Ice and strategy: A timeline of the U.S. military in Greenland
When President Trump renewed his push to bring Greenland under American control, much of the commentary treated it as a sudden, eccentric ambition. But the United States military has been a permanent fixture on the world’s largest island for more than eighty years, through a wartime treaty signed in defiance of an occupied homeland, a secret summer of frantic base-building at the top of the world, a nuclear accident that scattered plutonium across the ice and a slow Cold War drawdown to a single remaining outpost.
We have compiled a timeline of the U.S. military presence in Greenland, from its first foothold in 1941 to the negotiations now underway between Washington, Copenhagen and Nuuk.
Wartime foothold
1941: A treaty signed in exile With Denmark under German occupation, Danish ambassador Henrik Kauffmann signed a defense agreement “in the name of the King,” authorizing the United States to defend and garrison Greenland against the Axis. Copenhagen charged him with treason, but Washington had secured its first foothold on the island.
1941–45: The “Bluie” bases The U.S. built a network of airfields, weather stations and radio installations codenamed Bluie West and Bluie East, anchoring the North Atlantic ferry route for aircraft bound for Europe and feeding the Allied “weather war” over the storm-spawning North Atlantic.
Cold War cornerstone
1946: Truman’s $100 million offer
President Harry Truman secretly offered Denmark $100 million in gold bullion, worth roughly $1 billion today, to buy Greenland outright, with officials citing “military necessity.” Denmark declined, but the wartime bases remained.
1951: The Defense of Greenland Agreement
Two years after Denmark joined NATO, a U.S.–Danish treaty formalized a permanent American presence, granting rights to operate “defense areas” across the island. This 1951 agreement remains the legal backbone of the U.S. presence in Greenland today.
1951–52: Operation Blue Jay and Thule Air Base
Operation Blue Jay was the code name for a secret Cold War construction blitz: a Strategic Air Command bomber base built midway between New York and Moscow. In the summer of 1951 a flotilla of some 120 ships carried roughly 12,000 men and 300,000 tons of cargo to North Star Bay, where crews raised most of the airfield in about 60 days — the project staying hidden until Life magazine revealed it in 1952. The result was Thule Air Base, some 930 miles from the North Pole. The local Inughuit population was forcibly relocated to Qaanaaq, and at its peak the base housed nearly 10,000 personnel.
1954–66: Camp TUTO and the early-warning towers
The Army Corps of Engineers built Camp TUTO at the edge of the ice cap to experiment with construction inside permanent ice. In 1954 the 1,240-foot Globecom radio tower rose nearby — briefly among the tallest structures on Earth and the tallest north of the Arctic Circle in the Western Hemisphere.
1959–67: Camp Century: a city under the ice
A nuclear-powered Army base was carved 200 feet into the ice sheet, publicly presented as polar research. Its concealed purpose, Project Iceworm, was a never-realized plan to shuttle nuclear missiles through a vast tunnel network beneath the ice. Shifting glaciers crushed the idea, and the camp was abandoned.
(U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)
1961: Early-warning radar goes live
Thule’s Ballistic Missile Early Warning System began scanning the Arctic for incoming Soviet missiles — the mission that, in modern form, keeps the base strategically vital to this day.
1968: The Thule nuclear accident
On January 21, a B-52 bomber carrying four thermonuclear weapons caught fire and crashed onto the sea ice near Thule. The conventional explosives detonated, scattering radioactive plutonium across the bay; the secondary stage of one weapon was never recovered. The disaster ended the Strategic Air Command’s airborne-alert flights and forced a secret U.S.–Danish understanding on nuclear weapons over Greenland.
Drawdown and modernization
1979: Greenland gains home rule
Greenlanders voted for home rule, establishing a local parliament with control over domestic affairs and adding, in time, a third voice to any conversation about the island’s defense.
1987: New eyes on the Arctic
A solid-state phased-array radar replaced the original early-warning dishes at Thule, sustaining the missile-warning mission even as Cold War troop numbers fell sharply.
1995: The nuclear secret breaks
A Danish report revealed that the government had quietly tolerated U.S. nuclear weapons in Greenland, in breach of its own 1957 nuclear-free policy, reopening a long campaign by cleanup workers for compensation over radiation-related illness.
2004: Igaliku: Greenland joins the table
The 1951 agreement was updated, with Greenland itself a signatory for the first time, and the Thule radar was modernized for the U.S. missile-defense system.
2023: From Thule to Pituffik
The U.S. renamed the installation Pituffik Space Base — now the sole remaining U.S. base in Greenland, operated by the Space Force for missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance.
The negotiations of 2025–26
2025: “We need Greenland”
Returning to office, President Trump revived the idea of U.S. control over Greenland, citing security and critical minerals, with reported options ranging from outright purchase to a Compact of Free Association. Greenland’s leaders and Denmark ruled out any sale; an early-2025 poll found 85 percent of Greenlanders opposed to leaving Denmark.
January 2026: From threats to talks
After Trump called for “immediate negotiations” at Davos, while saying he did not intend to use force, Danish and Greenlandic officials met Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington. A high-level U.S.–Denmark–Greenland working group was formed and Trump announced a “framework” reached with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, though nothing was signed.
On the table: Reopening the 1951 agreement
Reported elements of a deal include updating the 1951 Defense Agreement to expand the U.S. footprint, access to Greenland’s rare-earth minerals, positioning “Golden Dome” missile-defense assets on the island, and countering Russian and Chinese influence — all, sources stressed, while respecting Danish sovereignty.
Red lines: Sovereignty stays put
Denmark’s defense minister insisted that NATO could not negotiate on Copenhagen’s behalf and drew a “clear red line” against ceding sovereignty. Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said that if forced to choose, “we choose Denmark.”
June 2026: Where it stands
Talks among the United States, Denmark, Greenland and NATO continue without a finalized deal. The underlying legal reality is unchanged: under the 1951 agreement, the U.S. can already expand its presence with advance notice, making the open question not whether America is in Greenland, but on whose terms that presence grows.
See also our historical timeline of U.S. interest in acquiring Greenland.
