America and Russia share a “collective memory of the stabilizing buffer the Arctic provided during the Cold War, when flash points of conflict elsewhere risked rapid escalation to World War III and nuclear winter,” writes Barry Scott Zellen, a research scholar in the Department of Geography at the University of Connecticut.
“Along the lengthy Ice Curtain between Alaska and the Soviet Union, life went on much as it always had,” Mr. Zellen writes. “Next came our post-Cold War hope that Russia would finally come in from the cold as the next frontier for democracy and economic partnership with Alaska, right up until the Ukraine invasion in 2022 brought such collaborative overtures to a halt.
“These are all compelling reasons for bringing Mr. Trump’s summitry to Alaska, where the White House hopes the majestic landscapes might foster a reset in the recently strained bromance between The Donald and The Vladimir,” he writes. “Will it fizzle the way the breathtaking 2018-2019 summit with North Korean strongman Kim Jong-un did, ending with a whimper and not a deal? Or might we see a new chapter of history unfold, just as we did after the Taliban peace treaty brought an end to our forever wars?”
