Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance are set to arrive in Greenland on Friday, marking the highest-level U.S. visit to the island since a wave of political tension reignited over its strategic value to Washington.
The trip follows lingering fallout from former President Donald Trump's public musings that the United States should, could and perhaps must "buy" Greenland — an idea that didn't sit well in Nuuk, or in Copenhagen. What seemed like a provocation in 2019 has since evolved into a very real geopolitical conversation.
Greenland isn't just a frozen frontier, it's home to one of the most strategically vital U.S. military outposts on the planet.
Pituffik Space Base — pronounced bee-DOO-feek — is a lonely, wind-battered installation 700 miles above the Arctic Circle. Formerly known as Thule Air Base, it's the U.S. military's northernmost post and a linchpin in America's missile defense and space architecture.
Roughly 150 American personnel live and work there year-round, operating under both the U.S. Air Force and Space Force. At its heart: a phased-array radar system operated by the 12th Space Warning Squadron, designed to detect and track intercontinental ballistic missiles.
"It's a forward location for detecting incoming ICBMs that would potentially be striking the United States," said Dr. Rebecca Pincus, director of the Wilson Center's Polar Institute.
Pincus has testified before Congress on Arctic security and says Pituffik is becoming even more essential.
"It's just an incredibly important part of our homeland defense architecture," she said. "And on top of that, with increased competition in space, the base is now a Space Force base. It has a satellite ground receiving station — because polar latitudes give us special access to space and polar orbits."
The base was born in the Cold War, the result of a defense agreement between the United States and Denmark in the early 1950s. Back then, it served as a frontline outpost watching the skies for Soviet missiles following the polar route.
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Now, it's watching more than just missiles.
Pituffik is being reimagined as a future staging ground, communications hub, and strategic anchor point in a new era of great power competition. An era where space, speed, and Arctic dominance may prove decisive.
Still, it's not a garrison. "Not a huge troop presence," Pincus noted. "It's the port. It's the radar facility. It's a 10,000-foot runway. It's the satellite station."
Greenland, while still part of the Kingdom of Denmark, has been gaining autonomy — and a louder voice in how foreign powers operate on its soil. So, are Greenlanders growing wary of the U.S. presence?
"I don't think it's gotten to that point," Pincus said. "There's a longstanding relationship there."
Vance's visit, however, suggests that Washington is paying attention — and perhaps bracing for a new chapter in Arctic geopolitics.
