Greenland is crucial to U.S. national security as China and Russia expand their Arctic activities. President Trump has secured expanded U.S. military access under an agreement with no end date. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of War.The September 22, 2026, agreement between the United States, Denmark, and Greenland expands U.S. military access to the island. It bars non-NATO countries from establishing military installations there and restricts certain foreign investments in mining and critical infrastructure.President Trump’s insistence on greater U.S. control of Greenland is part of a broader Arctic rivalry among the world’s three most powerful militaries: the United States, Russia and China. Canada, with a far smaller military and a focus on defending its own territory, is drawn into the rivalry by geography. The Northwest Passage runs through its Arctic archipelago, and its northern territory lies across the Arctic Ocean from Russia. All four countries have published their Arctic aims in government strategy documents.Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, one of eight members of the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum founded in 1996 for cooperation on environmental protection and sustainable development in the Arctic. The Council’s mandate excludes defense topics. The other members are Canada, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States. China has no Arctic territory, but its 2018 Arctic white paper calls China a “Near-Arctic State.” China became an Arctic Council observer in 2013.After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the other seven members paused their participation in the Council. They announced a limited resumption in June for projects excluding Russia. Norway took over the chairmanship from Russia in May 2023.In February 2024, Russia suspended its annual payments pending reinstatement of its participation. That month, the eight members agreed to resume working-group meetings virtually, while senior diplomatic meetings remained on pause.Greenland lies beside two routes connecting the Arctic Ocean to the North Atlantic. The Northwest Passage runs through Canada’s Arctic archipelago and reaches the Atlantic through Baffin Bay and Davis Strait, between Greenland and Baffin Island. A map in the U.S. 2024 Arctic Strategy shows the route and Pituffik Space Base on Greenland’s Baffin Bay coast.The U.S. Space Force operates Pituffik as a defense area on Danish sovereign territory. The 2004 Igaliku Agreement identified the base, then called Thule Air Base, as Greenland’s only defense area at the time. Pituffik operates missile-warning radar, while the 2026 agreement cites a possible Golden Dome missile-defense system among the reasons for U.S. military access to Greenland.The DoD’s 2024 Arctic Strategy defines the North American Arctic as including Alaska and “the Kingdom of Denmark’s autonomous territory of Greenland.” It calls the region “vital for homeland defense” because it hosts NORAD’s aerospace warning, aerospace control, and maritime warning capabilities. It also describes the region as the northern flank for projecting military force to the Indo-Pacific. The strategy commits DoD to maintaining access to key ally and partner bases through bilateral defense agreements that allow a presence using existing allied infrastructure.Greenland forms the western border of the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) gap, Gen. Christopher Cavoli, then NATO’s top commander in Europe, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in April 2025 testimony. He said Russian Northern Fleet submarines pass through the gap to reach the Atlantic. The DoD strategy lists allied air and maritime patrols across the gap among routine Arctic operations and calls the Arctic “vital to the defense of Atlantic sea lines of communication between North America and Europe.”Russia’s Kola Peninsula hosts the Northern Fleet and its submarine-launched ballistic missile force. The DoD strategy says Russia “has a clear avenue of approach to the U.S. homeland through the Arctic.” Its Arctic capabilities could threaten the U.S. homeland and allied territory and constrain U.S. power projection to Europe and the Indo-Pacific.Canada’s 2024 defense policy, Our North, Strong and Free, says melting ice has made the Northwest Passage and the wider Arctic more accessible. It warns that competitors are exploring Arctic waters and the sea floor, probing Canadian infrastructure and collecting intelligence. The policy points to a growing number of Chinese dual-purpose research vessels collecting data on northern Canada that Chinese law makes available to China’s military.The policy states that Canada’s Arctic waters, airspace, and territory must not be used to harm Canada, the United States, or other NATO allies. It says Russian submarines are probing across the Atlantic, Arctic, and Pacific Oceans, and China is expanding its underwater fleet. It also projects that the Arctic Ocean could become the most efficient shipping route between Europe and East Asia by 2050.A 2020 Marine Policy study found that climate models forecast summer sea ice loss could open a Transpolar Sea Route across the central Arctic Ocean via the North Pole as early as the 2040s. Today, only icebreakers and submarines make the crossing. The route would run between the Bering Strait and the Fram Strait, which lies between Greenland and Svalbard.China’s 2018 Arctic white paper lists this “Central Passage” as one of three Arctic shipping routes it intends to develop as part of a “Polar Silk Road.” Unlike Russia’s Northern Sea Route, the transpolar route crosses mostly high seas, where ships are free of Russian jurisdiction and escort fees. The study found that the route could reduce the Northern Sea Route’s value to Russia.The United States issued its first National Strategy for the Arctic Region in 2013 and replaced it in 2022 with a ten-year strategy covering 2022 to 2032. The Department of Defense published separate Arctic strategies in 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2024. Canada released its Arctic and Northern Policy Framework in 2019, its defense policy in April 2024, and an Arctic Foreign Policy in December 2024.China published its only Arctic white paper in January 2018. Russia adopted Basic Principles of Arctic policy in 2008 and replaced them in 2020 with a version running to 2035, amended in 2023. Its Arctic Zone development strategy, first issued in 2013, was replaced by a 2020 strategy amended in 2021 and 2023.China’s 2018 white paper does not name Greenland. It encourages Chinese enterprises to help build infrastructure for Arctic shipping routes, participate in the exploitation of Arctic oil, gas, and mineral resources, and cooperate with Arctic states on clean energy and tourism.In 2018, China Communications Construction Company, a Chinese state-owned firm, bid on a $560 million project to build Greenland airports. Denmark reportedly offered to fund the project instead. Greenland holds 1.5 million tons of rare earth reserves, the eighth-largest in the world, including the Kvanefjeld and Tanbreez deposits. Chinese firm Shenghe Resources is the second-largest shareholder in Kvanefjeld.The 2022 U.S. National Strategy states that China doubled its Arctic investments over the preceding decade, “with a focus on critical mineral extraction.” Under Strategic Objective 3.4, the United States commits to working with allies and partners to expand private investment in Arctic critical minerals through the Export-Import Bank, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency.The DoD strategy says China’s “Polar Silk Road” has pursued investments in infrastructure and natural resources, “including in the territory of NATO Allies.” Trump stated that “Russia or China” would take over Greenland if the United States did not act.Russia’s Arctic Basic Principles to 2035, as amended in 2023, define the Northern Sea Route as a “national transport corridor.” They call for systems to control shipping and manage traffic along the route, as well as updated baselines for measuring Russia’s territorial sea and exclusive economic zone. The DoD strategy says Russia claims authority to regulate Northern Sea Route waters beyond what UNCLOS permits and could use its maritime infrastructure to enforce those “excessive and illegal” claims.The Basic Principles direct Russia to expand the combat capabilities of its Arctic forces, modernize military infrastructure, and improve monitoring of air, surface, and undersea activity. They list the buildup of foreign military forces, attempts by some states to revise treaties governing Arctic activity, and the incomplete delimitation of Arctic maritime spaces among Russia’s main challenges.Russia’s separate 2020 Arctic Zone Strategy, amended in 2021 and 2023, states that the region hosts facilities of Russia’s strategic deterrence forces. It calls for Arctic-adapted weapons, expanded basing infrastructure, and dual-use military facilities, including in Murmansk and at Tiksi, to counter the region’s “growing conflict potential.”It also calls for at least seven Project 22220 nuclear icebreakers, the lead “Lider” nuclear icebreaker, and a headquarters to manage shipping along the Northern Sea Route. Other measures include continuous satellite communications, long-range vessel tracking, a trans-Arctic undersea fiber-optic line, and research into the Arctic Ocean’s underwater environment.Both Russian documents call for continued work on continental shelf boundaries. The Basic Principles call for cooperation with Arctic states on delimiting the shelf in the Arctic Ocean. The 2020 strategy directs Russia to prepare evidence supporting the outer limit of its claim and seek its formal recognition under international law.The September 22 agreement between the United States, Denmark, and Greenland expands U.S. military access to the island and bars non-NATO countries from establishing military installations there, unless the parties agree otherwise. Its restrictions on sensitive investments would also limit opportunities for Chinese or Russian control of critical infrastructure and resources. Together, those measures strengthen the U.S. position in the Arctic and help prevent Russia or China from gaining military or strategic control in Greenland.The post How Greenland Fits Into the Arctic Strategies of the U.S., China, Russia and Canada appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.