First there were Russian and Chinese warships that were supposedly patrolling “everywhere” off the coast of Greenland. Now it is the sky over the Arctic island that Donald Trump uses as an argument for his territorial claims to Denmark: Greenland is of “crucial importance” for the “Golden Dome” missile defense shield – one of the US President’s many ambitious military projects. The whole of America should be protected from missiles almost completely.
And the island in the far north actually plays a central role in reconnaissance and defense due to its strategic location. Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles bound for Washington or New York would likely fly over Greenland – the Arctic route is the shortest. Depending on the type, the Russian weapons can fly well over 5,500 kilometers.
“From a technical point of view, it makes sense to station a defense there,” says Markus Schiller, who teaches long-range missiles at the Bundeswehr University in Munich. Due to the geographical situation, “all Russian ICBMs fired at the American east coast would fly over Greenland.” This also applies to rockets that are fired from new Chinese silos. The USA has repeatedly warned in recent years that Beijing is rapidly expanding its arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles; including on the border with Mongolia.
With defense systems on Greenland, the Americans could more easily knock such missiles out of the sky, says Schiller. However, stationing them cannot do anything against nuclear-armed submarines or long-range bombers.
With the “Golden Dome,” Trump wants to create an air defense shield over America by the end of his term in office. It is designed to defend against ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles and advanced cruise missiles. The hit rate is almost 100 percent, Trump claimed, ending the missile threat “forever.”
Experts consider the schedule to be unrealistic, and there are also major economic and technical challenges. The “Golden Dome” will consist of multiple interceptor layers and provide a variety of defense options: including lasers and “space-based interceptor missiles.” But also several conventional systems on land.
This is where Greenland could come into play: One possibility is to station ground-based interceptors (GBI) there, says expert Schiller. The Americans have developed GBIs to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles, some of which fly outside the Earth’s atmosphere, in the mid-flight phase. They are an essential part of American missile defense.
However, the two locations in Alaska and California are primarily aimed at threats from North Korea and Iran – not against Russia and China. GBIs in Greenland could change that. They would be suitable, says Schiller, “to combat intercontinental ballistic missiles precisely in the flight phase that takes place over Greenland.” So far, Trump has not explained further how exactly he wants to integrate the island into the “Golden Dome”.
It has long been central to missile defense
Especially since the island has been an integral part of the US missile warning and defense system since the 1940s. The Americans once had 17 bases there and significantly more soldiers. Most of it was dismantled after the end of the Cold War. Today they still operate the Pituffik Space Base – the northernmost facility of the US Department of Defense. The site is considered central to American missile and space surveillance; Among other things, a powerful early warning radar system is installed there.
Even if, according to public information, there is currently no missile defense system stationed at the base, the Danes are likely to give the Americans enough opportunities to expand their defense – without annexation. The Danish government has repeatedly indicated that it would be open to this. A joint defense agreement from 1951, which was adjusted in 2004, gives the Americans a free hand, including for additional bases.
“If President Trump wants to achieve his goal of building a missile defense system that can also protect against hypersonic missiles and drones, the US military will have to expand its facilities in Greenland, probably including interceptors,” said Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen, a professor at the University of Copenhagen. Such an initiative could therefore be linked to NATO’s missile defense and the EU plans for European drone defense. These are different technologies, but are part of the same strategic objective. “I find it difficult to imagine that Denmark could object to this,” says Rasmussen.
Are Russian and Chinese warships “everywhere”?
Trump also justified the goal of taking over Greenland by saying that there were “Russian and Chinese ships, warships everywhere.” From the perspective of Danish security experts, this is not the case. Accordingly, Chinese ships have so far been a rarity there. Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said that no Chinese warship had been seen in the area for around a decade. “There is no Chinese threat there.”
The Danish foreign intelligence service Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste (FE) takes a somewhat different view. The latest annual report says China is preparing for a military presence in the Arctic. Chinese icebreakers and research ships are deployed in the region and have conducted joint patrol exercises with Russia. China wants to build up capacity for independent military operations there. However, China’s activities have so far focused primarily on the waters north of the Bering Strait.
Russia’s presence in the Arctic goes well beyond this. There is currently no accumulation of Russian ships in the immediate vicinity of Greenland. But for Russia, the waters between Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands (which also belong to the Danish Kingdom) and Great Britain are crucial. This so-called GIUK gap is considered a bottleneck; Russia’s submarine fleet has to go through it if it wants to go to the North Atlantic in the event of a war. Russian and NATO submarines are already playing a cat-and-mouse game there.
Russia is arming itself in the Arctic and aims to maintain regional military superiority, writes the Danish news service. And it is using all available means to monitor and map the waters surrounding the GIUK gap. This is part of the preparations for a possible confrontation with NATO.
There are currently no US naval bases in Iceland or Greenland. This has to do with the inhospitable conditions – there are no ice-free deep-water ports on Greenland. Even in summer, the sea there is only navigable to a limited extent. In addition, the islands have previously been used by the USA primarily for early warning purposes and for maritime and airspace surveillance. Stationing large troops there makes little sense. The US Navy operates in the North Atlantic from Norway or Great Britain. However, it is assumed that nothing would stand in the way of expanding American capacities in either Greenland or Iceland.
