Last month, at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Trump ruled out using military force to take the island, but insisted the United States needs Greenland for national security<\/a>. \u201cAll we are asking for is to get Greenland, including right, title and ownership because you need the ownership <\/a>to defend it,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t defend it on a lease.\u201d <\/p>\n 600 nukes under ice<\/p>\n In the 1960s, as Project Iceworm was being evaluated by the Department of Defense, the U.S. had just started operating Camp Century, a nuclear-powered scientific post in northwestern Greenland almost 130 miles away from the island\u2019s coast, also a site for covert military activity.<\/p>\n By that time, the Army was touting the base as a cutting-edge \u201ccity under ice\u201d for Arctic research in PR campaigns on American media, while also secretly using it as a testbed to determine whether missile tunnels under the ice sheet were feasible.<\/p>\n \u201cThe concept takes advantage of Northern Greenland\u2019s remoteness from populated areas, its relative closeness to Soviet targets, the unique adaptability of the Icecap to nuclear deployment, and the proximity of the Thule Base,\u201d according to a 1962 declassified Army report titled \u201cThe U.S. Army\u2019s Iceworm Concept\u201d and forwarded to The Times by Nielsen.<\/p>\n Thule, now called Pituffik Space Base, was built during World War II, one of several military installations established during the war. It once held as many as 10,000 U.S. military personnel. In 1946, three years before the creation of NATO<\/a>, the Truman administration proposed buying Greenland for $100 million in gold, but the Danes didn\u2019t accept the bid, according to Department of State documents declassified in the 1970s.<\/p>\n 2nd Lt. Peter B. Moulton, standing, uses a surveying instrument during the construction of Camp Century, a U.S. military base in Greenland, in June 1959.<\/p>\n (Pictorial Parade\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n Plans for Project Iceworm considered placing around 600 missiles, at least four miles apart, in a deployment area as large as Alabama, according to the report. Mounted on rail lines, the missiles could be moved about to evade detection by the Soviets. This setup, the report said, would allow launching sites to be \u201crelatively invulnerable\u201d to enemy warheads, requiring a \u201cmassive blanket Soviet thermonuclear attack\u201d to destroy Iceworm launchers.<\/p>\n The missiles would be be hidden \u201c28 feet beneath the surface of the Icecap,\u201d almost the height of a three-story building. <\/p>\n For that reason, scientists drilled into Greenland\u2019s ice core to study its sub-layers and assess if Iceworm tunnels were viable. The work produced a nonmilitary benefit by gathering data that \u201chelped reveal Earth\u2019s climate history over the past 100,000 years,\u201d says Ronald Doel, a professor of history at Florida State University who co-edited the book \u201cExploring Greenland: Cold War Science and Technology on Ice.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIceworm\u2019s potential promise certainly helped government officials to endorse and embrace the construction of Camp Century,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the same time, research on Greenland\u2019s environment was indeed required to successfully operate there and elsewhere in the Arctic.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Surveyors](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770379388_496_.jpeg\")
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