Why the space community should care about Arctic geopolitics

Looks like Greenland is back on the menu. In a series of Truth Social posts, President-elect Donald Trump announced that American ownership of the Arctic island, which hosts the United States Space Force’s only overseas base, is an “absolute necessity” for national security. Earlier in December, Trump selected PayPal co-founder Ken Howery as ambassador to Denmark, which governs Greenland as an autonomous territory. Howery previously served as ambassador to Sweden during the previous Trump administration. Back in 2019, Trump first suggested purchasing Greenland, which sparked sharp rebukes from Danish leadership. In response to Trump’s newest proposal, the current Prime Minister of Greenland, Mute Egede, declared “we are not for sale and we will not be for sale.” This discussion has added to an already-growing body of foreign policy reporting about increasing great power competition in the Arctic, where climate change is opening new shipping lanes and countries race to declare continental shelf claims over oil and mineral resources. 

Foreign policy commentary on the Arctic region, however, often misses a key point: the Arctic plays a unique and critical role in space security. Any satellite in a polar or sun-synchronous orbit, such as those in critical communications, imagery and weather monitoring constellations, requires an Arctic ground station for consistent tracking, telemetry, and control throughout every revolution. As space assets proliferate and competition with Russia and China increases, the Arctic will only become more important. The debate over physical control of Greenland is only one piece of this puzzle.

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