The Illogical Case Behind Buying Greenland

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Get Nebula using my link for 40% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/wendover  Youtube: http://www.YouTube.com/WendoverProductions Instagram: http://Instagram.com/sam.from.wendover Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/WendoverPro Sponsorship Enquiries: wendover@standard.tv Other emails: sam@wendover.productions Reddit: http://Reddit.com/r/WendoverProductions  Writing by Sam Denby, Tristan Purdy, and Christine Benedetti Editing by Alexander Williard Animation by Derek Brown, Gabriel Ferreras, and Sara Stoltman Sound by Manni Simon  Thumbnail by Simon Buckmaster  References [1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/at-station-nord-greenland-life-for-researchers-is-not-lonely-feature  [2] https://www.scramble.nl/military-news/rdaf-cl-604-permanently-deployed-in-greenland  [3] https://nyheder-tv2-dk.translate.goog/samfund/2025-01-14-fortrolige-dokumenter-afsloerer-plan-om-demonstration-af-magt-i-groenland?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp  [4] https://media.defense.gov/2023/Mar/02/2003171995/-1/-1/0/230204-F-IP109-0159.JPG  [5] https://media.defense.gov/2024/Jul/22/2003507411/-1/-1/0/DOD-ARCTIC-STRATEGY-2024.PDF [6] https://www.americansecurityproject.org/russian-arctic-military-bases/ [7] https://www.chathamhouse.org/2019/06/russias-military-posture-arctic/3-military-infrastructure-and-logistics-russian-arctic

Transcript

00:00This is Station Nord, in Greenland.

00:03It's a Danish base, as the territory is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and therefore

00:07the European country is responsible for its defense.

00:11Station Nord ranks as the northernmost Danish base, and the second northernmost continuously

00:15inhabited place on earth.

00:17Therefore, the job of the six soldiers stationed there is largely just to keep it inhabitable.

00:22Militarily, it doesn't have tremendous purpose beyond existing.

00:26The Danes say to search their sovereignty in the vast emptiness of northern Greenland.

00:31Perhaps the 6,000 foot gravel runway is of some strategic value, but really it's a

00:36research camp that happens to be run by the Danish military.

00:39All summer long, it sees a non-stop rota of scientists.

00:43It's a similar story down in Mestersvig.

00:46This is an old base that at this point is pretty much just maintained, and is occasionally

00:50used for scientific purposes.

00:53Perhaps the best known of Denmark's arctic installations is Danborg.

00:56That's because it's the base of the country's primary military capabilities in the region—dogsled

01:02patrols.

01:03This function originated in World War II when Nazi forces were hiding weather stations in

01:07eastern Greenland in order to improve the accuracy of their forecasts in support of

01:11their military pursuits, and still to this day the dogsleds are the Danish military's

01:15primary means of patrolling almost 10,000 miles of coastline.

01:19Teams of two set out for multi-month missions, hopping between resupply huts refilled by

01:23boat and aircraft during the summer months, and taking years to complete one full patrol

01:28of the coast.

01:29But dogsled patrol, of course, does little beyond assert sovereignty.

01:33Aside from that, there's technically a small Danish installation at Kungerlussuaq Airport,

01:38as it's home to the one and only Danish military aircraft permanently stationed in

01:42Greenland—a Bombardier CL-604 Challenger surveillance aircraft—but that's pretty

01:46much the entirety of Danish military presence north of the Arctic Circle—a couple of

01:51bases, staffed by a couple dozen personnel, and some dogs.

01:55This military geography, or lack thereof, forms part of the basis for the most recent

02:00proposal for the US to just outright purchase Greenland.

02:04Denmark is a NATO member, and therefore some military leaders in the US are concerned about

02:09such a lack of defense capability in such a large region so close to the US.

02:14Of course, the proposal appears preposterous, at first.

02:18Large land purchases by one country from another have not meaningfully happened since the era

02:23of colonialism, and the very appeal of the idea is rooted in the same manner of exploitation

02:28of a territory's resources, be them human or natural.

02:32Greenland, however, is in a unique situation.

02:34It's not quite like Canada or Mexico or the Panama Canal or the Gaza Strip or any

02:40of the other slices of earth American President Trump has proposed annexing.

02:45Greenland acts as an autonomous, self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.

02:49It's similar to the relationship between Scotland and the UK, for example.

02:53Culturally, politically, and geographically, it's almost entirely isolated from Denmark,

02:59but less so economically.

03:01Denmark pays for about two-thirds of Greenland's government budget, and its contributions add

03:05up to about a quarter of the territory's GDP.

03:08Meanwhile, Greenland pays no taxes to Denmark—it's a one-way flow of money.

03:13Therefore, looking at it at the simplest possible level—excluding politics, culture, history,

03:19any of the practical concerns, or the way people actually feel in reality right now—it's

03:24easy to grasp a scenario where all parties come out happy.

03:27The US gets the territory it wants, Greenland gets a greater cash inflow in exchange, and

03:31Denmark stops having to send hundreds of millions of dollars a year to a far-off territory.

03:36But considering the core of the purported value is wrapped up in the strategic benefit

03:40for the military, examining the need requires an understanding of the military geography

03:46across the entire far north.

03:48And here, nestled on the coast of North Star Bay, is the simplest explanation for how Denmark

03:54can have such a minor presence in its massive territory.

03:58This is the United States' largest Arctic installation, Patovic Space Base.

04:04Similar to the Danish equivalents, this is colossal—it's got a 10,000 foot, 3,000

04:09meter runway, it's staffed by about 600 personnel, it's got the world's northernmost

04:14deepwater port—it's really a fully-equipped US military base like those that dot the entire

04:19world just really, really far north.

04:23Its location makes it a three to four hour flight to all of Russia's northern coast,

04:27or just over five hours to Moscow.

04:29Within this proximity, the base's population peaked at more than 10,000 during the height

04:34of tensions with the Soviet Union in the 60s.

04:36Today, its role centers around missile tracking, signals intelligence, and satellite communications,

04:41although it regularly hosts fighter jets and other offensive aircraft to train for their

04:45operations in the environment should the need arise in a conflict.

04:48Patovic, however, is an anomaly—it is by far the largest military facility west of

04:55the Prime Meridian and north of the Arctic Circle.

04:58Its next nearest neighboring facility is Canadian Forces Station Alert, an hour's

05:03flight to the north.

05:04Not much detail is publicly known about what, specifically, the station does, but broadly

05:09it's a joint Canadian-American signals intelligence facility, taking advantage of the location

05:13for surveillance and monitoring of whatever NATO, the US, or Canada deems a threat.

05:18Physically, it's closer to Moscow than it is to Ottawa, which historically allowed for

05:22greater surveillance capabilities on the Soviet Union, and today allows the same with Russia.

05:27It's so far north, in fact, that the curvature of the earth prevents it from having a line

05:32of sight with communications satellites in geosynchronous orbit around the equator.

05:36Therefore, the Canadians built a network of microwave repeaters on mountaintops across

05:41Ellesmere Island that each have line of sight with each other, allowing transmissions to

05:44reach satellites via Eureka, a small combo research military base that is just far enough

05:49south to see the satellites.

05:51There's also a Canadian military presence down on Baffin Island, at the InnovaCivic

05:55naval facility, which is on the cusp of opening following more than a decade of construction

06:00delays.

06:01Its purpose is pretty simple—it's home to two big storage tanks to refuel Canadian

06:05naval vessels, allowing them to patrol longer and further into the Arctic, which is something

06:09the military is keen to do as sea ice shrinks and the waterways become navigable for more

06:13weeks each year.

06:14Beyond that, there's a training facility in Resolute Bay, and as far as major permanent

06:20Canadian military facilities in the Arctic go, that's about it.

06:24To the west, one might expect that the most militarized country on Earth would also have

06:29the most militarized Arctic territory, but that's far from the case.

06:33In fact, the only permanent American facilities north of the Arctic Circle in Alaska are long-range

06:38radar sites used by NORAD for early detection of missiles, aircraft, and other potential

06:43threats, although these days they are primarily run by civilian contractors who fly in and

06:48out of the attached airfields to do work.

06:51Most are not staffed full-time, particularly by enlisted service members.

06:56Just south of the Arctic Circle, though, is a far more significant presence.

07:00Clustered primarily around Fairbanks is a series of bases with the full gamut of US

07:05military capabilities.

07:06There's the largest concentration of fifth-generation fighter jets in the world, the core of the

07:11US's anti-ballistic missile defense system, 20,000 active-duty troops—it's a massive

07:16cluster of might, but it's historically been optimized less for projecting power to

07:20the north, but more so to protect from eastbound threats—from Russia, North Korea, China,

07:26and other Asian nations, considering it's on the Great Circle path between the two continents.

07:31Russia's Arctic posture, however, is quite different.

07:35Tracking westward, it starts modest.

07:38The country's easternmost facility of any significance is referred to as Polar Star.

07:43Coincidentally, it was built in a town that was originally established to assert Russian

07:47sovereignty on the island, as the Americans and Canadians attempted to claim it a century

07:51ago.

07:52That town sat empty after the last resident was killed by a polar bear in 2003, but in

07:56its place, the Russian military built this small base.

08:00It's only accessible by helicopter and boat, and little is known about what happens there

08:04beyond the operations of this radar facility and the associated anti-aircraft missile systems.

08:09But without an airfield, it has little offensive capability.

08:13That's why, a two-hour flight to the west, they're building this—Temp Air Base.

08:18This outpost has existed since the 50s, and like most of the country's military facilities

08:23in the Arctic, it closed following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

08:27But then, over the past decade, it's not only reopened, but has been built up into

08:31a hugely capable facility.

08:34The latest high-quality satellite imagery doesn't even show it, but what was a gravel

08:37airstrip has since been upgraded into a 6,900-foot, 2,100-meter paved runway, capable of accommodating

08:44most military aircraft year-round.

08:47The corresponding base is massive compared to most equivalents at this latitude, housing

08:51around 250 personnel.

08:53And that's not even the country's most capable Arctic base.

08:57To the west, there's Russia's northernmost, Nagorskoye Base, which also, since this imagery

09:01was taken, paved this runway and expanded it to 11,500 feet, or 3,500 meters, allowing

09:07it to host truly any aircraft, including fighter jets.

09:11In fact, in 2021, Russia flew two fighter jets from the base to the North Pole as a

09:15show of force.

09:17The growing capability of this base, paired with its geography, has rattled the west.

09:21Nagorskoye is less than a three-hour flight to Pacific Space Base, and it's also the

09:26closest Russian air base to Washington, DC.

09:29Nagorskoye is backed up by Rogachev Air Base, a 90-minute flight to the south, and then

09:33there are a few more minor facilities scattered along the country's northern coast.

09:37There's also a huge concentration of military might on the Kola Peninsula, bordering Norway

09:42and Finland, although NATO also has a significant buildup in this region.

09:46It's, in part, a byproduct of the fact that this is the most hospitable and populated

09:50region of the Arctic, thanks to the comparatively warm air brought in by the Gulf Stream.

09:55But throughout the rest of the Arctic, the distribution of facilities tells a pretty

09:59succinct story.

10:01Russia has been far more concerned than pretty much any country in building up its military

10:06presence in the far north.

10:08Of course, dots on maps aren't what truly matters militarily—they're a proxy for

10:14capability, and capability is what matters in conflict—but there too, Russia appears

10:19to have the upper hand.

10:22Beyond its bases, the primary manner in which the US is able to bring military capability

10:26to anywhere is through its naval resources.

10:29It has one of the largest, and almost certainly most powerful, navies in the world, and between

10:33cruisers, destroyers, aircraft carriers, and more, it's capable of bringing a huge amount

10:39of force truly anywhere, except the Arctic.

10:43Some marines can operate in the Arctic year-round, since they float beneath the ice, but beyond

10:47that, no other US ships have hardened hulls capable of cutting through sea ice.

10:52That means that, for the majority of the year, the Arctic is the one area of the world to

10:57which the US can't project power by sea.

11:00Of course, the solution to this is icebreakers.

11:04They not only can access frozen areas themselves, but they can cut a channel for other ships

11:08that lack hardened hulls.

11:10The US has three of these, all operated by the US Coast Guard.

11:14Russia, meanwhile, has 41 of them.

11:18This includes a series of brand new nuclear-powered icebreakers that are more powerful and longer-ranged

11:23than any other in the world.

11:25And this imbalance exists across just about every military capability in the Arctic.

11:31Whatever the US has, Russia has more of.

11:33They have more training, more equipment designed for the extreme cold, more snow-capable vehicles,

11:39more ports, more airfields.

11:41Their GPS alternative navigation system, GLONASS, even has more satellites reaching higher latitudes,

11:46giving it better coverage in the polar regions.

11:49And all of these capabilities, especially in the period leading up to Russia's invasion

11:53of Ukraine, have been growing faster than at any time since the Cold War.

11:57It's become a cliche over the last decade to call the renewed interest in the far north

12:02as a race for the Arctic.

12:03But ever since 2007, when an emboldened Russia planted its flag underwater on the North Pole,

12:08it's been hard to think of it as anything less, and it's been hard to think of any

12:12nation aside from Russia as the current leader in that race.

12:16In just about all metrics, Russia's leading the way.

12:20But while Russia's actions have encouraged a response by the rest of the world to hurriedly

12:24catch up, Russia, for its part, has viewed its northern activity as less an exceptional

12:29push into an underdeveloped corner of the map, and more a natural progression as part

12:34of a larger, cohesive defense strategy.

12:37This all centers around the Kola Peninsula.

12:40In the past decade, Russia has heavily reinvested in this region by modernizing the Severomorsk

12:46air bases, and upgrading the Oklnaya and Gazyevo submarine bases.

12:50Critically, though, this is reinvestment.

12:53Historically, the facilities along this peninsula were central to Soviet defense, and as Russia's

12:58relations with the west have gotten colder while its ambitions have grown larger, they're

13:02viewing the region's defense capabilities as vitally important once again.

13:06As analysts have noted, this investment has little to do with any sort of race to the

13:10Arctic, or the Arctic itself, and more to do with a return to a strategy called bastion

13:16defense.

13:17Effectively, the country wants to create an air and sea buffer between itself and other

13:22nations that ensures freedom of movement across the Barents and Norwegian seas for its northern

13:26fleet, along with its increasingly important northern natural gas industry.

13:30What makes this particular bastion so critical for Russian defense is the fact that this

13:35area harbors what's believed to be about two-thirds of Russia's nuclear strike capabilities

13:40in its ballistic missile submarines, which operate as a key nuclear deterrent in the

13:44nation's second strike capabilities should it be attacked.

13:47So, while at the periphery of the world from most's perspective, this area is already

13:51central to Russian defense, which means increased traffic creates an increasingly paranoid Russia.

13:57The invasion of Ukraine has only added to the paranoia.

14:01For one, Russia's invasion has shaken up the map of the high north, pushing the long

14:05neutral neighbors in Finland and Sweden to join NATO, making the high north a 7-1 split

14:10between NATO and non-NATO nations.

14:13While a repercussion of their own actions, this has only served to further the sense

14:16of encirclement for Russian military planners.

14:19And making Russia more concerned is the fact that it was the northern fleet's ground

14:23resources that led the invasion into Ukraine in the first place.

14:27In late January and early February of 2022, when Russian onlookers began to share on social

14:32media trainload after trainload moving tanks and army trucks south, it was resources being

14:37mobilized from the Arctic that they were capturing.

14:40In the weeks that followed, those resources, much of the 200th Brigade, were dramatically

14:45beaten back then bogged down on the outskirts of Kharkiv, ensuring there'd be no quick

14:50return.

14:51While exact numbers are difficult to come by, only an estimated fifth of the 200th Brigade

14:55has remained stationed on the Kola Peninsula, while the failed attempt to seize Kharkiv

14:59decimated the fleet's ground forces.

15:02At the same time that Russia has moved troops away from the High North, the High North has

15:06also become more economically central to the country.

15:09Total trade across the North Sea Route hit an all-time high in 2022, while new LNG terminals

15:15above the Arctic Circle went online, using the North Sea Route to move product to China.

15:19And with the subsequent sanctions that came with invasion, Russia has diverted traffic

15:24of crude oil bound for Asia through the Arctic, while reportedly beginning to build a ghost

15:28fleet of tankers that have been quietly tracking across the region to avoid sanctions entirely.

15:34Taken together, what's long been understood from a Russian perspective as a military stronghold

15:38has become increasingly important economically, increasingly hostile militarily, and increasingly

15:44vulnerable.

15:45Feeling cornered, the nation has taken to lashing out with aggressive military maneuvers,

15:50joint military exercises with China, and going as far as destroying infrastructure like undersea

15:55cables.

15:56Much of the sensationalism of the increasing military importance of the Arctic, then, can

16:00be explained by the collision of two very different geopolitical narratives.

16:05In the West, the US and its allies in NATO are dramatically falling behind Russia in

16:09Arctic capabilities, so it must rush to catch up.

16:12In Russia, it seems the rest of the world is pushing to encircle and endanger its northern

16:17coast, an area strategically important for its defense and its economy, so it must dig

16:21in.

16:23But both these competing narratives run into a stark reality of which Greenland sits directly

16:27in the middle.

16:28There's just not a lot of actual infrastructure, military, civilian, or otherwise, in the upper

16:33reaches of the Arctic.

16:35All real American and Russian might hovers around the very edge of the Arctic Circle,

16:39while the island and its military personnel numbered in the hundreds, from a strategic

16:43perspective, represents largely a blank space on the map.

16:48China, for one, has come knocking.

16:51With a reversal of a rare-earth elements mining ban in 2013 by Greenland's parliament,

16:55the island's rich natural resources caught the eye of investors.

16:59Chinese firms seeking to back uranium mining in the island's south, zinc mining in the

17:03island's north, and oilfield production off its coast had all begun doing their due

17:07diligence on how to open up shop.

17:09In 2025, the Tenbreeze mine in southern Greenland, optimistically projected to produce over half

17:15of the global, non-Chinese rare-earth elements, went up for sale and garnered heavy Chinese

17:21interest.

17:22Only heavy American and Danish lobbying in early 2025 pushed the sale to an American

17:26firm for reportedly a fraction of market value.

17:30In each case of Chinese mining interest, the fear of the nation's increased influence

17:34in the region has pushed the projects back, but these increasingly accessible rare-earth

17:38elements are bound to keep international firms coming back.

17:41It stands to reason, given the demand and the potential economic windfall for the island,

17:46that it's only a matter of time before a foreign mining company gets a real foothold.

17:50And still, the commercial appeal is dwarfed by the strategic and defense appeal.

17:55There's just really no landmass as centrally located to the high arctic as Greenland, and

18:00no place that so cleanly splits the divide between east and west, nor sits so near to

18:05critical seaways that serve as entrance and exit to the high north.

18:09Seemingly so far beyond the purview of Denmark's focus, for the emboldened it feels up for

18:14grabs.

18:15Given Denmark's self-admitted lack of defense investment in the island, the US is increasingly

18:19bad-faith dealing with the rest of the world, and the vamping narrative tension in the arctic,

18:23the future of Greenland can be presented as a rhetorical this or that—if not America,

18:29then who?

18:30But Greenland is not empty—its people do have a say, NATO is not just an empty vassal

18:36for the US to control, and Denmark, though behind, is not asleep at the wheel.

18:41In response to President Trump's rhetoric, Greenland's Prime Minister has held talks

18:44with European leaders about maintaining its semi-autonomous standing, NATO countries have

18:49talked about deploying troops to Greenland, and Denmark's announced $2 billion in increased

18:54defense spending for the island.

18:56The capability gap in the arctic is real.

18:59It's clear that, for a US military so accustomed to unequivocal superiority, the imbalance

19:05in infrastructure and experience is uncomfortable.

19:08What's less clear is how sovereign control of Greenland would help that.

19:13The US already has a major military presence in the territory, and there's never been

19:17a major impediment to operations or expansions at Petrific Space Base due to the lack of

19:22sovereignty.

19:23In fact, over recent years, the US has announced plans to upgrade and expand the facility,

19:28and while Danish and Greenlandic authorities didn't immediately agree, a short negotiation

19:33with a few concessions led to rather swift approval.

19:36Outside of Greenland, other NATO members like Canada also recognize the gaps in the alliance's

19:41arctic footprint, so they are already spending huge sums to upgrade their facilities and

19:46capabilities.

19:47Obviously they would be happy for the US to spend those huge sums in their territory

19:51instead.

19:52To military leaders, the status quo is untenable, but considering how minuscule the US's arctic

19:58capabilities are, there's enormous ability to expand before it becomes necessary to just

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