Desolate Arctic outpost likely to host US troops under new Greenland deal

At a windswept gravel airstrip in eastern Greenland, a small Danish military detachment has quietly kept watch for decades.

Now, under a new U.S. defense agreement signed this week, the outpost at Mestersvig could soon become a key American military foothold in the Arctic.

Mestersvig sits 149 miles from the nearest settlement (population 330), at the edge of an uninhabited national park larger than Germany and France combined. The place is covered in darkness during winter, with average temperatures of around 14 degrees Fahrenheit.

“This is as remote, as cold, and as extreme as you can find in the world. You have to go to Antarctica to find similar conditions,” said Anders Ibsen, a former officer with Denmark’s Sirius dog sled patrol, an elite unit that uses Mestersvig to resupply.

It oversees the stretch of ocean between Greenland, Iceland and Britain — known as the GIUK gap — that Russia’s Northern Fleet must cross to reach the Atlantic. For NATO, controlling this chokepoint is critical to containing Russian naval power.

Local member of parliament Justus Hansen welcomed the expansion, saying, “In east Greenland, we really need that new money.”

Under the defense agreement, Washington will be allowed to establish a new base at Mestersvig and Narsarsuaq in southern Greenland, potentially marking the first U.S. military expansion on the vast, semi-autonomous Arctic island in decades.

Currently, only three soldiers maintain the facility, which was built in the 1960s and includes barracks to house 150 soldiers.

The U.S. has made no public announcement about its plans for the base.

During World War II, this stretch of the Arctic island’s coast became a front line in the “weather war,” a race between Germany and the Allies to read Greenland’s weather, which shaped conditions over the North Atlantic and Europe days later.

Germany secretly built manned stations here, but Danish dog sled patrols tracked them down, and Allied forces drove them out.

Nearby, an EU-backed project aims to mine molybdenum — a critical metal for aerospace and defence — some 12 miles away. A Texas oil company plans to drill for oil this winter at an untested basin just south of Mestersvig, although it still lacks a permit to do so.

The previous owner, ARCO, spent heavily on seismic work in the 1970s but never drilled.

“Any infrastructural improvements in Greenland would be very welcome,” said Robert Price, CEO of Greenland Energy, the oil company.

The 1.1-mile airstrip — long enough for military transport planes to land — can collect up to 5 meters of snow a year.

“When it’s snowing, you’re basically removing snow 24/7,” said Ibsen, the former dog sled patrol officer who spent a year at Mestersvig.

“You have plenty to do just staying alive.”

在格陵兰岛东部一条风沙肆虐的砾石简易机场，一支丹麦小型军事分队已经默默地守卫了几十年。

根据本周签署的一项新的美国国防协议，梅斯特斯维格前哨站可能很快就会成为美国在北极地区的重要军事立足点。

梅斯特斯维格距离最近的居民点（人口330）149英里，位于一片无人居住的国家公园边缘，这片公园的面积比德国和法国的总和还要大。冬季，这里一片漆黑，平均气温约为华氏14度。

“这里是世界上最偏远、最寒冷、最极端的地方。你必须去南极才能找到类似的条件，”丹麦“天狼星”狗拉雪橇巡逻队的前军官安德斯·伊布森说道。“天狼星”是一支精英部队，使用梅斯特斯维格岛进行补给。

它负责监管格陵兰岛、冰岛和英国之间的海域——即所谓的“格陵兰-冰岛-英国海沟”（GIUK通道）——俄罗斯北方舰队必须穿越该通道才能进入大西洋。对北约而言，控制这一咽喉要道对于遏制俄罗斯海军力量至关重要。

当地议员尤斯图斯·汉森对此次扩建表示欢迎，他说：“在格陵兰岛东部，我们真的需要这笔新资金。”

根据这项防务协议，华盛顿将被允许在格陵兰岛南部的梅斯特斯维格和纳尔萨克建立新的军事基地，这可能标志着几十年来美国首次在这个广袤的半自治北极岛屿上进行军事扩张。

目前只有三名士兵维护着这座建于 20 世纪 60 年代的设施，其中包括可容纳 150 名士兵的营房。

美国尚未就该基地的规划发表任何公开声明。

二战期间，这片北极岛屿的海岸线成为了“气象战”的前线，德国和盟军展开了一场争夺格陵兰岛天气预报的竞赛，而格陵兰岛的天气状况会在几天后影响北大西洋和欧洲的气候。

德国曾秘密在此建立有人驻守的哨所，但丹麦狗拉雪橇巡逻队追踪到了它们，盟军将它们驱逐出去。

附近，一个欧盟支持的项目计划在约12英里外开采钼矿——钼是航空航天和国防领域的关键金属。一家德克萨斯州的石油公司计划今年冬天在梅斯特斯维格以南一个未经勘探的盆地钻探石油，尽管该公司尚未获得相关许可。

前业主 ARCO 在 20 世纪 70 年代投入巨资进行地震勘探，但从未进行过钻探。

“格陵兰岛任何基础设施的改善都将非常受欢迎，”格陵兰能源公司（一家石油公司）首席执行官罗伯特·普莱斯表示。

这条 1.1 英里长的简易机场跑道——长度足以让军用运输机降落——每年可积雪达 5 米。

“下雪的时候，你基本上要24小时不停地除雪，”伊布森说道，他曾是一名狗拉雪橇巡逻员，在梅斯特斯维格待过一年。

“光是活下去你就有很多事要做了。”