New US Department of Defense regional center named for former Alaska senator

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - The U.S. Department of Defense announced Wednesday that it will establish a new regional center, to be named after the late Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska.

The center, which the department wrote in a release will help increase cooperation on the security concerns of the Arctic region, will be called the Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies.

Members of the Alaska delegation worked to authorize and appropriate funding for the new regional center, according to a press release from the office of Sen. Dan Sullivan. Establishing the new center was made possible by the passage of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, according to the press release.

In the release from his office, Sullivan is quoted as saying the initial idea for the new center came from Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

It’s the first new regional center of the defense department since 2020, and the first ever in the Arctic, the release states.

According to the release from the Department of Defense, its regional centers are “international academic venues for bilateral and multilateral research, communication, and training with the goal of building strong, sustainable international networks of security leaders.”

The Ted Stevens Center aims to provide a “new venue to collaborate with our allies and partners to advance shared interests for a peaceful and prosperous Arctic,” the release states.

The department has not yet determined where it will be located.

The new center “will support defense strategy objectives and policy priorities through a unique academic forum,” according to the release from Sullivan’s office.