At the World Economic Forum in Davos, the US President Trump clarified in unequivocal terms as to why the US wants Greenland, the world’s largest Island, Discounting Greenland’s untapped natural resources, President Trump stated the importance of Greenland in US national security, more specifically its military security. The US, according to President Trump, wants to erect the military infrastructure in Greenland in support of its military initiative of deploying a multi-layered missile defense system – Golden Dome. The Golden Dome is unlike the traditional regional missile defense system such as the battle tested Israeli Iron Dome which is a ground-based system. At the moment the US does not field an air defense system such as the Israeli Iron Dome. The Golden Dome system is based on a concept attributed to Edward Teller, the father of hydrogen bomb, and Lowel Wood, an astrophysicist who hypothesized the ‘Brilliant Pebble’ system to defend against Soviet nuclear missiles. This called for placing thousands of small satellites in low-earth orbits, each housing heat seeking missiles. In effect, the Golden Dome, which some experts believe defies the laws of physics and the US fiscal reality, is a space-based global missile defense system. If the US succeeds in deploying Golden Dome, the mankind would usher into the age of space warfare after it has completely destroyed the concept of strategic stability and deterrence as we know it while triggering an intense arms race.
The idea to build a missile defense shield with ground and space-based weapons was first proposed by President Ronald Reagan’s administrations Strategic Defence Initiative in 1983, Star Wars. Without a Strategic Defense in place, President Reagan saw the then in-vogue Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine as a suicidal pact. In his executive order calling for a Next Generation Missile Defense Shield in January, 2025, President Trump mentioned that this initiative was called-off before reaching its objectives. This initiative was formally ended by President Bill Clinton in 1993 in view of the shift in threat perception with the collapse of Soviet Union, technical feasibility issues, high costs, and concerns for reigniting arms race. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in the US, the George W. Bush Administration unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in December, 2001. The ABM treaty was first signed between the US and Soviet Union in 1972 to prevent an arms race and achieve strategic stability. Following the US withdrawal from ABM treaty, Russia began investing in hypersonic Avangard glide vehicle and fielded it in 2019.
Trump administrations renewed focus on missile defense shield along the lines of Star Wars is not without reason. In May 2025, researchers at the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Forces revealed that China’s hypersonic weapons can travel at extreme speeds of up to 20 Mach, strike global targets in minutes and can be launched from space. In July and August 2021, China tested new types of hypersonic weapons. According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, in each test, China fired a payload into low-Earth orbit, which travelled at least partially around the globe; it then released a hypersonic glide vehicle that travelled through the atmosphere to a target site in Chinese territory. China did not officially confirm these tests and stated that the tests were related to the development of reusable spacecraft with civilian applications and many countries were conducting research and development in this area. Russian President Putin, in March 2018, unveiled a new generation of ‘invincible’ strategic weapons, Avangard Hypersonic Glide Vehicle, RS-28 Sarmat ICBM, Poseidon Nuclear Powered Drone, Burevestnik Cruise Missile, Tsirkon Hypersonic Missile. In November 2024, Putin announced the use of a new intermediate-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile, named Oreshnik, against a target in Ukraine and claimed that it cannot be defended against. By developing such weapon system, Russia has used coercive nuclear signaling to dissuade the US military from directly intervening in Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine. Both Russia and China, in this regard, have demonstrated their military capability to hit targets in the US by penetrating its missile defenses. This has led to a situation where the US has lost it military capability to deter both Russia and China.
In this context, Greenland’s geography and geometry is critical to the US military security. In case of ICBM launch by either Russia or China, the projectiles will transverse through the north pole which is the shortest distance between the nuclear armed great powers and overfly Greenland before hitting targets in the US. Although the US is exploring Fort Drum, an Army base near the Canadian border, as a potential site for Golden Dome missile interceptors, placing Golden Dome interceptors in Greenland improves the probability of hitting an incoming missile and therefore the safety of the US homeland by increasing the margin of error of its kill chain. In 1951, the US established the Pituffik Space Base (formerly Thule Air Base) in North West Greenland which hosts early warning radar systems operated by the US space force as part of integrated NORAD air and missile network. The US had first offered Denmark $100 to buy Greenland in 1946 and again in 2019 which was turned down by Denmark.
Although the US has legal rights to use Greenland as a NATO ally under the framework of collective security, it lacks the much-needed sovereign rights to deploy defense systems such as Golden Dome which operate on hair-trigger alert and on the principle of use it or loose it. After the 1968 Thule B-52 crash, Denmark banned nuclear weapons on its soil and the 2004 Igaliku (supplementary) agreement requires the US to consult both Denmark and Greenlandic government before expanding bases, or deploying new military system. The US privileges in Greenland exists only until NATO exists and this post-war military alliance has come under tremendous stress due to issues of burden sharing and free riding by European powers. The US may be preparing for a situation where the NATO is formally dismantled for a new treaty and thus securing its position in Greenland. Hence, it is not President Trump but military science that’s dictating the US administration’s policy under President Trump.
