President Donald Trump argues that U.S. security demands the annexation of Greenland from Denmark.
There’s no question that Greenland has outsize strategic importance to the United States. The island sits astride the entrance to the Northwest Passage, an increasingly important waterway as melting ice makes the route navigable for both Russia and China. The U.S. has maintained military bases there since World War II. The U.S. established Thule Air Base, since renamed Pituffik Space Base, in 1951 as a lynchpin in its primary early warning radar base to detect potential Soviet missile launches. The 1951 Defense of Greenland Agreement between the U.S. and Denmark was a model for Cold War cooperation among NATO’s European and North American members.
