Looking ahead to the Arctic Century: Greenland as kingmaker—commentary

Let’s be clear: we are entering the Arctic Century, and its most defining feature will be Greenland’s emergence as a global kingmaker. In the next few years, Greenland and the wider Arctic will grow in prominence in politics, commerce and culture.

The idea of buying Greenland might sound outrageous, but it isn’t new. Even before Trump proposed that the US should acquire it in 2019 and 2024, the idea had been around for many years. Serious attempts to annex or purchase the country arose in 1867, 1910, 1946 and 1955.

The reasons for U.S. interests in Greenland have been constant. While America wants access to the country’s abundant resources, the U.S. also wants to keep the nation out of the hands of competing powers. In earlier years, this meant Great Britain and Canada, then Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Now, it’s China and Russia.

What is troubling about Trump’s interest in Greenland is not his motivation, which is understandable, but the belligerent tone of his approach. Greenland has always been a cooperative neighbour to the U.S., and Greenland’s Prime Minister recently stated that the country fully intends to remain a NATO member, strengthen its partnership with the U.S. on defence and security, and welcome American investment in Greenland’s economy.

While critical minerals are undoubtedly an important factor, Trump’s interest in Greenland range far beyond the country’s resource wealth. As temperatures rise in the Arctic faster than anywhere else in the world, and Arctic shipping routes and resources become more accessible, the prospect of Chinese and Russian interest and presence in and near Greenland grows more likely. So there are legitimate security concerns.

Greenland’s geographical position between North America, Europe and Asia makes it the shortest route between major ports and airports on the three continents. Militarily, the nation’s location on one end of the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) Gap makes it vital to monitoring Russian vessels and submarines seeking to access the North Atlantic and protecting critical subsea infrastructure. To the U.S., thus, Greenland represents not just a significant opportunity, but also – if inadequately defended – an equally massive vulnerability.

The cooperation between the U.S. and Greenland runs deep. While Denmark was under Nazi occupation, the Danish Minister in Washington, Henrik Kaufmann, signed an agreement permitting the stationing of American troops in Greenland. Greenland served as a de facto protectorate of the U.S. until 1945 – that is, for the rest of the Second World War – with the Americans building infrastructure such as airfields, ports, radio and weather stations, and search-and-rescue stations.

Then, in 1951, the Defence of Greenland Agreement granted the U.S. almost unhindered access to Greenland for defence – and indeed the extensive privileges it still enjoys more than seven decades later. And the U.S. took advantage to build a strong anti-Soviet defence system. By the late-1950s, the U.S. deployed an early warning system – the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line – that comprised a string of radar stations designed to detect incoming bombers from the Soviet Union. Starting in 1958, the U.S. constructed a more sophisticated Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS).

Significantly, the U.S. also operated Camp Century, established in 1959 as a scientific research site but what was in reality a clandestine military base built under the ice. It was a vast enterprise hosting around 200 inhabitants, as well as buildings, laboratories, a railway track, a school, a church, a theatre, a hospital – and a nuclear reactor. This is where the U.S. Army was developing Project Iceworm — an even more extensive network of tunnels spread across 52,000 miles (three times the size of Denmark) under the Greenland Ice Sheet where the US could station, move and launch up to 600 nuclear medium range ballistic missiles (MRBMs).

In the late-1950s and 1960s, Greenland also fell within the geographic scope of the USAF Strategic Air Command (SAC)’s airborne alert programs. One such program, Operation Chrome Dome, saw up to 12 B-52 bombers carrying thermonuclear bombs remain on continuous airborne alert 24 hours a day. Another, the Hard Head Mission, saw a nuclear-armed bomber remain airborne over Thule Air Base to provide continuous visual surveillance. Greenland still plays host to the northernmost military installation of the U.S., the Pituffik Space Base (formerly Thule Air Base), that remains critical for missile warning, missile defence, and space surveillance and control operations.

In short, Greenland has been a constant friend, partner in defence, good neighbour to the U.S. and part of NATO.

While generally welcomed, the U.S. military presence in Greenland has been controversial on occasion. The development of the US air base in Pituffik-Thule in the early-1950s led to a loss of hunting and fishing opportunities for the local population and their relocation by the Danish government to Qaanaaq. In 2003, the Danish Supreme Court accepted that these were acts of expropriation, while the Danish Prime Minister’s Office admitted that they constituted a serious offence and unlawful conduct and agreed to pay compensation.

Then, in January 1968, a cabin fire on board a B52 bomber carrying four thermonuclear bombs forced its crew to abandon the aircraft before it could make an emergency landing. The bomber and its nuclear cargo crashed on the sea ice in North Star Bay. The environmental pollution caused by the detonation of the explosives, and the radioactive contamination of the area resulting from the dispersal of the nuclear payload, necessitated an ambitious clean-up operation. In 2008, a BBC article claimed that not all parts of the bomb had been found, though a Danish report the next year challenged this assertion.

The workers involved in the clean-up reported a higher incidence of cancer and other long-term health impacts, and brought lawsuits against Denmark and the U.S. The incident also raised questions about how the U.S. had deployed nuclear weapons in Greenland despite Denmark adopting a nuclear-free policy in 1957. Even at Camp Century that was decommissioned in 1967, the toxic remains – including radioactive waste and untreated sewage – that were long buried under the ice have become a source of environmental concern as the ice melts.

Thus, while many in Greenland are favourably disposed to a closer relationship with the U.S., they are also more informed about the historic highs and lows in the trilateral Greenland-Denmark-US relationship. There is, for instance, an acute sense of awareness that the US military presence and activities in Greenland were enabled, and are still regulated, by the agreements of 1941 and 1951 that directly concern Greenland and yet which were signed with the U.S. by the government of a colonial power (Denmark) from whom they are now seeking to be independent – prior to the establishment of Greenland’s Home Rule Government in 1979 and Self Government in 2009.

The frustration is not so much with the U.S. military establishment, as it is about Greenlanders not being consulted by previous Danish governments in decisions that continue to impact them directly. It does not suggest a lack of understanding about the crucial role Greenland played in the Second World War and the Cold War, or a lack of interest in cultivating a stronger partnership with the U.S. Instead, it simply indicates a growing desire to have a seat at the table, convey their concerns, advance their interests, and make decisions about matters that concern them (as captured in the adage “nothing about us without us”).

From the vantage point of some in the U.S. defence and security community, however, this could be perceived differently. Not so much through the lens of self-determination, indigenous autonomy and self-governance, as through the framework of geopolitical and geoeconomic risks. It is well and good that Greenlanders wish to be consulted in decisions that directly concern them, but what if a current or future leader might seek to revisit longstanding defence and security arrangements? What if they wish to pursue policies less conducive to U.S. interests and friendlier to U.S. adversaries? What risks does that pose to the future of the U.S. military presence and activities in the region, and to U.S. national security?

From this perspective, any change in the status quo between Greenland and Denmark also has major implications for U.S. security. This could explain Trump’s initial approach of dealing directly with Denmark. At the same time, the direction of travel in Greenland is clear. As a realist, Trump can see that so long as Greenland and Denmark remain in a turbulent half-in-half-out marriage, the interests of the U.S. could be endangered even as a bystander to their internal bickering. So, a change in the status quo could be beneficial, especially if backed by the U.S. This could explain Trump’s more recent approach of dealing directly with Greenland.

But that still does not eliminate the risk that a future leader of an independent Greenland might pursue policies contrary to U.S. interests. At a time of intensifying great power competition, it is not difficult to see why Trump might perceive any risk of current or future prevarication or equivocation on the part of Greenland as a vulnerability that the U.S. simply cannot afford. Using Trump’s logic, buying Greenland and integrating it with the U.S. simply makes the most sense: it eliminates such risks altogether.

The irony is that the U.S. already enjoys overwhelming support for a closer bilateral relationship in Greenland, so there is little that can be achieved through the rhetoric of acquisition or the potential use of force that cannot be achieved simply by building on the existing goodwill. The proposal to buy Greenland serves more to undermine, rather than build, trust. In the 21st century, the leader of a state as well-resourced as the US has many more tools in his armoury to be able to secure its long-term interests without needing to embark on neoimperialist adventures, undermine longstanding alliances, and disrespect local peoples. Engaging directly, honestly and respectfully with the people of Greenland and their elected officials would be far more effective than flashes and flexes of cowboy masculinity.

The current Greenlandic leadership is already keen for a stronger partnership with the U.S. and the Western Allies, but they wish to form these alliances as Greenlanders rather than Danes or Americans. As Prime Minister Múte Egede of Greenland said to Fox News, “We want to be independent in Greenland, but Greenland is part of the Western alliance, and we will always be part of the Western alliance and a strong partner for the U.S. We are in the North American continent, and your security is our security.” On the question of independence, he clarified that while “it is up to the Greenlandic people to decide when we want to be independent”, even if Greenland did, “it will always be a part of the Western alliance” but which they wished to be a part of “as a Greenlandic people”.

Greenland represents both a gigantic opportunity and a potential vulnerability for the U.S. But to fully develop that relationship it’s important that the U.S. understands and respects the right of the Greenlandic people to self-determination, indigenous autonomy and self-governance. As we enter the Arctic Century, we would do well to remember that Greenland – the grand centrepiece of the Arctic – is not only paving the way, but also holding court as kingmaker.