I spent four years as an Army infantry officer in , 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 Alaskas 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.
TRUMPS GREENLAND DEAL SET FOR SIGNING AFTER MONTHS-LONG FIGHT OVER US CONTROL
That experience is why President Donald Trumps Greenland announcement at the United Nations on Tuesday deserves attention beyond the political headlines. “Well 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 Greenlands territorial waters.
TRUMP DECLARES VICTORY IN HISTORIC DEAL WITH GREENLAND AS HE SECURES ‘PERMANENT’ US MILITARY RIGHTS
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.
WHY TRUMP ZEROED IN ON GREENLAND, THE WORLDS LARGEST ISLAND, MOSTLY COVERED IN ICE â IN 3 CHARTS
The Pentagons 2024 Arctic Strategy calls the North American Arctic vital to homeland defense because it hosts NORADs 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.
TRUMPS MASSIVE GREENLAND DEAL MAKES CLEAR WHO CONTROLS THE ARCTICS STRATEGIC FUTURE
Pituffik supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance. The new agreement recogniz
