When it comes to the national security front, Donald Trump is flat out loosing it. After all, WTF was he thinking with respect to –
……A $1.5 trillion defense budget?
……Kidnapping the president of a sovereign nation?
……Putting Mexico and Columbia on deck for the next drug fumigation?
……Essentially promising to militarily enable regime change in Iran?
…..Enforcing freedom of religion in Nigeria with more than a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles?
…..Taking Greenland….. the hard way?
All of this is the work of an unlearned, unread, blow-hard, know-it-all narcissist, who rattles around the White House in the dead of night dreaming up barking idiocy that none of the craven weaklings (e.g. JD Vance), boot-licking sycophants (e.g. Marco Rubio) and mentally-warped, xenophobic fanatics (e.g. Stephen Miller) surrounding the Oval Office are about to resist.
But the last of the listed items – annexing Greenland – surely takes the cake for risible humbugery.
Check the record. Among the most recent American officials to advocate the taking of Greenland was, well, Secretary of State William Seward. In the second half of the 1860s!
This statesman of “Seward”s Icebox” fame feared England would take control of Greenland, thereby further thwarting the plans of his “manifest destiny” crowd to annex Canada.
Some eight decades later, there was also the original cold war monger, Secretary of State James Byrnes, who offered Denmark $100 million for Greenland—the better to keep the Ruuskies off of the icebergs. Instead, Washington eventually settled for a rent-a-base at Thule, Greenland that actually made sense as a radar warning station at the time, and which we remember quite well.
To wit, during 1954-1957 the US set up a chain of radar stations called the DEW Line, stretching from Alaska across northern Canada to Greenland, providing systematic capacity for long-range detection of incoming Soviet bombers. It was a key part of the continental defense network integrated into NORAD and we were mightily impressed when we read all about it in our Weekly Reader as a 4th grader in 1955.
Since he is now our same age at 79 years, the Donald undoubtedly read about the DEW Line in his Weekly Reader, too. But apparently he never got over the wonder of it.
After all, back then the maximum cruising speed of the Soviet Tupolev TU-16 was about 500 mph. So if any attacking Soviet bombers were detected by the radar station at Thule they were still 5 hours and 15 minutes from Washington DC, which is about 2,600 miles away. The US strategic command thus had plenty of time to scramble an extensive fleet of Air Force fighters and interceptors to bring the Soviet bombers down long before reaching targets in the USA.
No more. Today’s Russian hypersonic Oreshnik missiles can easily travel at peak speeds of mach 10 and average speeds of mach 5 or about 4,000 miles/per hour. This means that they could get from Thule to the nation’s capital in barely 40 minutes.
But even then the 40 minutes of “warning” time from Greenland-based radar isn’t what it might appear to be. That’s because there is no existing or even conceptually likely defense system against hypersonic missiles that would effectively protect American military and civilian targets – especially if these hypersonic missiles were camouflaged with swarms of decoys. In effect, warning time is irrelevant because effective anti-hypersonic missile defensive counter-measures are nonexistent.
Besides, even today’s 40 minutes by hypersonic missile from Greenland to the White House isn’t all that. It’s actually about 10 minutes.
That’s because in the case of a totally implausible Russian first strike (see below), the latter would be led by a hypersonic missile attack on Thule, which is exactly 10 minutes from Russia’s Olenegorsk Air Base on the Kola Peninsula. Of course, the Thule base has no reliable anti-missile defense, in any event, and would therefore be obliterated before they even got the President out of bed in the White House.
That is to say, in today’s world there is no meaningful warning time for traditional defensive measures to protect the airbase at Thule. It’s essentially a sitting duck aircraft carrier on an iceberg, equivalent to Washington’s equally worthless $40 billion carrier battle groups, which also sit out on the blue waters waiting to be obliterated by a hypersonic missile attack.
In short, it is not merely that we don’t need to own Greenland in any way, shape or form – we don’t even need the Thule base any longer, either. It should be given back to the people of Greenland at a savings to Uncle Sam of upwards of $500 million per year. Perhaps rather than being ruled from Washington the 57,000 or so Greenlanders would prefer to make an Arctic-region museum/theme park out of Thule in order to attract adventure tourism.
The Donald’s entire Greenland folly, however, reminds you that Trump does not understand in the slightest that America’s security in the nuclear age – for better or worse – rests on strategic deterrence or the so-called doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD). If he understood MAD, in fact, he would not be stumbling and bumbling around with the equally idiotic ideas of a $1.5 trillion defense budget and a Golden Dome missile defense for the entirely of America’s land mass from sea-to-shining-sea.
The fact is, the Donald is so full of misplaced self-confidence and so unlettered when it comes to the great matters of national security that he undoubtedly thinks America’s nuclear security specifically and homeland security generally can be assured by just a larger version of Israel’s successful Iron Dome defense. But that has been successful only against the slow-moving, primitive rockets and drones confected in the tunnels of Hamas or the 300 or so low-tech projectiles Iran threw at Israel in the spring of 2024, which were also successfully intercepted by the Iron Dome.
The latter attack was mostly comprised of about 250 slow-moving Shahed-136 loitering munitions (i.e. kamikaze drones), which fly at subsonic speeds of 120-180 MPH or about 2% of the speed of a hypersonic missile. The Iranian barrage also included 30 or more low-flying, terrain-hugging subsonic cruise missiles of the Soumar or Hoveyzeh type that follow a relatively flat, direct path which is easier to intercept and shoot down – unlike the high ballistic arc of the hypersonic Oreshnik weapon.
While Iran also launched a few high-arcing ballistic missiles which were more difficult to intercept, Israel’s defense against its primitive regional military opponents simply doesn’t relate to or scale to America’s strategic nuclear defense challenges.
That’s why the fundamental truth – especially since the misguided failure of Ronald Reagan’s proposed Star Wars missile defense shield back in the mid-1980s – is that the technology of offensive strategic nuclear weaponry will always stay one step ahead of ABM type defensive systems. Accordingly, maintaining an unassailable nuclear deterrent is the essence of the true America First Homeland defense.
And we already have all we need of the latter – purchased and paid for over the years in the form of the nation’s triad nuclear deterrent. Accordingly, neither a Golden Dome nor $1.5 trillion super-defense budget is remotely necessary. In fact, these latest Trumpian hobby horses are downright nutty – to say nothing of comprising a fiscal albatross the would literally break Uncle Sam’s bank account once and for all.
To remind, therefore, the nation’s triad strategic deterrent is composed of land, air and sea-based capacity to deliver upwards of 1700 nuclear warheads in a retaliatory second strike against the territory of any attacker. This force is designed to obliterate virtually every city, every factory, every transportation node, every food supply warehouse and actually, nearly every living person, in the country of an adversary who attempts to strike first.
That’s called a retaliatory second strike, and the apocalyptic threat of it had kept the peace for more than 40 years until the Soviet Union disappeared into the dustbin of history in 1991; and has continued to do its job for the last 35 years against the far, far less capable and/or motivated current regimes in Moscow and Beijing.
That is to say, MAD works because even the leaders of countries demonized by Washington are not now and never have been suicidal.
Moreover, the US doesn’t need bases in Greenland to support or enhance this kind of nuclear deterrence in any case. That’s because America now has more than a dozen satellites in geostationary orbit that can actual do the job far more effective by detecting any Oreshnik missile launch within seconds of lift-off due to the intense heat from the rocket boosters.
This system is called the US “Space-Based Infrared System” (SBIRS). It is designed for near-real-time global coverage, spotting a missile launch “as soon as it’s off the pad” via infrared sensors in geostationary (GEO) and highly elliptical (HEO) orbits. Given the 4,000 to 5,000 kilometer distance between the US and the nearest Russian launch sites, the President would have plenty of time – 23-30 minutes – to authorize the massive retaliatory strikes that are already pre-programmed and which thereby keep the peace under MAD.
To be sure, a comprehensive international nuclear disarmament arrangement would be far, far preferable, and would finally lift the Nuclear Sword of Damocles from the heads of mankind. But until then, MAD is the only real nuclear defense available – so the very last thing that Washington should be doing is actively attempting to destabilize MAD with a massive military spending increase and something as fantastical as the Golden Dome.
The latter, in fact, would drastically undermine America’s nuclear security because ever since the 1950s clear thinkers have fully understood that the availability of a total ABM shield is dangerously destabilizing. That’s because it could induce a foreign adversary to believe that Washington was capable of a Nuclear First Strike, owing to an anti-missile shield that could blunt any retaliatory second strike. And, therefore, such an adversary could conclude that it had no choice except to launch its own preemptive First Strike.
Avoidance of that destabilizing risk was the very foundation of Nixon’s ABM treaty with the Soviet Union in the early 1970s. And it is only the inveterate warhawks, neocons and arms contractors who have ever questioned it.
So to fully appreciate the marginality of Thule, it is essential to delve deeper into the mechanics of nuclear deterrence and the triad’s structure. Deterrence theory, pioneered by thinkers like Thomas Schelling in the post-World War II era, posits that stability arises from the rational calculation of costs and benefits. An adversary must believe that the U.S. can absorb a first strike and still deliver unacceptable punishment.
Not surprisingly, therefore, the U.S. nuclear triad is designed exactly to that deterrence purpose and comprises a brilliantly diversified arsenal of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and strategic bombers. Among these, the sea-based component, particularly the approximately 1,000 warheads deployed across the Ohio-class submarines scattered in the vasty ocean deeps, represents the most survivable and thus the most potent element of deterrence.
The land-based leg of the triad, consisting of about 400 Minuteman III ICBMs housed in hardened silos across states like Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming, serves as a rapid-response force. These missiles can launch within minutes of an order, providing a “prompt” capability that pressures enemies to think twice. And although their fixed locations make them vulnerable to precision strikes, they do force an attacker to allocate significant warheads to ensure destruction—hence their role as a “sponge” to dilute enemy resources.
The air-based component, including the stealthy B-2 Spirit bombers (20 in service) and the aging but versatile B-52 Stratofortress (76 total, with about 44 nuclear-capable), adds flexibility. Bombers can be recalled mid-flight, offering a de-escalation option, and carry gravity bombs or cruise missiles like the AGM-86 ALCM.
Finally, the 14 Ohio-class SSBNs, each displacing 18,750 tons submerged and capable of continuous patrols lasting 70-90 days, form the triad’s “invisible hand.” Typically, @10-12 are at sea at any time, patrolling vast ocean basins where detection is near-impossible due to acoustic stealth, deep diving (up to 800 feet), and unpredictable routes.
Each boat carries 20 Trident II D5 missiles (down from actual capability of 24 under New START treaty limits), and each missile can deliver 4-5 warheads on average, yielding roughly 80-100 warheads per sub. Multiplied across the deployed fleet, this equates to about 1,000 warheads ready for launch at any point in time – enough to obliterate hundreds of targets with yields from 100 kilotons (W76) to 475 kilotons (W88) per warhead.
The Ohio-class’s survivability is incontestable: Subs like the USS Henry M. Jackson or USS Alabama can remain undetected for months, emerging only for resupply. In an enemy launched first-strike scenario, even if ICBM silos are cratered and bombers downed, these “boomers” ensure retaliation. A single sub could target major cities like Moscow or Beijing, inflicting casualties in the tens of millions and crippling infrastructure.
In short, this “assured second strike” is what deters and keeps the nuclear peace: No foreign leader would risk it, knowing their own personal survival is at stake. In this robust framework, Thule’s radar – scanning for incoming threats over the Arctic – offers only a tiny layer of enhancement, if any at all.
To be sure, the remnants of the Greenland matters crowd, who somehow got their vestigial arguments to the Donald, argue that the Thule capability bolsters deterrence by enabling “launch on warning” (LOW). Thule’s data is presumed to be crucial for verification – distinguishing real attacks from false alarms or decoys.
However, the existing space-based SBIRS system with 6 GEO satellites and 4 in HEO, plus backups from the Defense Support Program (DSP) and emerging HBTSS/PWSA constellations (totaling 10-15 active early warning birds), offer “birth-to-death” tracking. That is, from plume detection to reentry. Upgrades, such as adding AI for trajectory prediction or expanding to 100+ LEO sensors, could further refine this at costs far below Greenland’s price tag.
To repeat, hypersonic missiles, like Russia’s Kinzhal (Mach 10+) or China’s DF-17 (Mach 5+ with glide vehicles), could strike Greenland from thousands of miles away in under 15 minutes, while maneuvering to dodge defenses. A salvo of 5-10 such weapons – launched from bombers, subs, or ground sites – could thus saturate Thule, destroying its radar arrays, runways, and support infrastructure before any meaningful alert is issued.
Finally, the financial argument seals the case against Thule. Acquiring Greenland – “Trump’s Ice Box” – for even $50 billion would buy access to Thule but not resolve any of its self-evident vulnerabilities. Instead, bolstering satellites offers far better bang for the buck.
Upgrading the current 10-15 dedicated warning satellite to Next-Gen OPIR (5 new GEO birds by 2028) and PWSA Tranche 1 (28+ LEO sensors) could cost $15-25 billion over several years, thereby providing resilient, global coverage immune to fixed-base risks. These enhancements – adding hypersonic tracking via multi-spectral sensors or AI analytics – would eclipse Thule’s capabilities, freeing resources for triad modernization (e.g., Columbia-class subs).
In short, for pure nuclear security, annexing Greenland would amount to hideous overkill, save for the fact that it might actually destroy NATO once and for all!
Still, if deterrence holds, satellites suffice; if it fails, Thule’s a goner anyway.
As it happens, the average annual cost of the nation’s triad deterrent is estimated by CBO at $75 billion per year or only a tiny fraction of the existing bloated $1.0 trillion defense budget – to say nothing of the Donald’s plan for an utterly insensible increase to $1.5 trillion per year.
And even if you throw in another $400 billion for defense of America’s coast lines and air space against an utterly inconceivable conventional attack by a 21st century Spanish Armada, the most generous estimate of a true Fortress America defense budget is about $500 billion per year.
What his means, of course, is that the Donald is fixing to waste a trillion dollars per year that Uncle Sam absolutely doesn’t have and shouldn’t ever get in order to fund the multiple equivalents of this “Trump Icebox” in the Arctic.
And that would be pure, unhinged madness, if there ever was such a thing.
David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He’s the author of three books, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed, The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America, TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin… And How to Bring It Back, and the recently released Great Money Bubble: Protect Yourself From The Coming Inflation Storm. He also is founder of David Stockman’s Contra Corner and David Stockman’s Bubble Finance Trader.
