Making the Greenland Agreement Work: Building Distributed Arctic Deterrence

The new U.S.-Greenland-Kingdom of Denmark agreement offers an opportunity to strengthen Arctic deterrence through distributed capabilities, resilient networks, and coalition capability alignment.

The Arctic is becoming increasingly contested because of growing Russian military activity, expanding Chinese engagement, and the strategic consequences of climate change. At the same time, long-range precision strike systems, persistent surveillance, cyber operations, and electronic warfare are increasing the vulnerability of concentrated forces and fixed infrastructure.

As a result, traditional approaches centered on large platforms, major bases and permanent force presence are becoming less effective. Arctic deterrence should instead focus on denial: the ability to prevent an adversary from achieving military objectives quickly, easily, or at acceptable cost.

This brief argues that Arctic allies should align capabilities rather than pursue deeper force integration. Effective Arctic defense depends on generating three operational effects:

The agreement should therefore serve as a foundation for coalition capability development across the Arctic and North Atlantic.

The Arctic is emerging as a critical theater of strategic competition. Russia continues to expand military capabilities across its northern territories, while China is increasing its political, economic, and scientific engagement in the region. Climate change is gradually expanding access to Arctic waters, increasing the region’s geopolitical and military significance.[i]

The security agreement signed by the United States, Greenland, and the Kingdom of Denmark at the United Nations General Assembly on September 22, 2026, creates an important opportunity to strengthen Arctic security.[ii] While public attention has focused on sovereignty and military access, the agreement’s greatest strategic value lies elsewhere. It offers a framework for developing the distributed capabilities needed to deter aggression in an increasingly contested Arctic operating environment.

Recent research from the Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology (CDCT) suggests that military effectiveness increasingly depends on distributed networks of sensors, decision-making systems, communications, and strike capabilities rather than on a small number of concentrated, high-value platforms.[iii] This insight is particularly relevant in the Arctic, where vast distances, limited infrastructure, harsh environmental conditions, and growing technological threats magnify the vulnerabilities of traditional force structures.

This brief argues that Arctic defense cooperation should focus on capability alignment rather than force integration. Instead of building large permanent force deployments, Arctic allies should align national capabilities to generate three shared operational effects: persistent awareness, distributed denial, and operational resilience. The U.S.-Greenland-Kingdom of Denmark agreement provides an opportunity to operationalize this approach.

The Arctic is undergoing a strategic transformation. Russia continues to treat the region as a strategic location and has invested heavily in military infrastructure, air and missile defenses, maritime capabilities, and dual-use facilities. Meanwhile, China has expanded its Arctic presence through scientific activities, investment, and political engagement, positioning itself as a stakeholder in regional governance and development.[iv]

Climate change is accelerating this transformation. Greater access to Arctic waters is increasing economic activity and expanding operational opportunities for military and civilian actors. Although the region remains one of the world’s most demanding environments, its strategic importance is steadily rising.

At the same time, military-technological developments are reshaping the operational environment. Long-range precision strike systems, persistent surveillance, cyber operations and electronic warfare are increasing the vulnerability of concentrated forces and fixed infrastructure.[v] These developments are particularly significant in the Arctic, where geography, sparse infrastructure and long distances already impose substantial operational constraints.

The Arctic’s maritime character reinforces these challenges. Critical sea routes, chokepoints, undersea infrastructure, and maritime approaches connect the region to North America, Europe, and the broader global economy. The Greenland–Iceland–United Kingdom (GIUK) Gap, the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea remain strategically important operational spaces.

The central challenge for Arctic allies is therefore not maintaining continuous presence across the region but denying adversaries the ability to exploit these spaces at an acceptable cost. Effective deterrence depends on the ability to create uncertainty, friction, and operational risk through resilient operational networks capable of generating military effects across the theater.[vi]

Arctic cooperation has expanded significantly following Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO. Yet geographic realities, national sovereignty concerns, differing escalation thresholds and largely national logistics systems limit the feasibility of deeply integrated force structures. The principal challenge is therefore not institutional integration but capability alignment. The goal should be to ensure that nationally controlled capabilities can generate shared operational effects across the Arctic theatre.

Three operational effects are particularly important.

The first is persistent awareness, which is the ability to detect, identify, and track military activity across vast maritime, air, and subsea domains. Given the size of the Arctic, no nation can maintain comprehensive situational awareness independently. Effective monitoring requires integrating satellites, maritime patrol aircraft, seabed sensors, autonomous systems and national intelligence assets.

The second is distributed denial, which is the ability to impose costs and restrict adversary freedom of maneuver. Rather than relying on concentrated deployments, allies should establish overlapping sensing, targeting and strike networks capable of contesting activity across critical approaches and infrastructure nodes.

The third is operational resilience, which is the ability to sustain military effectiveness despite attacks against communications, logistics, infrastructure and command and control systems. Arctic operations must assume degraded connectivity, environmental disruption, and adversary interference.

Together, these three operational effects provide a practical framework for Arctic capability development. Different allies will contribute different capabilities. What matters is that those capabilities reinforce one another and collectively generate awareness, denial, and resilience across the theater.

The Arctic favors distributed, resilient, and adaptable force designs over large permanent deployments. Military effectiveness depends on connecting dispersed sensors, decision-makers, sustainment systems, and strike capabilities into operationally coherent networks.

The Arctic’s geography is defined by maritime approaches and choke points. Rather than attempting continuous naval presence across enormous distances, Arctic allies should prioritize distributed maritime denial capabilities that exploit geography as a force multiplier.[vii]

Such capabilities may include mobile anti-ship missile systems, distributed coastal defense networks, long-range precision fires, and deployable sensing architectures. The objective is not continuous sea control but the ability to deny adversaries uncontested access to critical maritime approaches.

Persistent surveillance is one of the Arctic’s greatest operational challenges. Long-endurance uncrewed aerial vehicles, autonomous underwater vehicles, autonomous surface vessels, satellites, and seabed sensors can provide continuous awareness even under conditions where traditional platforms may be unavailable, vulnerable, or prohibitively expensive.

Deterrence increasingly depends on resilient kill chains that connect sensing, decision-making, communications, and strike functions despite disruption.

In the Arctic, adversaries are likely to target communications networks, navigation systems, and command nodes through cyberattacks, electronic warfare and kinetic strikes. Effective force design therefore requires redundant sensing pathways, decentralized decision-making, interoperable communications systems, and multiple routes for transmitting information and commands.

Fixed infrastructure is among the most vulnerable elements of Arctic defense. Airfields, ports, fuel depots, and command centers are limited in number and often difficult to replace.

Arctic allies should therefore emphasize dispersed operations, infrastructure hardening, mobile air defenses, deception, and distributed sustainment concepts. The objective is not invulnerability, but the ability to sustain military operations and continue imposing costs even after initial attacks.

The September 2026 agreement creates the first major political framework through which distributed Arctic deterrence can be operationalized. Its significance extends beyond questions of access and military presence. The agreement’s greatest strategic value lies in its ability to support coalition capability development across the Arctic and North Atlantic while limiting opportunities for strategic competitors to establish military positions or pursue sensitive investments in Greenland.

Its success should therefore not be measured by the number of troops deployed or facilities built. Such metrics reflect a traditional basing paradigm that is increasingly ill-suited to a contested operating environment.

Instead, policymakers should assess whether the agreement enables:

Viewed through this lens, the agreement should function not primarily as a basing arrangement but as an enabling framework for capability alignment among Arctic allies and partners.

Greenland’s greatest strategic value is not as a location for concentrated military forces. Rather, it is a critical node within a distributed operational network connecting North America, the GIUK Gap, and the European Arctic. Leveraging Greenland in this manner would strengthen deterrence while reducing vulnerabilities associated with large concentrations of military infrastructure.

This approach aligns closely with current U.S. defense priorities emphasizing resilient kill chains, distributed operations, and campaigning in contested environments. The agreement provides an opportunity to translate these concepts into practical Arctic force design.

Washington, Nuuk, and Copenhagen should establish a trilateral capability initiative focused on distributed defense capabilities rather than traditional basing arrangements. Priority areas should include ISR, communications resilience, autonomous systems, infrastructure security, and operational sustainment.

The three partners should develop a layered network integrating satellites, maritime patrol aircraft, seabed sensors, autonomous systems and NATO ISR capabilities. The objective should be continuous domain awareness across critical Arctic and North Atlantic approaches.

The United States, Denmark and Arctic allies should develop redundant communications systems and secure data-sharing mechanisms capable of operating despite cyberattacks, electronic warfare or disruptions to space-based assets.

Partners should pursue distributed maritime denial capabilities based on long-range sensing, autonomous systems, anti-ship capabilities and rapidly deployable assets designed to complicate adversary operations across critical maritime approaches.

The three governments should establish a joint framework to monitor and protect ports, communications infrastructure, energy installations, satellite ground stations, and subsea cables. Infrastructure resilience should become a central component of Arctic deterrence.

Policymakers should pursue distributed sustainment logistics concepts based on prepositioned equipment, dual-use infrastructure, autonomous resupply systems and interoperable support arrangements among Arctic allies and partners.

The agreement should serve as a catalyst for broader capability alignment among the United States, Greenland, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Canada, Norway, Iceland, and the United Kingdom. Investments should focus on complementary operational effects rather than duplicative national force structures.

The strategic value of the September 2026 U.S.–Greenland–Kingdom of Denmark agreement lies not primarily in expanded U.S. access or military presence, but in its potential to support a new model of Arctic deterrence.

The Arctic’s geography, climate, and operational challenges favor distributed and resilient force designs over concentrated deployments and fixed infrastructure. Effective deterrence therefore depends on allies' ability to generate persistent awareness, distributed denial, and operational resilience across the theater.

The agreement provides a practical framework for aligning capabilities among Arctic allies and partners. It can be used to develop integrated sensing networks, resilient command-and-control systems, maritime denial capabilities, infrastructure protection, and distributed sustainment arrangements. It can become a foundation for a more effective approach to Arctic security.

Greenland’s most important contribution is therefore not as a site for concentrated military forces, but as a strategically positioned node within a distributed network spanning North America, the GIUK Gap and the European Arctic. The success of the agreement should ultimately be measured by the military effects it enables, not by the military footprint it creates.

Liselotte Odgaard is a nonresident senior fellow at Hudson Institute. She recently published Closing the Arctic Gaps: NATO Allies and Partners Can Protect Their Homelands by Updating Their Defense Force Postures.