Russia sold Alaska to the United States primarily because of the costs and logistical difficulties of supplying the territory. Alaska had become an economic liability to the Russians, who were struggling with debt accrued during the disastrous Crimean War (1853–56). In addition, Russia increasingly looked instead toward Asian expansion and—in light of the American philosophy of Manifest Destiny and increased competition from the British Hudson’s Bay Company, which leased a southern portion of the territory—viewed the eventual control of the territory by the United States as inevitable and perhaps beneficial.
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