With Trump’s Greenland Deal, Arctic Arms Race Looks Set To Heat Up

With his announcement of plans to develop a “large military presence” in Greenland, President Trump is advancing an unprecedented militarization of the Arctic driven by the potential for new trade routes and mineral exploitation as a melting polar icecap succumbs to climate change. Prompted by fears about increasing Russian and Chinese activity in the region, an American buildup in Greenland would complement expansions already underway by Canada and other NATO allies and add to an already robust U.S. military presence in Alaska.Mr. Trump declared his military ambition for Greenland on Truth Social on Friday in the course of announcing an agreement with Denmark and Greenland that, he said, will give America “the complete ability to do what is necessary in Greenland in order to secure and defend the security of Greenland, and the United States of America.”The actual text of the agreement has not been released, leaving it unclear what has changed from a 1951 agreement that already granted America broad access to the world’s largest island, where more than 10,000 U.S. troops were stationed at more than a dozen bases at the height of the Cold War.Apparently new, however, is another provision announced by Mr. Trump providing that “no U.S. adversary can EVER have a base in Greenland, have a military presence in Greenland, or make sensitive investments in Greenland, without our express written approval.” Apart from its strategic value, the island is believed to hold concentrations of more than two dozen raw materials needed for cutting-edge technology.With the agreement, Mr. Trump appears to have put to rest tensions with Greenland and its sovereign parent, Denmark, over his threats last year to seize the self-ruling territory if it was not handed over willingly. In a joint statement Friday, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark and Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen of Greenland said the deal will strengthen the security of the Arctic while recognizing “the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of both.Mr. Trump was vague about his plans for a military buildup on Greenland, saying simply that the United States “will immediately begin the process of developing a large Military presence in the appropriate part of Greenland, of which there are many.”The Russian combat icebreaker Ivan Papanin is seen anchored at Saint Petersburg during a naval parade review on July 23, 2024. Via XHowever, NATO military planners have been concerned for years about Russia’s fast-growing footprint in the Arctic, where it maintains an estimated 30 to 40 military bases and a fleet of about 40 icebreakers — far more than all other countries combined. Launched in September last year, the Ivan Papanin is the world’s first combat icebreaker, capable of carrying up to eight Kalibr-K cruise missiles or Uran anti-ship missiles and other weaponry.China, which describes itself as a “near-Arctic state,” has also shown increased interest in the polar region, presumably motivated by the prospect that a melting icecap will open a new all-season shipping route to Europe, shaving thousands of miles and more than two weeks off the journey.“Up until this past summer, you would expect one Chinese research vessel in the Arctic. This past summer, there were five,” the then Coast Guard commandant, Admiral Linda Fagan, said at a security forum in the Canadian city of Halifax in late 2024.“This summer they were operating in tandem surface action groups with both China and Russia, 60 to 70 miles off the coast of Alaska,” Admiral Fagan said. “If we were to see that same pattern of behavior off the East or the West Coast of the [contiguous] United States, it would have the attention of the United States.”NATO, with the accession of Finland in 2023 and Sweden in 2024, now accounts for all seven of the remaining Arctic nations and has been racing to close the gap with Russia. Under a collaboration known as the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort, or ICE Pact, the United States, Canada, and Finland have agreed to pool resources to rapidly build up the alliance’s icebreaker fleet.Canada also has announced a $40 billion plan to expand its military presence in the Arctic, including an advanced early-warning radar system and an upgrade of forward bases to accommodate a future fleet of F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters. Norway maintains two navy bases, several army bases, and an air base designed to handle its own F-35 fighter jets.The region has long been a front line in the strategic defense of America, given that the shortest distance for nuclear missiles between Russia or China and the United States lies over the North Pole. America already maintains six major military bases in Alaska, including Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson at Anchorage with squadrons of F-22 Raptor stealth fighters, C-17 Globemaster transports, and E-3 AWACS airborne radar planes.Another two squadrons of F-35A Lightning II stealth fighters are based at Eielson Air Force Base at Fairbanks, while Fort Greely at Junction hosts most of the country’s ground-based interceptors designed to knock down incoming ICBMs launched from Russia, China, or North Korea.Major new installations in Greenland, which extends more deeply into the Arctic than Alaska, would close the largest gap in NATO’s ring of defenses stretching from western Alaska to eastern Finland and reverse a decades-long withdrawal of American forces from the island.In the early 1950s, America had an estimated 10,000 troops there maintaining early warning radar and Strategic Air Command nuclear bombers capable of reaching St. Petersburg and Moscow within hours.At present, the United States’ military presence is confined to a single installation, Pituffik Space Base, where fewer than 200 service members conductmissile warning, missile defense, and space surveillance missions using solid-state phased-array radar.

With Trump’s Greenland Deal, Arctic Arms Race Looks Set To Heat Up

With Trump’s Greenland Deal, Arctic Arms Race Looks Set To Heat Up

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