I spent four years as an Army infantry officer in Alaska, where our operational responsibilities stretched from Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean to the Aleutian Islands reaching toward Russia.During Exercise Brim Frost ’89, some 26,000 American and Canadian troops took the field, and I served as a brigade operations officer.As we maneuvered across Alaska’s interior, temperatures plunged as low as 76 degrees below zero.
The exercise produced more than 250 cold-weather injuries, including 88 cases of frostbite.At those temperatures, fuel systems become unreliable, batteries lose power, lubricants thicken and weapons and vehicles can fail in ways soldiers from warmer climates rarely encounter.And no, a week on the slopes at Vail does not prepare anyone for that.
The Arctic punishes amateurs.TRUMP’S GREENLAND DEAL SET FOR SIGNING AFTER MONTHS-LONG FIGHT OVER US CONTROLThat experience is why President Donald Trump’s Greenland announcement at the United Nations on Tuesday deserves attention beyond the political headlines."We’ll be building two very major military bases," the president told the General Assembly.The Pituffik Space Base (formerly Thule Air Base) is pictured in northern Greenland, on Oct.
4, 2023.(Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)The agreement Trump signed with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland Premier Jens-Frederik Nielsen amends the 1951 defense pact.
It allows the United States to modernize and expand the existing Pituffik Space Base in the northwest and to establish new defense areas at Narsarsuaq in the south and Mestersvig in the northeast.It also grants U.S.
forces broad access by land, air and sea, including undersea access for American public vessels within Greenland’s territorial waters.TRUMP DECLARES VICTORY IN HISTORIC DEAL WITH GREENLAND AS HE SECURES 'PERMANENT' US MILITARY RIGHTSAnnouncing an Arctic base, however, is a long way from making one operational.Frederiksen said no decision has ...