Trump’s Greenland bases could change Arctic defense. I learned why at 76 below zero
I spent four years as an Army infantry officer in Alaska, where our operational responsibilities stretched from Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean to the Aleutian Islands reaching toward Russia.
During Exercise Brim Frost ’89, some 26,000 American and Canadian troops took the field, and I served as a brigade operations officer. As we maneuvered across Alaska’s interior, temperatures plunged as low as 76 degrees below zero. The exercise produced more than 250 cold-weather injuries, including 88 cases of frostbite. At those temperatures, fuel systems become unreliable, batteries lose power, lubricants thicken and weapons and vehicles can fail in ways soldiers from warmer climates rarely encounter.
And no, a week on the slopes at Vail does not prepare anyone for that. The Arctic punishes amateurs.
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That experience is why President Donald Trump’s Greenland announcement at the United Nations on Tuesday deserves attention beyond the political headlines. "We’ll be building two very major military bases," the president told the General Assembly.
The agreement Trump signed with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland Premier Jens-Frederik Nielsen amends the 1951 defense pact. It allows the United States to modernize and expand the existing Pituffik Space Base in the northwest and to establish new defense areas at Narsarsuaq in the south and Mestersvig in the northeast. It also grants U.S. forces broad access by land, air and sea, including undersea access for American public vessels within Greenland’s territorial waters.
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Announcing an Arctic base, however, is a long way from making one operational. Frederiksen said no decision has been made on the specifics of Golden Dome, and Washington has yet to say which forces will occupy the new sites or when.
Forget the flat map and look at the globe from over the North Pole. Alaska, northern Canada and Greenland form the northern approaches to North America, and Greenland sits astride the routes connecting the Arctic Ocean, the North Atlantic and Europe.
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The Pentagon’s 2024 Arctic Strategy calls the North American Arctic vital to homeland defense because it hosts NORAD’s aerospace and maritime warning.
Greenland has been strategic terrain for generations. Narsarsuaq itself was an American air base, Bluie West One, until the United States closed it in 1958. At the height of the Cold War, Washington operated 17 military facilities with more than 10,000 troops on the island. Today only Pituffik remains, with about 150 service members.
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Pituffik supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance. The new agreement recognizes American access to defend Greenland, the NATO area and the American continent, including through Golden Dome, Trump’s planned missile-defense system.
Add Narsarsuaq and Mestersvig, and the United States could build a distributed Arctic network. Pituffik is already the northern sensor and space node. Narsarsuaq could strengthen access to Greenland’s southern approaches and the North Atlantic, while Mestersvig could extend American and allied reach toward the Greenland Sea.
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That geography matters most against Russia.
Russia fields the most developed military presence in the Arctic. Its Kola Peninsula hosts the Northern Fleet and important strategic nuclear forces. The Pentagon warns that Russian Arctic capabilities could place the American homeland and allied territory at risk and complicate U.S. power projection.
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Russia does not have to invade Greenland for Greenland to matter. Russian submarines, long-range aircraft and missiles make the island important because of where it sits. More American sites could improve warning, surveillance, reinforcement and resilience while reducing our dependence on a single installation.
China presents a different problem. Beijing is not an Arctic nation, yet it has spent years seeking influence there. The Pentagon strategy documents Chinese icebreaker operations, dual-use research and growing military cooperation with Russia.
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Against China, the agreement’s most consequential provision may involve no runway at all. No non-NATO country may establish a manned or unmanned military installation or maintain a persistent military presence in Greenland without the parties’ agreement. The pact also bars non-allied control of, or significant influence over, critical infrastructure, resource extraction and other sensitive sectors. It has no expiration date, and it requires Denmark and Greenland to ensure that any future independent Greenland remains in NATO and assumes the pact’s defense obligations.
"No U.S. adversary will ever be permitted to establish a military presence in Greenland," Trump said. That closes one path to a Chinese foothold in the Arctic.
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None of this changes the lesson I learned at 76 below zero. An Arctic base is a supply chain that has to survive January. And an Arctic force is more than troops flown north on short notice. The people operating those bases must know how to live, maintain equipment and perform their missions where routine mistakes quickly turn deadly.
Fuel must arrive. Aircraft must fly. Vehicles must start. Communications must work. Soldiers must function outdoors without becoming cold-weather casualties. Spare parts must travel thousands of miles from America’s industrial base.
The Army’s Arctic strategy says the service must "man, train, equip, and organize to win in the Arctic." The Pentagon calls for better communications above 65 degrees north, where satellite coverage thins. Pituffik and Mestersvig both sit well north of that line.
Can two additional U.S. defense areas strengthen deterrence against Russia and China? They can, but concrete and runways alone deter no one.
Deterrence exists when an adversary believes America and its allies can see what is coming, move forces, sustain them and respond effectively. Greenland strengthens each of those against Russia. Against China, denying military access and strategic investment may matter just as much.
The agreement provides geography and access. The hard work is converting them into enduring capability.
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Alaska taught me long ago that the Arctic has little patience for PowerPoint plans or optimistic assumptions. At 76 below zero, strategy meets reality fast.
The adversaries have changed since World War II and the Cold War. The geography has not. Neither has the Arctic’s unforgiving nature.