I am currently reading 'Tai-Pan' by James Clavell, a fictional (albeit historically inspired) book about the founding of Hong Kong.
At one point in the book, a dossier containing advisement of foreign policy for Russian expansion is intercepted. In short, the dossier declares that Russia use their territory of Alaska as a entry point for a mass migration of their nomadic peoples to settle the North American continent and potentially become warriors for Russian interest to fight against the Americans in the Western territories, if the Monroe Doctrine is ever invoked.
So my question is – is there any historical equivalent to this plot?
While more can definitely be said by someone with more knowledge on the settlement, and the Russian colonization of North America as a whole, Russian exploration of the California region started in 1803 as a fur-trading mission for the Russian-American Company.
The Russians eventually established Fort Ross, in modern day Sonoma County (northern area of the San Francisco Bay Area), California, in 1812. Although it's the only Russian colony south of Alaska and the primary focus was fur-trading.
By 1824 however, the Russian-American Company was looking into the viability of establishing a colony from modern day Oregon down to the SF Bay Area and east to around modern day Sacramento, in addition to establishing a permanent naval base for the Russian Navy. However, this was never fully realized due to the rapid expansion of the newly form United States of America, and the likely inevitability of their desires to expand all the way to the Pacific.
By 1841 however, Fort Ross' was too costly for the RAC to maintain, along with the reduced supply of fur due to the over hunting of fur mammals, and was sold to a Swiss immigrant named John Sutter (who would also later establish Sutter's Fort, which became the future state capital, modern day Sacramento).