Posts
Should We Actually Build It?
After 135 years of proposals, eight papers of historical analysis, and examining every era from Gilpin to today—here's the comprehensive case FOR and AGAINST building the Bering Strait tunnel
The Question
We've traced the Bering Strait tunnel concept across 135 years, through wars and revolutions, economic booms and depressions, ideological confrontations and brief moments of cooperation. We've examined proposals from railroad barons, Soviet planners, Chinese strategists, and modern engineers. We've documented how the dream survived when empires fell and when technology rendered some justifications obsolete. Now we must answer the question that underlies all of this: Should humanity actually build this tunnel? Not "can we"—engineering has proven feasibility. Not "might we"—history shows the idea never dies. But SHOULD we? This paper presents the comprehensive case for and against, weighing engineering achievement against economic reality, symbolic power against practical utility, human ambition against environmental cost. Then, we render our verdict.
The Case FOR Building the Bering Strait Tunnel
1. Completing the Global Transportation Network
The tunnel would create the first permanent land connection between the world's two largest landmasses. Every other continent except Antarctica is connected by land or bridge. The Bering Strait represents the final missing link in a truly global surface transportation network. From an infrastructure completeness perspective, humanity should finish what geography left undone.
2. Arctic Resource Development
The Arctic contains an estimated $1-2 trillion in critical minerals, rare earths, oil, and gas. Climate change is making these increasingly accessible. A Bering tunnel with associated rail infrastructure would enable systematic development of resources that current shipping and air routes cannot economically extract. For Russia's Far East and Alaska, this means transforming remote regions into productive economic zones.
3. Climate Change Resilience
As Arctic ice melts, the region will become more accessible and strategically important. Building infrastructure now, while permafrost is still relatively stable, may be easier than building later after further thaw. Moreover, rail transport is significantly more carbon-efficient than air freight—a transcontinental railway could reduce emissions for cargo currently flown between Asia and North America.
4. Geopolitical Cooperation Signal
Successfully building the tunnel would require sustained U.S.-Russia cooperation over decades—cooperation that would build trust, create mutual dependencies, and demonstrate that former adversaries can collaborate on civilization-scale projects. The symbolic power of physically connecting nations that spent 44 years divided by the Ice Curtain cannot be overstated.
5. Engineering Achievement and Human Ambition
Humanity should build ambitious projects simply because we can. The tunnel would be one of history's greatest engineering achievements—comparable to the Panama Canal, the Interstate Highway System, or the International Space Station. Such projects inspire generations, advance engineering knowledge, and demonstrate human capability. Not everything needs economic justification; some things are worth doing because they're hard.
6. Long-Term Economic Transformation
While current trade volumes don't justify the investment, infrastructure creates its own demand. The Interstate Highway System cost far more than contemporaries thought justified—yet it transformed American economics and culture. A Bering connection could similarly catalyze economic activity we can't currently predict: new trade patterns, tourism, resource development, technological innovation.
7. Indigenous Reconnection
For Yupik and Chukchi peoples separated by the Cold War's Ice Curtain, the tunnel could enable reconnection with families and cultures divided for generations. This human dimension—often overlooked in mega-project discussions—matters. Infrastructure should serve people, not just abstract economic or geopolitical goals.
8. Scientific and Educational Benefits
Building in the Arctic under extreme conditions would advance permafrost engineering, seismic resilience, extreme-climate construction, and logistics. The project would train generations of engineers in skills applicable to other challenging environments. Universities worldwide would study the project, advancing knowledge that benefits humanity beyond the tunnel itself.
The Case AGAINST Building the Bering Strait Tunnel
1. Economic Reality: The Math Doesn't Work
Realistic cost estimates range from $90-140 billion when including approach infrastructure. Annual debt service alone would exceed $5 billion. Current U.S.-Russia trade is under $30 billion annually—far too small to generate revenue justifying the investment. Even optimistic projections of increased trade don't close this gap. The project would be a perpetual money pit, requiring subsidies forever.
2. Superior Alternatives Already Exist
Modern container ships efficiently move massive cargo volumes at low cost. Air freight handles time-sensitive goods. The Northern Sea Route, opening due to climate change, offers Arctic shipping without fixed infrastructure costs. Why spend $100+ billion on a tunnel when flexible, cheaper alternatives work better for existing trade patterns?
3. Geopolitical Impossibility
The tunnel requires sustained U.S.-Russia cooperation and mutual trust over decades. Current relations are openly hostile: sanctions, proxy conflicts, cyberwarfare, election interference, and strategic competition. Even if leaders agreed, any future conflict would weaponize the tunnel—each side could cut the other's access. Building physical dependencies with strategic competitors is security madness.
4. Environmental Catastrophe
Construction would devastate pristine Arctic ecosystems. Permafrost disruption from thousands of kilometers of rail and tunnel approaches would release methane and CO2. Indigenous communities would face displacement or disruption. Marine ecosystems near construction would suffer. And ironically, the project is only conceivable because of climate change—meaning we'd be building infrastructure enabled by environmental damage to cause more environmental damage.
5. The "Empty Lands" Problem Is Fatal
The tunnel's endpoints are in some of Earth's most remote locations. Building 1,200+ km of rail through Alaska and 3,000+ km through Siberia costs more than the tunnel itself and serves almost no one. These regions are depopulating, not growing. Infrastructure should connect population centers—this connects wilderness to wilderness.
6. Technology Obsolescence
By the time the tunnel was completed (20+ years), autonomous cargo drones, hyperloop technology, or other innovations might render it obsolete. Spending decades building 20th-century rail infrastructure when 21st-century alternatives are emerging is poor planning. The risk of building a stranded asset is enormous.
7. Opportunity Cost
$100+ billion could fund: universal pre-K education in the U.S., massive renewable energy deployment, urban transit systems in dozens of cities, cancer research, global health initiatives, or countless other projects with clear, immediate benefits. Spending it on a tunnel serving tiny populations in remote regions is grotesque misallocation of scarce resources.
8. History's Lesson: Symbolism Over Substance
Our historical analysis reveals that the tunnel has always functioned better as symbol than as practical infrastructure. Its power lies in representing cooperation and ambition—power that would be diminished, not enhanced, by actual construction. Some dreams are more valuable unrealized, as ideals to strive for, than as expensive realities that inevitably disappoint.
Our Verdict: The Tunnel Should Not Be Built
At Least Not Now, Not Like This, Not For These Reasons
After examining 135 years of history, proposals from eight different eras, and arguments both passionate and practical, we conclude: The Bering Strait tunnel should not be built in the foreseeable future.
Why? Because the fundamental conditions for success have never aligned and show no sign of aligning:
- Economic justification remains absent
- Geopolitical trust is deteriorating, not improving
- Environmental costs are unacceptable
- Superior alternatives exist and are improving
- Opportunity costs are staggering
But our "no" comes with crucial qualifications:
1. We're Not Saying "Never"
Conditions could change. If U.S.-Russia relations dramatically improve, if Arctic populations grow rather than shrink, if trade patterns shift radically, if construction costs fall by 80%, if some combination of factors emerges that we can't currently predict—then maybe. But "maybe someday under different conditions" isn't a case for building now.
2. The Dream's Value Isn't in Realization
The tunnel has survived 135 years precisely because it represents human ambition to overcome division. Its symbolic power—as a vision of cooperation, as a metric of trust, as proof that barriers can be surmounted—doesn't require construction. Indeed, building it might diminish this power. The unrealized dream inspires; the expensive reality disappoints.
3. Keep Planning, Don't Start Building
Continued study, updated engineering, refined cost estimates, environmental assessments—this work should continue. When conditions change (if they change), having detailed plans ready matters. But study is different from construction. The work that InterBering, SOPS, and other advocates do has value even if the tunnel never gets built.
4. Focus on What Actually Helps People
If the goal is helping Far East Russia or Alaska develop, invest in local infrastructure, education, renewable energy, telecommunications. If the goal is U.S.-Russia cooperation, start with projects smaller than $100 billion. If the goal is symbolic unity, people-to-people exchanges like Lynne Cox's swim achieve more at far lower cost. If the goal is engineering achievement, build where populations actually live.
The Bottom Line:
The Bering Strait tunnel is a beautiful dream. It has inspired generations and will inspire more. But dreams shouldn't always be built—sometimes they serve us better as visions of what cooperation could achieve if we first solved the deeper problems preventing that cooperation. Build trust before building tunnels. Develop economies before developing Arctic infrastructure. Align politics before pouring concrete.
When humanity is genuinely ready—economically, politically, environmentally—the plans will be waiting. Until then, let the dream remain what it has always been: a measure of how far we've come and how far we still must go.
No comments:
Post a Comment