Donald Trump is taking extreme measures to gain control of Greenland, warning he will impose a punishing wave of tariffs on the UK, Norway and six EU countries until the US is permitted to buy the semi-autonomous island from Denmark.
The US President says the territory is “vital for the Golden Dome that we are building” – referring to his plan set out in January 2025 for an ambitious anti-missile shield to protect America from its enemies.
The project, modelled on Israel’s famed Iron Dome air defence system, would use space-based weapons to intercept strikes against the US.
While the White House initially said the missile defence system was likely to cost $175bn (£135bn) and be completed within four years, the US Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the space-based interceptors alone could cost up to $542bn (£406bn) over 20 years.
Why Trump wants Greenland for his Golden Dome
Trump last week insisted Greenland was essential for US security and that Nato should help America take control of it since “IF WE DON’T, RUSSIA OR CHINA WILL”.
On Saturday, he wrote on his Truth Social platform that military advances by US foes meant “the need to ACQUIRE is especially important” and that the Golden Dome could only work “at its maximum potential and efficiency” if Greenland were part of it.
Many of the projected flight paths of Russia’s strategic missile force are over the Atlantic Arctic and Greenland. The territory could play a key role in early warning systems to neutralise attacks fast.
“Greenland hosts US early warning radars that detect and track threats approaching North America,” Patrycja Bazylczyk, associate director with the Missile Defence Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told The i Paper. “Its proximity to Europe allows earlier detection than ground-based radars on US territory. Given the trajectory of many missiles from China and Russia, additional ground-based sensors could help with tracking various air and missile threats.”
However, the US does not need to buy Greenland to get access to host interceptors or more sensors. The US military already runs Pituffik Space Base on the territory’s northwest coast, and uses it for detecting threats from the Arctic.
Michael Clarke, director-general of the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), told The i Paper that Greenland was “important” for the Golden Dome project “insofar as it is feasible”, but that Pituffik was already used for US defence, “backed up by 47 other sites in Canada and 15 sites in Alaska, plus the [RAF] Fylingdales site in Yorkshire”.
The Greenland base houses sensors originally installed to detect ballistic missiles that the US feared could come over the Arctic from the Soviet Union.
“The US might want many more such sites for Golden Dome across the US, Greenland, Canada and maybe also in the UK,” said Clarke, adding: “Under present arrangements, they can have more or less whatever they want.”
Retired US Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton told The i Paper that as long as there were sufficient sensors “in northern Canada, Alaska, Iceland and Northern Europe, the system could work without having sensors placed in Greenland, but it might not be as reliable”.
“If only one missile got through the new system and hit its intended target, it would be an unmitigated military and political disaster,” he observed. “Greenland-based sensors would provide both redundancy and greater fidelity for the verification of an incoming missile launch. They would also help ensure speedy notification of inbound missiles and their estimated time of impact.”
How Trump hopes Golden Dome will protect the US
In an Oval Office presentation in May, Trump said the Golden Dome would be “fully operational” before the end of his term, in 2029, and be capable of intercepting missiles launched from across the world and “even if they are launched from space”.
He has named Space Force General Michael Guetlein as the head of the project to “protect our homeland”, which he boasted would be the “best system in the world”, with a success rate “near 100 per cent”.
The next-generation missile shield is intended to target sophisticated aerial weapons, including hypersonic missiles, using space-based sensors and interceptors. While it is still not clear exactly how the system will work, it could use satellites to identify missiles and interceptors in orbit to shoot them down.
A central command centre is expected to oversee Golden Dome missile defence bases in locations including Florida and Indiana.
The US Space Force has awarded about a half dozen contracts to firms building competing prototypes, including Northrop Grumman, True Anomlay, Lockheed Martin and Anduril, sources told Reuters in November. Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set to receive $2bn (£1.5bn) to develop satellites that can track missiles and aircraft as part of the project, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The existing US national missile defence system involves 44 ground-based interceptor missiles stationed in Alaska and California, and is focused on intercontinental ballistic missiles fired by North Korea across the Pacific. These have only worked 12 times in 21 tests and have cost $250bn (£187bn), the Scientific American reports. Experts say the system would also fall short if the US were to be attacked by China and Russia’s more advanced missiles.
Bazylczyk said the Golden Dome shifted US missile defence “from countering ballistic missile threats from rogue nations, to addressing complex missile threats from our great power competitors, Russia and China”.
Trump says the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles launched from across the world and ‘even if they are launched from space’ (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty)“It’s a strategic evolution aimed at producing a US homeland missile defence infrastructure that can shield against the full spectrum of air and missile threats,” she continued. “While ambitious, it is a prudent policy pivot, which, if implemented properly, will allow the US to better deter our adversaries.”
Leighton said the dome was “designed to take a multi-faceted approach to modernising US missile defences”, particularly in regard to hypersonic missiles, which travel at such speed (at least five times the speed of sound) “that they are difficult, if not impossible, to intercept using existing missile defences”.
Enormous potential challenges
One key issue is that Trump wants the Golden Dome to protect the whole of the US. “Israel has only about 8,600 square miles of territory, while the US covers approximately 3.8 million square miles,” said Leighton. “It’s much more difficult to secure an area that is 442 times larger than Israel.”
Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system uses radar to detect incoming short-range surface-to-surface rockets, determining which are likely to hit populated areas and intercepting them with missiles.
It is only the short-range component of the Israeli missile defence system, with the medium-range component known as “David’s Sling” and the long-range component known as the “Arrow” system.
Leighton noted that all three systems struggled during Iran’s recent drone and missile bombardment of Israel, and had to be augmented by US and allied air and naval capabilities.
The US might need to focus on protecting key cities, like New York City, Washington, DC, and San Francisco. It might also focus on developing space-based radars before adding space-based interceptors, while using satellites to track incoming missiles could be more complicated.
“The Golden Dome is the latest of several versions of [US] President [Ronald] Reagan’s 1983 ‘Star Wars’ project,” said Clarke, “and though the technologies are much better now than they were in 1983, the fundamental facts remain the same.
“‘Point defence’ of a small area is just about feasible, but ‘area defence’ against all but a very limited attack, isn’t. And the costs of defending in this way are still a great deal higher than the costs of attacking through this sort of multi-layered shield.”
The Golden Dome is arguably less like the Iron Dome and more akin to the “Brilliant Pebbles” idea suggested in the 1980s, involving orbiting satellites housing heat-seeking missiles to intercept Soviet threats when they have only just left the ground.
Some scientists say the project would push the limits of physics and that intercepting missiles during the “boost phase” would require incredibly rapid response systems and interceptors positioned extremely close to launch sites.
Clarke notes that while the US can easily gain more sites and launch facilities in Greenland under the 1951 Defence Agreement with Denmark, Trump would have to “ask nicely” to negotiate more infrastructure in countries like the UK.
Even if the Golden Dome works against hypersonic missiles, Russia could breach US defences with weapons like the nuclear-armed Poseidon torpedoes and the Burevestnik low-flying nuclear-armed cruise missile. The Congressional Budget Office also noted in a 2021 report that an attacker could still threaten the US with something simple, like a truck bomb.
The dome also risks triggering a new arms race amid rising tensions with Russia and China over control of the Arctic. With or without the project, those adversaries remain unlikely to launch any missiles at the US that would lead to a nuclear war.
Leighton said Trump’s goal of full operation by January 2029 was “highly unlikely” to be achieved, and that even component parts of US missile defence systems, such as the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS), experienced massive cost overruns and delays.
“On the positive side, many of the technologies that would have to be incorporated into the Golden Dome missile defence system already exist, so the developmental time lag could be less than some of our current systems experienced in the past,” he said.
“It’s clear the US has to upgrade certain aspects of its missile and space defences to counter threats posed by hypersonic as well as newer generation cruise and ballistic missiles. Over 330 defence contractors are bidding to be part of this project, but it risks becoming an unmanageable boondoggle if not managed carefully.”
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