There are a couple crazy issues with the Soviet invasion of Alaska, mostly relating, I think, to the GDW authors not really grasping either the size of the AK/Yukon/British Columbia area or the difficulty in sustaining any sort of logistics across those distances given a very minimal road network.
The oddest thing is that from the unit histories, it sounds like the Soviets came directly across the strait and made their first landings at Nome, then proceeded overland to Fairbanks. I honestly just don't see how this works. There's no roads, and the distance and terrain are such that even if done in the dead of winter to rely on frozen rivers would have honestly most likely killed more Soviet AFVs from simple wear and tear attrition than X Corps and the Canadians ever did on the battlefield.
Various other subsequent manuevers are equally improbable (offensives down through Juneau and into Canadian territory, especially).
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Perhaps it's this reliance on seaborne logistics which proved the Soviet's undoing? Once the nukes fell and the ports were glowing (on both sides) it may have become almost impossible for supplies and reinforcementsto be brought in.
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A one megaton strike on Elmendorf AFB would most likely not only irradiate but cause extensive damage to the port of Anchorage, which seems to be the hub for Soviet forces remaining in Alaska circa 2000. The two are very close to one another, though the terrain the port sits in *might* protect it some from blast and overpressure from a nuke, depending on where exactly on Elmendorf it popped.
There's an alternate port at Whittier (built in secret during WW2), but no indication that any Soviet forces are anywhere near there, as it's about 100 km south east of Anchorage and the Soviet forces are mostly north of Anchorage up in the Mat-Su Valley (likely facing Sarah Palin's crack irregular militia or crack smoking irregular militia, depending on your politics
). And Whittier is on the far side of a 4 km long tunnel that any defenders could drop pretty effortlessly, and renders it pretty vulnerable to commando actions (cue daring group of PCs . . .).
Assuming the Soviets had pretty much free reign in the Pacific due to some serious misfortunes for the USN and other NATO/Allied naval forces, the likeliest invasion route would be to do an Inchon/Normandy gig at Anchorage with a feint at Valdez aimed at destroying the terminal end of the pipeline. Then you'd want to roll up the only two highways going up out of the Mat-Su Valley to launch pincers at X Corps in the Fairbanks/Ft Greely area. Getting the right wing to Glenallen and Tok would cut off anyone falling back from Valdez (Glenallen) and any vehicle traffic coming in from Canada (Tok).
Once you've got Tok out of the equation, and Anchorage occupied, Fairbanks is pretty much isolated by anything but aerial resupply. It would still have access to oil from the pipeline, unless it was cut north of the city, and there's a small refinery in the area that could keep X Corps plussed up on fuel, but everything else is pretty sketchy. If the .sovs can get up the road to the Greely area they can capture the only remotely significant agricultural area X Corps could be feeding itself and the civilian population from, and then it would probably be better to do more of a seige than an assault on Fairbanks.