Looks like Greenland is back on the menu. In a series of Truth Social posts, President-elect Donald Trump announced that American ownership of the Arctic island, which hosts the United States Space Force’s only overseas base, is an “absolute necessity” for national security. Earlier in December, Trump selected PayPal co-founder Ken Howery as ambassador to Denmark, which governs Greenland as an autonomous territory. Howery previously served as ambassador to Sweden during the previous Trump administration. Back in 2019, Trump first suggested purchasing Greenland, which sparked sharp rebukes from Danish leadership. In response to Trump’s newest proposal, the current Prime Minister of Greenland, Mute Egede, declared “we are not for sale and we will not be for sale.” This discussion has added to an already-growing body of foreign policy reporting about increasing great power competition in the Arctic, where climate change is opening new shipping lanes and countries race to declare continental shelf claims over oil and mineral resources.
Foreign policy commentary on the Arctic region, however, often misses a key point: the Arctic plays a unique and critical role in space security. Any satellite in a polar or sun-synchronous orbit, such as those in critical communications, imagery and weather monitoring constellations, requires an Arctic ground station for consistent tracking, telemetry, and control throughout every revolution. As space assets proliferate and competition with Russia and China increases, the Arctic will only become more important. The debate over physical control of Greenland is only one piece of this puzzle.
The Arctic — defined as the area north of the Arctic Circle at approximately 66 degrees north latitude, that encompasses most of Greenland and the northernmost regions of North America, Europe and Asia — has long had geopolitical importance. During World War II, the U.S. military occupied Greenland on behalf of the Danish government-in-exile while Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany. Much of the existing infrastructure on the island is a remnant of American wartime construction efforts, including the current air hub of Kangerlussuaq.
Since the Cold War, Alaska and the Canadian Arctic have played host to radar stations for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). For Russia, the Arctic is directly tied to both economic security — the region generates 20% of Russian exports and 10% of total GDP — and geopolitical survival. Moscow’s nuclear deterrence strategy is centered around a credible second-strike nuclear capability using its ballistic missile submarine fleet, which is primarily based on the Arctic Kola Peninsula. The People’s Republic of China, which considers itself a “near-Arctic” state and has observer status in many transnational Arctic organizations, has its own Arctic Strategy, “Polar Silk Road” program and multiple dual-use Arctic installations.
For Denmark, Greenland represents a ticket to the Arctic — one the country is willing to pay for. On Dec. 24, 2024, Denmark announced a $1.5 billion increase in military spending for the island, including funding for new sled patrols and upgrades to the Kangerlussuaq airfield to support F-35s. On the civil side, the Danish parliament sends over $500 million to Greenland every year, which helps fund infrastructure projects like the island’s longest paved road (in progress) and a new international airport terminal (just completed) in the capital of Nuuk. These investments are intended to support projected economic growth fueled by ecotourism — Americans will be able to fly directly from Newark, New Jersey, to Nuuk on United Airlines starting in summer 2025] — but may contribute to self-sufficiency and a growing independence sentiment on the island. While the population of Greenland is still small at just under 60,000 people, about 90% of these residents are Greenlandic Inuit (kalaallit), who speak Greenlandic (Kalaallisut) and call the island “Kalaallit Nunaat.” A poll in 2019 showed a majority of Greenlanders supported separation from Denmark within the next two decades.
Space operations in the Arctic
As tourism increases, diminishing sea ice opens new trade routes, and geopolitical rivals maneuver, whoever maintains influence over the Arctic region stands to gain economic and strategic benefits. U.S. Army Air Corps founder Billy Mitchell once said: “whoever holds Alaska will hold the world.” He meant this due to its proximity by air to strategic bombing targets (90% of the world’s industrial centers are within 10 hours from Anchorage), but his words apply to space and the broader Arctic region. Continuous command, control and surveillance of orbiting spacecraft requires a resilient presence in the Arctic. Polar ground stations, whether military, civil, or commercial, are the only facilities available for a downlink every orbit for satellites in polar or sun-synchronous inclinations. Modern military operations are increasingly dependent on polar-orbiting satellites, from weather monitoring, to communications, to imaging and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; even for potential navigation alternatives to GPS. Russian satellites often use Molniya or Tundra orbits, which are highly elliptical paths that result in longer dwell times over high latitudes — and require an Arctic facility to keep tabs on them. In a conflict, the Space Force will need unbroken access to these critical capabilities.
The Space Force currently operates two Arctic facilities that provide missile warning and space surveillance capabilities: Pituffik Space Base, formerly known as Thule, in northern Greenland; and Clear Space Force Station, which lies just below the Arctic Circle in central Alaska. While Clear is secure deep within inland Alaska, an independence movement in Greenland or an American departure from NATO might require a bilateral renegotiation of the Space Force presence in Pituffik.
NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) operate other ground stations in Alaska for the Near Space Network, Landsat missions, while a number of distributed commercial ground stations are used to communicate with commercial polar-orbiting satellites. The world’s largest satellite ground station is in Svalbard, Norway, operated by the Norwegian company Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT). The Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) also operates commercial ground stations in northern Sweden, Alaska and the Northwest Territories of Canada. The aptly-named startup Arctic Space Technologies has developed a “hyperscale”-capable satellite ground station in Sweden, just below the Arctic Circle. The ability to access, maintain, support and defend all these Arctic installations is critical for constant command and control of allied space assets and continuous tracking of adversary space activities.
The Arctic also plays a role in launch capabilities. The U.S. and Russia both possess near-Arctic launch sites optimal for placing small payloads into polar orbits — the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska, and the Plesetsk Cosmodrome near Arkhangelsk, respectively — which could become key assets for rapidly reconstituting space capabilities during a global conflict. Norway’s Andøya Space Center, located above the Arctic Circle at 69 degrees North, is set to become the first operational orbital launch facility in continental Europe sometime this year. Sweden’s Esrange Space Center, at 68 degrees North, is close behind. Canada’s best option for an orbital launch site, the Canso, Nova Scotia, facility operated by Maritime Launch, is also suited for launching polar-orbiting satellites, even though it lies further to the south.
Russia operates dozens of Arctic military facilities, many of which contribute to space command, control, and surveillance functions. But Beijing also understands the role that geography plays in space command and control, operating a fleet of satellite command ships and a ground station in Argentina (which is directly antipodal to mainland China). China is expanding its presence in the Arctic, publishing its first Arctic Strategy in 2020 and sending three icebreakers into the Arctic Ocean this summer. In 2020, former General Counsel of the U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Tom Ayres wrote in SpaceNews about the risk posed by China securing physical infrastructure in the region. Today, Beijing operates a handful of Arctic research facilities with dual-use and space applications, in Svalbard, Norway; Iceland and Greenland itself.
AI will undoubtedly play a role in future warfare. Recent developments, like Palantir’s partnerships with Voyager Space and Anduril have further tied AI to military space. If “data is the fossil fuel of AI,” as OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever recently described it, then satellites are the pipelines that gather and route data — and Arctic facilities are the pipelines’ vulnerable terminals.
These facilities, then, must be resilient. While the administration may not be able to close a deal to purchase Greenland, it should seek to expand the American presence in the Arctic for space applications — and secure access through international partnerships where possible. Any space organization, whether national security, civil, or commercial, should understand its “Arctic exposure” for contingency planning, and explore cost-effective ways to proliferate, distribute, or reinforce Arctic-based capabilities. Commercial space services, whether satellite communications, mobile or distributed ground stations, alternative space-based navigation, in-orbit space domain awareness, or even re-entry capsules, can all support remote Arctic operations.
The loss of Pituffik Space Force Base, the deactivation of an Arctic commercial ground station, or the activation of a Chinese military space facility in the region would all have serious consequences for both a future conflict and business as usual in orbit. Everyone in the space community, whether industry, government, or military, should therefore pay close attention to Arctic political developments in 2025.
Dave Marsh is a technical advisor at the Wilson Center Polar Institute. A former space industry executive, he is focused on sharing how space affects the lives of everyone on Earth. He was awarded the Young Explorer 2024 award from The Explorers Club for his research project on space-based navigation and communication in the Arctic. Prior to his time in the space industry, he worked as a strategy consultant for the Department of Defense, and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a degree in International Relations.
