Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Artemy Sharapov
[REGNUM] US President-elect Donald Trump has reiterated plans to buy Greenland from Denmark, calling the island a critical asset for America's national security.
Trump said control of Greenland was strategic to monitor Russian and Chinese activities in the Arctic and protect against potential threats from either country.
“I’m talking about protecting the free world,” the head of the White House said, answering questions from journalists.
The new administration is apparently planning to reconsider the country's military presence in the Arctic. At the same time, the US plans for Greenland raise a lot of questions, especially considering that the US has been using the island's territory for military purposes for 70 years.
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF STANLEY KUBRICK
The agreement on the military presence of the US Army in Greenland was concluded during the Second World War. The Danish embassy in Washington refused to recognize the occupation of Denmark by the Third Reich and sanctioned the American military presence on the island.
In 1950, construction began on a large US Air Force base on the island, named Thule after the nearby Eskimo village.
By the 1960s, the base had been expanded, and B-52 nuclear-capable strategic bombers were stationed in Greenland, carrying out combat sorties around the clock to the borders of the USSR with nuclear bombs on board as part of Operation Chrome Dome.
It was assumed that the round-the-clock presence of nuclear weapons carriers in the airspace would give the US Air Force an advantage in the event of an unexpected outbreak of conflict. Before departure, the crews were assigned targets for strikes on Soviet territory.
Operation Chrome Dome formed the basis for Stanley Kubrick's feature film Dr. Strangelove. The plot centers on the crew of a B-52 bomber that makes a regular flight to the Soviet Union's Arctic borders and ultimately launches a nuclear strike.
The story told by Kubrick seems even more realistic when you consider that US Air Force bomber crews repeatedly practiced nuclear strike tactics.
This practice eventually backfired on the US: on January 21, 1968, a fire broke out on board a bomber assigned to the Thule base. The crew managed to abandon the plane, which crashed in the immediate vicinity of the base. As a result of the incident, four B28 thermonuclear bombs were “lost” in the ice of Greenland.
Information about the incident was classified. Only in the 1990s did it become known that the American military had found fragments of three bombs, and one was still "out there somewhere," poisoning the local ecology. Operation Chrome Dome was curtailed, but the US did not abandon the idea of deploying aircraft on the island.
In modern American military doctrine, Greenland is given a special role, military expert Alexander Mikhailovsky noted in an interview with IA Regnum.
"We are not only talking about control over the Arctic, but also about a strategic advantage in the event of a global war. It is no secret that both the US and the USSR planned to exchange nuclear strikes through, say, the North Pole in the event of a major war - this is the shortest route," the expert says.
According to him, this is why the US National Missile Defense System (BMEWS) early warning radar stations were deployed in Greenland. The complex is designed to detect nuclear missiles and their carriers.
In 2021, during his first term, Trump unveiled an updated missile defense concept. The updates were needed because Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea had acquired new weapons that “challenged existing defenses.”
| …repeating a point raised elsewhere… |
The current desire to take control of Greenland may be due to Washington's fears, says Jens Wenzel, an analyst at Nordic Defence Analysis.
"The Americans are seriously concerned that Russia could launch a large-scale attack on the United States. Today, there is no air monitoring over the entire territory of Greenland, it is essentially a 'free zone,'" Wenzel told Reuters.
In addition to “cutting off the Russian threat,” control of Greenland also reduces the risk of an attack from China. According to American analysts, if China were to launch missiles at the US East Coast, their trajectory would pass through the North Pole.
That's why Trump isn't lying when he talks about Greenland's strategic importance to the United States.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN THE ARCTIC
With the end of the Cold War, the US presence in Greenland was partially curtailed. The Thule base was renamed Pituffik, some facilities were closed or mothballed, and personnel were reduced from 10,000 to 2,000.
However, with the aggravation of the military-political situation in the world, Washington together with its NATO allies again took up the old - in the literal sense. Special platforms for the rapid deployment of MAAS aircraft were installed at the airfield in Pituffik, allowing the airbase to be used all year round (in winter, the temperature in northern Greenland drops to minus 45 degrees). The complex allows the use of short and/or icy runways for launching fighters and significantly expands the US capabilities for operating the base.
Notably, the upgrades were carried out during Trump's first term. The Pentagon also said that the base's capabilities would be expanded.
"We don't want to find ourselves in a situation where our only option is military defeat," said General Glenn van Herk, head of the U.S. Northern Command.
After the installation of MAAS systems at the Thule/Pituffik base in Greenland, regular exercises of the US and Canadian Air Forces began, called Amalgam Dart. At the same time, Denmark, as a NATO ally of the US, has never opposed holding exercises on its territory. Therefore, Trump can expect that he will not be prevented from using Greenland in the interests of the US army in the future, says Anders Pak Nielsen, an analyst at the Danish Defense College.
"The United States already has access to this territory. They already have early warning radars at the Pituffik space base. This is the base they called Thule Air Base. And if the Americans wanted to expand their military presence in Greenland, they could simply ask the Danish and Greenlandic governments," Nilsen notes.
However, the US may simply not want to ask permission from its junior partners. According to the Russian ambassador to Denmark Vladimir Barbin, the US is already preparing the Thule/Pituffik base in Greenland to house nuclear weapons carriers.
"Its comprehensive modernization is underway, including the radar, costing billions of US dollars. An airfield infrastructure is also being created there for F-35 fighters, which are capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Such fighters have already used the base's airfield during US Air Force exercises," the ambassador told reporters.
In turn, the US Embassy in Denmark stated that Washington "has no plans to increase its military presence in Greenland." Allegedly, it is only about upgrading the existing base. At the same time, it is obvious that the US is considering the possibility of deploying nuclear weapons on Greenland territory — despite the "sins of the past."
In 1995, the US declassified some of the documents on the “Thule incident,” where they admitted to violating Denmark’s non-nuclear status. The publication of the documents caused an international scandal, so the US no longer dared to deploy strategic aviation in Greenland, primarily because of the position of the Danish authorities. A conditional “Anschluss,” or, in Trump’s terminology, a “deal” on Greenland, could have resolved this problem and allowed Washington to return to the realities of the Cold War.
ARE THERE ANY THREATS TO RUSSIA?
The American administration has other trump cards – they can achieve what they want in other ways. For example, Trump can demand that European countries increase their spending on NATO and get carte blanche from Denmark to deploy any forces in Greenland.
In this case, the US will be able to seriously modify its missile defense systems in the Arctic and even deploy nuclear weapons carriers in Greenland.
"The re-equipment of the Pituffik/Thule base for fighters suggests that strategic aviation is unlikely to be sent there. It's not the 1960s now, bombs no longer need to be transported, there is no point in pulling "strategists" to our borders. In other words, new threats to our security are not emerging yet," military expert Mikhailovsky believes.
In essence, the Regnum source continues, the US is not expanding its military presence in the Arctic, but is patching up holes in its own missile defense system. But this does not mean that Russia can calm down and not react to what is happening, especially given the unpredictability of the new US administration.
|
