Bloomberg
Greenland has enough bases and permanent troops to support NATO operations and deter Russian threats, as Denmark’s multibillion-dollar push to strengthen defenses in the Arctic remains in its early stages, the Nordic country’s top military commander on the territory said.Major General Soren Andersen, head of the Joint Arctic Command in Greenland, said the region’s primary security challenge is tracking Russian and Chinese submarine activity in the GIUK gap, a strategic North Atlantic chokepoint, a task that relies more on surveillance and monitoring capabilities than additional troops on the ground.“The Danish Armed Forces have the installations we need for the defense of Greenland,” he said in an interview. “There are other ways of operating that don’t necessarily require us to have our feet firmly planted on the ground in Greenland.”
Denmark has pledged to spend an additional 42 billion kroner (S$8.35 billion) to protect the vast Arctic territory.
Monitoring submarines requires ships, drones and surveillance aircraft “that aren’t necessarily manpower-intensive, but that enhance credible deterrence,” Andersen said. Those capabilities often operate from locations such as Iceland and the UK, rather than from bases in Greenland.
