If you control space, you control the Earth
Donald Trump’s desire for Greenland is not just about access to oil, minerals and control of the new strategic and commercial corridors opening in the region. It’s also about data. Specifically, the most important data in the world.
For decades, Pituffik Space Base – formerly Thule – in Greenland has been central to US space defense and Arctic strategy. It’s the US military’s only base above the Arctic Circle and their most northerly deep-water port and airstrip. It’s home to the 12th Space Warning Squadron. Its massive AN/FPS-132 radar has 240 degrees of coverage surveying the Arctic Ocean and Russia’s northern coast, especially the Kola peninsula where it has concentrated its strategic nuclear weapons.
The high north is on the approach route for Russia’s ballistic missiles as they head for the US mainland. When a Russian rocket blasts off, especially if unannounced, Pituffik reacts to data from the Air Force’s Space Based Infrared System, which detects the rocket’s heat signature from its engines during take-off.
