Trump Is Right: Greenland Is Vital to US National Security
By Retired Admiral James Stavridis, Fletcher Dean Emeritus, and former supreme allied commander of NATO
In dealing with the world’s largest island, he should play businessman rather than conquering hero.
One vivid recollection I have from my time as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s military commander was a tense hour in a command center observing long-range tracking of Russian strategic bombers flying toward the North Atlantic. Our radars were able to precisely follow the planes and transmit the information to the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. I also had the data routed to my US European Command headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.
So, where was I: At NATO military headquarters in Mons, Belgium? At the alliance’s air command HQ at Ramstein Air Base in Germany? In the control room of a high-tech US warship sailing the North Sea?
Actually, I was at a little-known Air Force base on the north coast of the largest island on earth: Greenland. But it made me realize how critical that island — which is self-governed but part of the Kingdom of Denmark — is to defending not only the northern flank of NATO, but the US itself.
During his first term, when President Donald Trump mused about “buying” Greenland, he was mostly ridiculed — although some analysts saw the proposal as akin to the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867. Trump has renewed the idea in the runup to his second inauguration — his eldest son visited the island this week — and, absurdly, said he wouldn’t rule out using military force to take the island.
Trump’s idea has been definitively shot down by both the Greenlanders and the Danes. In 2019, the prime minister of Greenland had an excellent response: “Greenland is not for sale, but we are open for business.” We ought to take his point.
Because Trump is right about one thing: Greenland, with just 56,000 people in an expanse larger than Mexico, is an immensely valuable piece of real estate.
There are three principal reasons for the island’s geopolitical importance. First, it is a vital element of the Greenland-Iceland-UK “gap” that guards the northern approaches to the Atlantic Ocean from Russian naval forces. One of the great novels of the Cold War, The Bedford Incident
by Mark Rascovich, featured a US Navy destroyer in a fight-to-the-death struggle with a Russian submarine. The incident does not end well for either warship. It is a very realistic depiction of the strategic importance of Greenland as part of NATO’s Arctic frontier and maritime-basing structure.
On my visits to the military installation (known then as Thule air base), signs everywhere advertised it as “the top of the world.” Fair enough, as it is 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It has a deep-water port and a 10,000-foot runway. Most critically, the base houses those advanced early-warning radars, a vital link in NATO and US air and sea defenses. (The base has since been transferred to the US Space Force, and renamed Pituffik Space Base, a nod to the indigenous culture.)
Second, Greenland has important natural resources, including likely deposits of heavy and light rare-earth minerals including neodymium and dysprosium, both vital for computing and green energy. There are strong indications of gold, iron, copper, lead and zinc, including as much as 10 million tons of minerals near Narsaq in the far south, where environmental conditions are favorable to exploitation. Trump is hardly alone in coveting this bounty: China has been seeking mining and security deals with Greenland as part of its efforts to dominate the rare-earth supply chains.
And finally, climate change will make vast areas of Greenland more temperate. Over time, there may be significant agrarian potential. Eco-tourism is already providing a significant economic benefit and could grow exponentially. While the idea of farms and resorts may seem fanciful today, with 80% of the island’s surface covered by ice sheet and temperatures dropping below minus-15 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, things may begin changing by mid-century.
Given that no sale or military annexation is in the offing, the best approach for Washington is furthering the military, diplomatic and economic ties that it already has with Greenland and Denmark. This would not only benefit all parties, but would box out China and Russia.
Militarily, Washington can offer increased defense resources to Greenland, working to some extent directly with the autonomous government but most effectively in partnership with NATO member Denmark. The US can offer many benefits: increasing maritime capability through, for example, aiding Greenland to improve its ports for vital cargo and tourism; using the US Coast Guard to help the islanders create a coastal force to protect fisheries and perform search and rescue; providing land training and new equipment for law enforcement, special operations and firefighting; and facilitating improved air transport, both within the vast island and connecting flights with the US, Canada and Europe.
The US should also use its membership in the Arctic Council — an organization of eight nations, seven of the NATO members, with significant coastlines or land near the Arctic Circle — to work in concert with Greenland directly. (Denmark has recently increased the island government’s voice the council’s affairs.) Washington should not, however, support efforts by political leaders on the island gain independence from Denmark — that would not be good for Greenlanders, Danes or Americans.
Finally, the US can encourage economic investment and tourism. This could include tax incentives for US and NATO-nation mining and oil concerns to ramp up operations on land and at sea within the island’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone. The US military and even the National Park Service can help facilitate logistics for tourism, enhancing cultural and economic links.
The US has tried occasionally over the past 150 years to purchase Greenland. (And America has bought land from Denmark: what are now the US Virgin Islands, in 1917.) But the idea of buying huge chunks of territory from other countries is no longer viable. So, let’s try Plan B: working with Denmark on integrating Greenland’s economic, defense and diplomatic needs with our own.
(This post is republished from Bloomberg.)