I Dogsledded Greenland to Map Trump's Arctic Ambitions | WSJ

TL;DR

A WSJ journalist travels 450 miles across Greenland to an abandoned US base, questioning why Trump demands ownership when the US already has military access.

Key Points

• 1.The US once had massive military presence in Greenland, now minimal. During the Cold War, the US operated up to 17 bases with 10,000 soldiers; today fewer than 200 American soldiers remain at a single base.
• 2.Bluie East Two reveals the logistical reality of Arctic military operations. Built in 1942 and abandoned in 1947, reaching it required a plane, a fiberglass fishing boat crunching through ice, and a dog sled across arctic temperatures of -15°C.
• 3.A 1968 nuclear accident eroded Greenlandic trust in the US. A B-52 bomber crashed near Thule base carrying four nuclear weapons, causing radioactive contamination — revealing the US had secretly violated Denmark's zero-nuclear-tolerance policy.
• 4.Greenland's critical minerals are a key strategic prize. Beneath the frozen eastern landscape lie what are believed to be some of the world's largest reserves of critical minerals and metals, though extraction at scale remains commercially unattractive.
• 5.The central unanswered question is why ownership, not access. The US is already legally permitted to operate military bases in Greenland and could reopen sites like Bluie East Two immediately, making Trump's insistence on owning the island strategically puzzling.