Because the menace of nuclear battle loomed through the Cold War, the U.S. Military hatched a high secret plan to conceal tons of of missile launchers on rail strains hidden beneath the thick ice sheets of Greenland.
In case of a Soviet assault, nukes dispersed in hundreds of miles of cut-and-cover tunnels may very well be launched inside 20 minutes. The title for the hassle was worthy of a Hollywood motion film: Project Iceworm.
“Iceworm shaped half of the broader U.S. ‘polar technique,’ which noticed the Arctic as an important enviornment for Cold War nuclear deterrence — a direct route for each Soviet assault and U.S. strategic protection,” mentioned Kristian Nielsen, a historian of science at Aarhus College in Denmark and co-author of the e-book “Camp Century: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Arctic Army Base Under the Greenland Ice.”
American fascination with Greenland as a ahead navy place is just not new. Neither are Danish and Greenlandic doubts concerning the trustworthiness of the USA. In the course of the Cold War, a quantity of navy initiatives had been saved secret and by no means disclosed to Greenlanders or the Danes.
“When the Iceworm paperwork had been declassified in 1996, they prompted stress and unease as a result of they prompt the U.S. had explored main navy plans in Greenland with out informing Denmark,” Nielsen mentioned.
The Danish authorities has repeatedly rejected President Trump’s name to take over, or purchase, Greenland, an autonomous territory that’s half of the dominion of Denmark. Opinion polls present that Greenlanders overwhelmingly oppose American management.
Although Project Iceworm by no means grew to become actuality, its historical past and that of U.S. navy exercise in Greenland do so much to clarify wariness over Trump’s plans for the island.
Simply what these plans may entail is unclear. “Greenland should still play a task in rising U.S. missile-defense initiatives, resembling [the] Golden Dome, early-warning methods, or internet hosting interceptor capabilities, although nothing resembling Iceworm’s underground missile community,” Nielsen mentioned.
Final month, on the World Financial Discussion board in Switzerland, Trump dominated out utilizing navy pressure to take the island, however insisted the USA wants Greenland for nationwide safety. “All we’re asking for is to get Greenland, together with proper, title and possession, since you want the possession to defend it,” he mentioned. “You’ll be able to’t defend it on a lease.”
600 nukes under ice
Within the Nineteen Sixties, as Project Iceworm was being evaluated by the Division of Protection, the U.S. had simply began working Camp Century, a nuclear-powered scientific publish in northwestern Greenland virtually 130 miles away from the island’s coast, additionally a website for covert navy exercise.
By that point, the Military was touting the bottom as a cutting-edge “metropolis under ice” for Arctic analysis in PR campaigns on American media, whereas additionally secretly utilizing it as a check mattress to decide whether or not missile tunnels under the ice sheet had been possible.
“The idea takes benefit of Northern Greenland’s remoteness from populated areas, its relative closeness to Soviet targets, the distinctive adaptability of the Icecap to nuclear deployment, and the proximity of the Thule Base,” in accordance to a 1962 declassified Military report titled “The U.S. Military’s Iceworm Idea” and forwarded to The Instances by Nielsen.
Thule, now referred to as Pituffik Area Base, was one of a number of navy installations established throughout World War II. It as soon as held as many as 10,000 U.S. navy personnel. In 1946, three years earlier than the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Group, the Truman administration proposed shopping for Greenland for $100 million in gold, however the Danes didn’t settle for the bid, in accordance to Division of State paperwork declassified within the Nineteen Seventies.
2nd Lt. Peter B. Moulton, standing, makes use of a surveying instrument through the development of Camp Century, a U.S. navy base in Greenland, in June 1959.
(Pictorial Parade/Getty Photographs)
Plans for Project Iceworm thought-about inserting round 600 missiles, a minimum of 4 miles aside, in a deployment space as giant as Alabama, in accordance to the report. Mounted on rail strains, the missiles may very well be moved round to evade detection by the Soviets. This setup, the report mentioned, would enable launching websites to be “comparatively invulnerable” to enemy warheads, requiring a “huge blanket Soviet thermonuclear assault” to destroy Iceworm launchers.
The missiles could be be hidden “28 toes beneath the floor of the Icecap,” virtually the peak of a three-story constructing.
For that cause, scientists drilled into Greenland’s ice core to research its sub-layers and assess if Iceworm tunnels had been viable. The work produced a nonmilitary profit by gathering knowledge that “helped reveal Earth’s local weather historical past over the previous 100,000 years,” says Ronald Doel, a professor of historical past at Florida State College who co-edited the e-book “Exploring Greenland: Cold War Science and Know-how on Ice.”
“Iceworm’s potential promise actually helped authorities officers to endorse and embrace the development of Camp Century,” he mentioned. “On the similar time, analysis on Greenland’s setting was certainly required to efficiently function there and elsewhere within the Arctic.”
Some of these findings, as an example, had been essential to uncovering the consequences of local weather change. The frozen soil and ice collected beneath Camp Century supplied scientists an early prolonged and detailed document of Earth’s local weather from the final 100,000 years, pioneering the type of paleoclimatologic analysis that confirmed how human actions are warming the planet.
A Swiss-made snow elimination machine cuts a trench through the development of Camp Century in Greenland in 1959.
(Pictorial Parade/Getty Photographs)
Project Iceworm’s legacy
Project Iceworm was shelved in 1962, after it was deemed too technically troublesome — the ice sheet shifts — and because the Navy and Air Power pursued much less burdensome tasks on Greenland. Additionally, American officers weren’t positive whether or not the Danes would again the endeavor.
Additionally, when Camp Century was decommissioned round 5 years after Project Iceworm was scrapped, the Military left hazardous waste behind, together with up to 52,000 gallons of diesel and radioactive supplies, residues from the small nuclear reactor that had powered the bottom.
Now, because the island’s ice melts as a result of of local weather change, these contaminants may pose an environmental drawback. “The remnants of Camp Century are being carried to the west coast of Greenland as ice flows within the ice cap, and in some unspecified time in the future will likely be uncovered,” Doel mentioned.
That is, as soon as extra, one other piece of dangerous information for Greenlanders. And because the Inuit have gained extra political independence from Denmark in the previous few a long time, resembling house rule standing, additionally they could foster a much more fierce opposition to American navy strikes on the island.
“In the present day, Iceworm serves primarily as a historic reminder that the U.S. has usually considered Greenland primarily by means of a safety lens — with restricted consideration for Greenlandic political pursuits,” Nielsen mentioned.
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