"One regiment in two hours": how quickly can the US conquer Greenland? The US can take Greenland in a few hours

 

"Donald Trump wants to get Greenland - and refuses to guarantee that he will not 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. Will the United States be able to conquer Greenland, what will it take, and what does the Wehrmacht operation have to do with it.

Since 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 currently belongs to Denmark, is necessary to ensure American national security and protection from 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 Gada, a senior research fellow at the Danish Institute of International Studies, writes that a US attack on Greenland would be "the shortest war in the world," since Denmark "has no defensive potential." Let's figure out whether this is true and why.

US forces in Greenland

By and large, the US Armed Forces do not need to invade the island: they have been present there since 1943. Greenland is currently home to the US Air Force's Pituffik Air Base, formerly known as Thule Air Base.

The base's airfield has a runway that is 3,000 m long and can accommodate all types of aircraft. The 821st Air Maintenance Group is responsible for the airbase's operations. The base handles over 3,000 US and international flights per year. Pituffik is also home to the world's northernmost deep-water port.

Elements of the nuclear missile warning system are also located here. In particular, this includes the 12th Space Warning Squadron (12th SWS), equipped with an 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 are active phased array antenna sheets about 28 m in size. The sheets have a viewing sector 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.

The airfield in Greenland has traditionally been home to strategic aviation units of the US Air Force. It was there on January 21, 1968, that a B-52 aircraft with thermonuclear bombs on board crashed. During a combat patrol, a fire broke out on the bomber due to a technical malfunction. After unsuccessful attempts to extinguish the fire, the crew was forced to eject, and the unguided aircraft with four B28FI thermonuclear bombs on board crashed on the ice of North Star Bay, 11 km from the runway of the Thule air base. The impact caused the detonation of conventional explosives in the fuses of all four bombs, and although there was no nuclear explosion, 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, Donald Trump only needs to transfer several units of the airborne and airborne assault troops of the US Armed Forces to the island to implement his plans. An operation similar to "Flash Fury" (the US invasion of Grenada in 1983) could be carried out. In general, the concept of "one regiment in two hours" will be fully implemented in this case. The few Danish army facilities in Greenland - the Kangerlussuaq airfield, the logistics center in Grønnedal and the Daneborg, Mesterving and Nord stations - will be neutralized in the shortest possible time if necessary.

No armed resistance from the Danish Armed Forces can be expected due to the simply gigantic difference in the military and economic potential of the parties. Any statistical data characterizing the balance of forces of the parties is not even worth citing in this case.

In 1940, the Wehrmacht captured Denmark in six hours (Operation "Weser Exercise"). The Danish political leadership then asked the population to refrain from any resistance. 

The scale of the hostilities is evidenced by the fact that the German troops lost 2 people killed and 10 wounded. The Danish losses amounted to 13 people. The United States will most likely cope faster. Donald Trump's statements regarding Panama Canal, Canada and Greenland seem to be opening the era of special military operations, now on a global scale. The world is moving, and the principles of inviolability of borders, territorial integrity of states, non-interference in the internal affairs of foreign states, proclaimed in 1975 in Helsinki, seem to be a thing of the past."

Why did the Danish political leadership ask the population to refrain from any resistance even to Hitler while the Lithuanian elite promises ditches of Lithuania full of dead bodies of Lithuanian males and females soon? Why is the Lithuanian elite still attacking the sovereignty of China when nobody in the world does that, even the US? The Danish political leadership obviously cares about the survival of Danish people. The Lithuanian elite doesn't. Why should they? They already have expensive real estate in the Greek and British islands. They call us Lithuanians, dogs.