Colonel Khodarenok: The United States can capture Greenland in a few hours
Donald Trump wants Greenland, and refuses to guarantee that he won't use force to do so. At the same time, the Politico newspaper believes that a US attack on the island would be the "shortest war" in history. Whether the United States will be able to conquer Greenland, what it will take, and what the Wehrmacht operation has to do with it, is in the material of the military observer Gazeta.Ru" by Mikhail Khodarenka.
After winning the US presidential election, Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that Greenland should become part of the United States. In his opinion, control over the island, which now belongs to Denmark, is necessary to ensure American national security and protect against Chinese and Russian "threats."
The authorities of Denmark and Greenland itself were quick to declare the absurdity of this idea, but Trump does not change his rhetoric. At a press conference on January 7, he could not guarantee that he would not use military force and economic coercion to get the desired territories, including the Danish island. At the same time, Politico, citing Ulrik Pram Gad, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute of International Studies, writes that a US attack on Greenland would be "the shortest war in the world," because Denmark "does not have a defensive potential." Let's find out if this is true and why.
U.S. forces in Greenland
By and large, there is no need for the US Armed Forces to invade the island: they have been present there since 1943. Greenland is currently home to the Pituffik space Base of the US Armed Forces, formerly known as Thule Air Base.
The length of the runway of the airfield base reaches 3000 m, it allows you to receive aircraft of all types. The 821st Aviation Maintenance Group is responsible for the activities of the airbase. Flight intensity is more than 3,000 American and international flights per year. Pituffik is also home to the northernmost deepwater port in the world.
Elements of the nuclear missile strike warning system (BMEWS system, Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, or US Missile Defense System) are also stationed here. In particular, they include the 12th Space Warning Squadron (12th SWS), equipped with AN/FPS-132 phased array radar. The antenna post of the AN/FPS-132 radar is a truncated tetrahedron about 35 m high, on the edges of which there are canvases of active phased antenna arrays about 28 m in size. The canvases have viewing sectors of 120 degrees. The pulse power of each AFAR is up to 900 kW. The detection range is up to 5,000 km.
The base also houses the 1st detachment of the 23rd Space Operations Squadron, which is part of Space Delta 6, a global satellite control network.
Strategic aviation units of the US Air Force have traditionally been based at the airfield in Greenland. It was there that on January 21, 1968, a B-52 plane crashed with thermonuclear bombs on board. During a combat patrol, a fire broke out on the bomber due to a technical malfunction. After unsuccessful extinguishing attempts, the crew was forced to eject, and an unguided aircraft with four B28FI type thermonuclear bombs on board crashed on the ice of Severnaya Zvezda Bay 11 km from the runway of the Tula base. The impact caused the detonation of a conventional explosive in the fuses of all four bombs, and although there was no nuclear explosion, the radioactive components were scattered over a large area. The ignited aviation fuel melted the ice, and the wreckage of the aircraft sank to the bottom of the ocean.
"They will manage faster than the Wehrmacht"
As for the operation to invade Greenland, it is enough for Donald Trump to transfer several units of the airborne and airborne assault forces of the US Armed Forces to the island in order to realize his plans. An "Outbreak of Rage" type of operation can be carried out (the US invasion of Grenada in 1983).
There is no armed resistance from the Danish Armed Forces due to the simply gigantic difference in the military and economic potentials of the parties. In this case, it is not even worth giving any statistical data characterizing the balance of forces between the parties.
In 1940, the Wehrmacht captured Denmark in six hours (Operation Weser Exercises). The Danish political leadership then asked the population to refrain from any kind of resistance. The scale of the fighting is evidenced by the fact that the German troops lost 2 people killed and 10 wounded. The losses of the Danes amounted to 13 people. The United States is likely to manage faster.
Donald Trump's statements about the Panama Canal, Canada, and Greenland seem to usher in an era of special military operations on a global scale. The world is moving, and the principles of inviolability of borders, territorial integrity of States, and non-interference in the internal affairs of foreign States, proclaimed in 1975 in Helsinki, seem to be a thing of the past.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976).
Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok
