Somewhere there's an alt history timeline where Russia never sold Alaska and the USSR had possession of it during the Cold War.
I think a lot of the value in hindsight is just getting another world power off of North America.
this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2025
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They sold it because they knew they couldn't hold it in a war. They also needed the money after the Crimean War. In any case they would have happily sold it for money during or after WW1 or during WW2 when they needed money.
Alaska has no geopolitical significance. It was part of the Westward push toward the Pacific under Manifest Destiny trend. Hawaii supplanted any significance that Alaska was supposed to have. Alaska is the 49th state, Hawaii is the 50th US state. The Russians obviously saw no significance to have it. Even if Russia still had it in an alternative history to the present time, Alaska is so remote it would not have Russia that much more of a threat. Alaska was, basically, a disconnected Siberia to the Russians. It costed them money to occupy it during their ownership. Alaska today is a resource extraction economy. It has good fishing, it has oil, timber, and there was a gold rush. As such, economic activity will be productive, but not diversified. There are YouTube videos that exaggerate the geopolitical significance, but it is really more of an outpost.