Russia Announces a Tunnel ] Across the Bering Strait -Trade, Or INVASION!?

Curious. Russia announces a $65 billion tunnel from Siberia to Alaska.

I smell trouble: environmental, social, political trouble. (It occurs to me, when complete, you could drive to Tampa from Bagdad, or Edinburgh to Mobile.) Also some interesting opportunities, particularly cultural. Alaska would no longer be the end of Western civilization but the U.S. gateway to the world, admittedly, in this case, the more vast, empty parts of the world, but still.

One thought is that the supporting road system would end the isolation of much of rural Alaska- isolation that causes myriad problems for but also tends to conserve traditional native cultures. I also have a suspicion that the plans anticipate, or depend on, global warming to open up Arctic Sea shipping routes which will further enable greater oil exploration in Eastern Siberia, and also opens access to US markets for Siberian oil, which, um, contributes to warming...

And that is all assuming that Alaska's impressive history of huge failed engineering schemes doesn't catch up with this one, which it almost certainly will. Of course, they did manage to get the X Band radar to Adak.