Project Iceworm: the first time the US set their eyes on Greenland
Let’s be a hundred per cent clear here, the United States of America has not, and has never, ever had any claim to the country of Greenland.
Any attempt they might make on it is a naked act of imperialist sabre-rattling that, at best, is Donald Trump desperately trying to seem strong and powerful before he shits himself and dies. At worst, it’s an act of imperialist sabre-rattling from Trump’s paymasters in the Kremlin. Whatever the reason, it’s much like Trump’s government in a nutshell. As pathetic as it is dangerous. And it’s really, really dangerous, as much as we may not like to believe it.
We all know why they have an eye on Greenland as well. The natural resources on the island and the ability to have a foothold in Europe. The ability to cut the travel distance across the Atlantic in half is a game-changer and automatically gives the US a say in land conflicts in Europe. Considering that the White House is compromised by the Kremlin, this would be bad news for the rest of mainland Europe. The irony is that, like everything about Trump, it’s far from new.
No, this is not the first time that the United States has cast its avaricious eyes on Greenland and, ironically enough, the last time it was to indirectly combat Russia. Or at the very least to have a base of operations closer to the Kremlin that, in the event of a nuclear attack, they could either intercept or launch a counter-attack from. At least, that was the main idea behind the plot. The other side of the plot was one that, in true Cold War fashion, got surprisingly silly for such a serious time.
I mean, what else can you call a plan to build a city under the ice?
Why did the US want to build a city under Greenland?
The truth is that the main idea of the plot worked.
In 1951, the United States struck a deal with Greenland and the Danish government to build airbases on the island nation. However, as construction began on the airbases, the United States developed the idea into something much bigger, much stupider, and much, much more impractical. Much more American, with all the love in the world to my wonderful American friends. At this point, I’m sure they’d agree.
The pitch grew into Project Iceworm, and rather than build a few airbases and leave it at that, the idea was for those bases to be step one of the larger project. Then they’d start digging down. These bases would then all be connected by 52,000 square miles of tunnels. A distance three times the size of Denmark, the nation that Greenland is an autonomous territory of. These tunnels would contain 600 nuclear missiles and 11,000 American troops that would live on site, making Project Iceworm nothing less than a full-on city under the ice.
A nice idea, but how would they power it? Wonderful news, they’d thought of that! Not content with Project Iceworm being a set of airbases, a nuclear arms facility and a military base, the whole thing would be powered by several nuclear reactors they’d build on site. Seems so simple when you put it like that, right? What’s even more mental is that work began on Project Iceworm, getting so far as to build two of the 52,000 miles of tunnels, but no more than that.
The military lost faith in the project in 1963, cancelling the project then. One can only hope that the United States’ plans for Greenland today fall through in a similar fashion.