Greenland Could Be Key for U.S. to Win the Next Space Race

Following President Donald Trump’s remarks at the 56th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, rumors began swirling that Denmark and Western European nations could be softening their opposition to selling some or all of Greenland to the United States – something President Donald Trump has identified as a strategic priority. While Trump’s critics have labeled his Greenland ambitions as an egotistical land grab, acquiring the world’s largest island could prove vital in winning an emerging space race with Communist China.

Within hours of Trump’s speech, reports circulated that Washington and Copenhagen had quietly discussed granting the U.S. access to remote areas of Greenland for new military installations. Nothing has been confirmed publicly, but the speed and consistency of the speculation underscored how the Arctic is becoming key to the future of space power.

Greenland is notably home to the U.S. Pituffik Space Base, formerly Thule Air Base, a Cold War relic that has evolved into one of the most important hubs in America’s Space Force architecture. From this isolated outpost, U.S. forces track missile launches, monitor satellites, and maintain early-warning systems essential for nuclear deterrence. In a world where outer space is the new high ground, visibility from Greenland is strategic gold.

Trump has repeatedly emphasized this reality, calling Pituffik one of America’s most valuable assets for observing activity above the Earth. Whether through purchase, long-term basing agreements, or negotiation, he has remained consistent that Greenland is central to America’s Arctic and space ambitions.

Beyond surveillance, geography itself makes Greenland uniquely valuable. High-latitude territory is ideal for launching payloads into polar and sun-synchronous orbits, which are important for reconnaissance and military communications. The island’s vast uninhabited areas and open ocean corridors could turn it into a future Arctic launch hub at a time when global launch capacity is tightening.

This matters because the legal framework governing space is eroding. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty was designed for a world of two superpowers and a handful of satellites, not private mega-constellations, lunar mining projects, or permanent orbital weapons platforms. Earth-based sites like Pituffik could become decisive gateways to orbital dominance.

As global powers scramble for strategic footholds, space is being treated less like a shared domain and more like contested territory. Greenland, in this sense, is not just an asset—it is a warning sign that geopolitics has fully extended beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

That strategic outlook helps explain why Trump moved decisively in December to formalize America’s space-first doctrine by signing a new executive order on space policy. That order makes space dominance, measured by advanced missile defense, the cornerstone of U.S. national security and seeks to ensure U.S. strategic superiority by focusing national efforts on developing and deploying space-based missile defense technologies.

Trump stated in the order that “superiority in space is a measure of national vision and willpower, and the technologies Americans develop to achieve it contribute substantially to the Nation’s strength, security, and prosperity.”

He noted that the new policy’s main objectives are to expand human discovery, promote commercial development, and secure U.S. economic and security interests. Ultimately, these goals align with strengthening America’s missile defense posture in space.

To support these objectives, the order directs specific actions: returning American astronauts to the Moon, deploying nuclear reactors in space, and establishing a permanent lunar outpost by 2030 to replace the aging International Space Station. These initiatives are explicitly intended to underpin U.S. space dominance and sustain the infrastructure needed for advanced defense programs.

Space Force General B. Chance Saltzman, who leads all military space operations, has called dominance in space “essential to the nation’s security and economic well-being,” noting unprecedented challenges from China and Russia.

The executive order prioritizes the unveiling and deployment of next-generation missile defense technologies by 2028 over traditional civilian space programs. This resolve to strengthen America’s air and missile shield, through programs like Golden Dome, defines the core of U.S. efforts to uphold strategic superiority.

Trump’s approach would see the U.S. invest in every layer of orbit: low Earth orbit for communications, medium orbit for navigation, geostationary orbit for intelligence, and high orbit for early-warning missile detection.

Missile defense once relied on detecting launches instantly and destroying missiles during their vulnerable boost phase, the slow initial climb. Hypersonic weapons have made this far more difficult—sometimes nearly impossible. The latest Space Force procurement programs accordingly seek space-based interceptors capable of tracking and destroying missiles between launch and reentry, combining the capabilities of systems at all levels of orbit.

The U.S. may also be undertaking covert operations on the ground to thwart China’s space ambitions and missile capabilities. In October 2025, Beijing accused the U.S. of infiltrating its National Time Service Center, located in Xi’an near major nuclear facilities, which supports China’s telecommunications, defense systems, and satellite navigation.

This could be evidence of the U.S. pursuing a so-called “left of launch” strategy, which seeks to destroy or disable enemy missiles before they ever leave the ground. Professor Josef Große, who once advised NATO Secretary General Manfred Wörner, calls left of launch “sophisticated but the most promising defense.”

Große described the approach as “detonating missiles before they spark to life, shutting down entire networks, and flooding the airwaves with jamming that silences every weapon-linked signal.” He also noted that Xi’an serves as “the nerve center for all” Chinese missile operations because those systems “rely on centralized control.”

Another expert added that Xi’an is critical to China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system, designed for exclusive PLA use, particularly in any conflict over Taiwan.

At the start of the Ukraine war, Professor Große observed that Russia deployed its most advanced systems alongside Chinese orbital equipment but failed to disrupt key NATO defenses. “These technologies, which the Chinese and Russians hit with their newest things, must already be in orbit,” he said, referring to classified space-based military tech that Trump is now looking to double down on.

To transform such breakthroughs into lasting dominance, rapid scaling and investment are required. That is why Trump’s directive links space supremacy directly to missile defense expansion, reinforced by a $1.5 trillion defense funding budget to give his “Golden Dome” and related programs a decisive advantage.

Taken together, Trump’s Greenland ambitions and his December executive order are not disconnected episodes but part of a single strategic vision: control the gateways to orbit, dominate missile defense from space, and deny adversaries the ability to challenge American power—on Earth or beyond it.

In the next great power competition, the decisive terrain may not be land or sea, but the frozen Arctic and the silent vacuum above it.

Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.