance. $2bn GDP island chain. Pretty different.

> Unlocking resources, connecting the USA to China for rail freight

These are already emerging navigable waterways. Connecting Alaska—not even the contiguous U.S.—to Siberia with a rail line so one can ship stuff more expensively than by sea is just so, so dumb.

> There's a huge tidal range in the strait

Not particularly even before factoring in transmission losses [1]. (And the cost of building and maintaining infrastructure in the middle of nowhere.)

> seen some stuff about connecting the USA to Russia's energy grid

We haven’t even bothered connecting Alaska to the North American grid [2].

This is not, and has never been, a serious proposal. Economically. Geopolitically. Environmentally. (Maybe it was when Kennedy and Kruschev were in power. I don’t know. Different world. I guess if China annexed Siberia it might be worth bringing up again.)

I don’t deny it’s a fun idea. Like building an American maglev system. But practically speaking, maybe the only thing it’s good for is distracting from St. Petersburg getting pummeled during Putin’s economic summit.

[1] https://earth.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/tidalenergy_2.p...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_power_transmiss...
1 comments
gaiagraphia 4 days ago
After reading a little more, I've just seen another angle.

Russia's going to have a million veterans roaming around, with lots of untreated PTSD. A struggling economy could create the perfect storm for revolution.

Sending people eastwards for big projects famously isn't alien to Russia. Apparently it's alreayd being spoken aobut:

>Shoigu Calls for ‘New Industrialization’ in Siberia to Revive Russia’s East

>He proposed tax breaks and administrative incentives for businesses and social support for workers, including housing and car loans that would be written off after 10 years of service in the region.

>He proposed sending veterans of the war in Ukraine to build a “new Siberian Russia,” comparing it to labor efforts that built the Trans-Siberian Railway and Baikal-Amur Mainline.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/11/06/shoigu-calls-for-n...

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JumpCrisscross 4 days ago
> Russia's going to have a million veterans roaming around, with lots of untreated PTSD. A struggling economy could create the perfect storm for revolution

There are plenty of make-work projects Moscow can waste its men on without requiring American co-operation.

> proposed sending veterans of the war in Ukraine to build a “new Siberian Russia,”

This actually makes sense. Between its military being revealed as a paper tiger and the oncoming demographic collapse, Moscow will need to work to keep Siberia from being encouraged–by America and possibly even China–to assert sovereignty over its mineral wealth. (It's not a new concept [1].) None of this requires a boondoggle tunnel to Alaska. And in the end, burning resources to keep men busy just delays the reckoning.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_Republic

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