As soon as known as Thule Air Base, now often known as Pituffik House Base, this U.S.-operated set up in northwestern Greenland is without doubt one of the most strategically necessary navy websites on this planet — even when most People have by no means heard of it.
“It’s fairly actually the outermost eye of American protection,” mentioned Peter Ernstved Rasmussen, a Danish protection analyst. “Pituffik is the place the U.S. can detect a launch, calculate the trajectory and activate its missile protection techniques. It’s irreplaceable.”
The outpost is getting new consideration as President Trump, who has vowed to make Greenland a part of the US, sends a high-level delegation to the island this week. The guests will embody Vice President JD Vance, who mentioned on Tuesday that he intended to visit “our guardians” within the House Power whereas there.
About 150 U.S. Air Power and House Power personnel are completely stationed at Pituffik (pronounced Bee-doo-FEEK). They deal with missile protection and house surveillance, and the Upgraded Early Warning Radar based mostly right here can detect ballistic missiles of their earliest moments of flight.
Every summer season, about 70 members of the New York Air Nationwide Guard fly into Pituffik to help science missions. Utilizing the U.S. navy’s solely ski-equipped plane, the LC-130, they ship researchers and provides to camps on the ice sheet.
Pituffik is the one U.S. navy base on Greenland.
The historical past
The American navy presence in Greenland started throughout World Struggle II, when Greenland was a Danish colony. After Nazi Germany occupied Denmark in 1940, Greenland was immediately remoted and undefended. The US struck a quiet cope with Denmark’s ambassador in Washington — bypassing the German-controlled authorities in Copenhagen — for American troops to construct airfields and climate stations on the island.
By 1941, U.S. forces had landed, establishing defenses and scanning the North Atlantic for German submarines. A decade later, Denmark and the US formalized the association with a protection treaty granting Washington broad rights to function navy services on the island. Greenland is now a semiautonomous a part of Denmark, which, like the US, is a NATO nation.
Through the Chilly Struggle, Thule grew to become a key Arctic outpost. From right here, long-range American bombers may attain the Soviet Union, and big radar techniques have been constructed to detect missiles crossing the polar route — the shortest path between the 2 superpowers.
One of many period’s strangest experiments was Camp Century, a nuclear-powered base constructed below the ice within the late Nineteen Fifties as a part of a secret undertaking known as Iceworm. The plan was to check whether or not nuclear missiles may very well be hidden and launched from beneath the floor.
“It was Chilly Struggle ambition at its wildest,” Mr. Rasmussen mentioned. “They constructed a nuclear-powered base in one of the vital hostile environments on Earth simply to see if it may very well be completed.”
The ice proved too unstable, and the bottom was deserted. However the waste — together with radioactive materials and diesel — continues to be buried and scientists warn that warming temperatures may ultimately expose it.
The bottom additionally left an enduring mark on Greenland’s Indigenous inhabitants. In 1953, about 130 Inuit have been forcibly relocated from their houses close to Thule to a harsher settlement farther north, poorly fitted to conventional looking. Compensation got here a long time later, however resentment stays.
The bottom’s identify modified two 12 months in the past from Thule to Pituffik, which implies in Greenlandic “the place we tie our canines.”
The situation
Pituffik sits above the 76th parallel on Greenland’s northwest coast, about 750 miles from the North Pole. It’s one of the vital distant navy installations on Earth.
The closest settlement, Qaanaaq, is greater than 70 miles away and residential to fewer than 650 folks. Many hunt seals, walrus and, sometimes, polar bears to outlive.
In winter, the solar disappears for weeks and temperatures drop beneath minus 30 Fahrenheit (minus 34 Celsius). Regardless of the circumstances, Pituffik’s airfield runs year-round. Ships can attain the bottom solely throughout a slender summer season window when the ocean ice briefly retreats.
The bottom’s expertise
Pituffik is a part of a world net of U.S. protection infrastructure and an important station. Navy specialists say that as new threats like hypersonic missiles emerge, the early-warning techniques at Pituffik are indispensable.
“Hypersonic missiles don’t go into house — they fly low, they maneuver, and we’ve got no option to intercept them as soon as they’re launched,” defined Troy J. Bouffard, a retired U.S. Military officer and Arctic protection professional. “That makes early warning extra necessary than ever — and that’s the place Pituffik is available in.”
If a missile have been launched from Russia or China towards North America, it could, Mr. Bouffard mentioned, almost definitely cross over the Arctic.
Pituffik’s ground-based sensors are essential in that case, mentioned Mr. Bouffard, as a result of satellites don’t work nicely in excessive latitudes.
Lasers don’t work within the Arctic, both, he added. “The air columns are filled with ice crystals — mainly tiny mirrors — and lasers and mirrors don’t get alongside,” he mentioned.
Mr. Bouffard sees Pituffik’s position increasing past radar.
“It may additionally function a ahead staging base or a key line of communication,” he mentioned. “The extra ahead these areas are, the extra helpful they’re.”
