President Trump announced at the United Nations this week that the United States will build two major new military bases in Greenland, part of a broader defense agreement that expands America’s footprint across the Arctic.
“We’ll be building two very major military bases,” Trump told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.
The agreement, signed by Trump, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland Premier Jens-Frederik Nielsen, amends the 1951 US-Denmark defense pact. It allows the US to modernize and expand the existing Pituffik Space Base in northwest Greenland and to establish new defense areas at Narsarsuaq in the south and Mestersvig in the northeast. It also grants US forces broad access by land, air and sea, including undersea access for American public vessels in Greenland’s territorial waters.
Frederiksen said no decision has been made yet on how the deal fits into Golden Dome, Trump’s planned missile-defense system, and Washington has not said which forces will occupy the new sites or when.
A Cold War Footprint, Revived
Greenland isn’t new territory for the US military. Narsarsuaq was once an American air base known as Bluie West One, operated until it closed in 1958. At the height of the Cold War, the US ran 17 military facilities on the island with more than 10,000 troops stationed there. Today only Pituffik remains active, with about 150 service members.
Pituffik currently supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance. Under the new agreement, that role expands, with the pact explicitly recognizing US access to defend Greenland, the NATO area and the North American continent, including through Golden Dome.
Keeping Rivals Out
The agreement doesn’t just add American bases — it locks out others. No non-NATO country may establish a manned or unmanned military installation or maintain a persistent military presence in Greenland without agreement from the parties. It also bars non-allied control of, or significant influence over, critical infrastructure, resource extraction and other sensitive sectors on the island.
The pact has no expiration date. It also requires Denmark and Greenland to ensure that any future independent Greenland remains in NATO and takes on the pact’s defense obligations.
“No U.S. adversary will ever be permitted to establish a military presence in Greenland,” Trump said.
Russia currently fields the Arctic’s most developed military presence, anchored by its Northern Fleet and strategic nuclear forces on the Kola Peninsula. China, while not an Arctic nation, has spent years working for influence in the region through icebreaker operations, dual-use research and growing military cooperation with Russia.
The Reality on the Ground
Building bases is one thing. Operating them is another. Arctic conditions are brutal enough that even seasoned military units have struggled. During Exercise Brim Frost ’89 in Alaska, some 26,000 American and Canadian troops trained in temperatures that dropped 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 outright.
The Pentagon’s 2024 Arctic Strategy identifies the North American Arctic as vital to homeland defense because it hosts NORAD’s aerospace and maritime warning systems, and it calls for better communications above 65 degrees north latitude, where satellite coverage thins out. Both Pituffik and Mestersvig sit well north of that line.
For now, the agreement provides geography and legal access. Whether it translates into a functioning, sustainable Arctic military presence — one that can survive an Arctic winter and actually deter Russia and China — remains to be seen.
