As soon as known as Thule Air Base, now often called Pituffik House Base, this U.S.-operated set up in northwestern Greenland is among the most strategically vital navy websites on the 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 embrace Vice President JD Vance, who mentioned on Tuesday that he supposed to go to “our guardians” within the House Drive whereas there.
About 150 U.S. Air Drive and House Drive 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 Battle II, when Greenland was a Danish colony. After Nazi Germany occupied Denmark in 1940, Greenland was abruptly remoted and undefended. America struck a quiet take care of 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, organising 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 amenities on the island. Greenland is now a semiautonomous a part of Denmark, which, like the US, is a NATO nation.
Through the Chilly Battle, Thule turned a key Arctic outpost. From right here, long-range American bombers may attain the Soviet Union, and large radar techniques had 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 Fifties as a part of a secret challenge known as Iceworm. The plan was to check whether or not nuclear missiles might be hidden and launched from beneath the floor.
“It was Chilly Battle ambition at its wildest,” Mr. Rasmussen mentioned. “They constructed a nuclear-powered base in probably the most hostile environments on Earth simply to see if it might be executed.”
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 had been forcibly relocated from their properties close to Thule to a harsher settlement farther north, poorly fitted to conventional searching. Compensation got here many years later, however resentment stays.
The bottom’s identify modified two 12 months in the past from Thule to Pituffik, which suggests 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 probably the most distant navy installations on Earth.
The closest settlement, Qaanaaq, is greater than 70 miles away and residential to fewer than 650 individuals. Many hunt seals, walrus and, often, polar bears to outlive.
In winter, the solar disappears for weeks and temperatures drop under minus 30 Fahrenheit (minus 34 Celsius). Regardless of the situations, Pituffik’s airfield runs year-round. Ships can attain the bottom solely throughout a slim summer season window when the ocean ice briefly retreats.
The bottom’s expertise
Pituffik is a part of a worldwide net of U.S. protection infrastructure and a vital station. Army 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 now have no technique to intercept them as soon as they’re launched,” defined Troy J. Bouffard, a retired U.S. Military officer and Arctic protection skilled. “That makes early warning extra vital than ever — and that’s the place Pituffik is available in.”
If a missile had been launched from Russia or China towards North America, it will, Mr. Bouffard mentioned, probably move 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 stuffed with ice crystals — mainly tiny mirrors — and lasers and mirrors don’t get alongside,” he mentioned.
Mr. Bouffard sees Pituffik’s function increasing past radar.
“It may additionally function a ahead staging base or a key line of communication,” he mentioned. “The extra ahead these places are, the extra helpful they’re.”
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