(1) Increased economic ties always decrease the chance of war.
Compare our relationship with China today vs the time prior to Nixon opening economic trade with China. We fought Chinese troops in Korea, and the fear of open war was real in the 1960s.
Today, we worry about economic competition with China, but we don’t worry much about a shooting war with China.
This tunnel would increase all of North America’s involement with Russia, and thus decrease the odds of a shooting war (btw, I think Russia will regain its former role as a military superpower in a couple of decades).
(2) What’s with this long rail from Alaska to NY?
There is already an extensive rail & road network in western Canada/USA which connects with the rest of the country. Shouldn’t the goal be to connect to the current infrastructure as quickly as possible, instead of building a new system?
(3) 12 billion?
Obviously, that would triple or quadruple to say $48 billion. But if split between it would be $24 billion for the west, which could be a shared cost between Canada and the USA.
The dollar amount is big, but not unworkable compared to our current budget.
I don't think so. Their birthrate has collapsed. There simply won't be enough Russians to man their armies.