The cold, harsh reality facing any US, NATO or European plans for Greenland is ice. Overwhelming the island's mineral resources, it has frozen ports and turned the coast into minefields that threaten year-round ships. The only way to overcome the ice, of course, are icebreakers - huge ships with powerful engines, reinforced hulls and heavy bows that can split the ice sheet, writes the Associated Press in an analysis on the subject, BTA reported.
The United States has only three such ships, one of which is so old that it can hardly function. Washington has signed agreements to acquire 11 more icebreakers, but the US can only obtain additional units from countries considered adversaries or from allies with whom it has recently had strained relations.
Despite softening his rhetoric, US President Donald Trump seems determined to acquire Greenland, citing US security and economic reasons: to keep the "big, beautiful piece of ice", as he calls Greenland, out of the hands of Moscow and Beijing, to provide a strategic location in the Arctic for US assets and to extract the island's mineral wealth, including rare earth elements.
Without going into specifics, Trump told world leaders gathered in the Swiss resort of Davos on Wednesday that to get to Greenland's valuable resources, "you have to go through hundreds of metres of ice".
However, this task seems impossible, as any other in the semi-autonomous Danish territory, without icebreakers to drive roads through the frozen seas.
In the next two or three years, U.S. ships will not be able to reach the island for most of the year, said Alberto Rizzi, a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
“On the map, Greenland looks surrounded by seas, but in reality the waters are full of ice,“ he stressed.
If the United States wants to increase its icebreaker fleet, it has only four options: shipyards in China or Russia, or in Canada and Finland, longtime U.S. allies that have recently faced criticism and threats of tariffs from President Trump over Greenland.
Icebreakers are expensive to design, build, operate and maintain, and require skilled labor that can only be found in certain places, such as Finland, with experience gained in the icy Baltic Sea.
Finland has built about 60 percent of the world's fleet of more than 240 icebreakers and designed about half of the remaining vessels, Rizzi said.
“These are very niche capabilities that they developed first as a necessity and then managed to turn into a geoeconomic advantage,“ he stressed.
Russia has the most icebreakers in the world - about 100 ships, including colossal vessels powered by nuclear reactors, the AP points out. However, according to expert estimates, the number of Russian icebreakers in operational and technical readiness is smaller. In second place is Canada, which plans to double its icebreaker fleet to about 50 ships, according to a 2024 report by Finnish icebreaker design company “Aker Arctic“ (Aker Arctic).
“Our design and engineering portfolio is quite full at the moment and the near future looks promising“, said Jari Hurtia, business manager at “Aker Arctic“, who described growing interest in “the company's unrivaled special expertise, which is not available anywhere else in the world“.
China currently has five icebreakers but is building more rapidly as it expands its ambitions in the Arctic, said Mark Lantain, a professor at the University of Tromsø, Norway, who also frequently teaches at the University of Greenland in Nuuk.
According to him, “China is already capable of developing its own icebreakers, so the US believes it should do the same“.
Washington needs to catch up, and quickly, said Sophie Arts, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund, which focuses on Arctic security.
“President Trump really regrets the lack of icebreakers, especially compared to Russia,“ Arts said. The current U.S. icebreaker fleet “is basically at the end of its useful life,” he added.
That's why Trump has turned to the undeniable icebreaker experience of the European Union's northernmost country and the United States' northern neighbor.
“Canada and Finland are really very important in this regard”, said Arts, who said “The United States does not currently have the capacity” to build such ships on its own.
During his first term, President Trump prioritized the acquisition of ships capable of navigating in ice conditions by the US military, a strategy that the Biden administration continued by signing an agreement with Helsinki and Ottawa for the supply of 11 icebreakers built by two corporate consortia based on Finnish designs.
Four of them will be built in Finland and seven at the Canadian “American Icebreaker Factory” in Texas, as well as at a shipyard in Mississippi, which is jointly owned by the United States and Canada.
Any mining activities for critical minerals would be associated with high costs in the harsh conditions of Greenland, whether at sea or on land. The investment would take years, if not decades, to pay off, explained Mark Lantain.
Even with proper icebreakers, the cost of building and maintaining mining or defense facilities - such as those envisaged in the still unfunded US missile defense project “Golden Dome“ - would be enormous.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has said she would be open to the possibility of strengthening security in the Arctic, including through the “Golden Dome“ project, “provided it is done with respect for our territorial integrity“.
While both the US and the EU, of which Denmark and Finland are part, have committed to significantly increasing their investment in Greenland, it is clear who currently has the power needed to reach this vast frozen territory, which is approximately three times the size of the bigger than the state of Texas.
“This is a bit absurd because I don't think Finland would break the deal with the US in response to the threat to Greenland“, Rizzi said, adding: “But if Europe wants to exert significant influence on the US, it could say: We will not give you any icebreakers and success in reaching the Arctic or projecting power there with these two old ships that you have“.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reminded world leaders on Tuesday in Davos of the EU's key technological base for any Arctic ventures.
“Finland - one of the newest members of NATO - is selling its newest icebreakers to the US“, von der Leyen told the World Economic Forum.
“This shows that we have the capacity to do exactly that. "Here, in the ice, our northern NATO members have forces ready for the Arctic, and above all, that security in the Arctic can only be achieved together," von der Leyen stressed.
Following an extraordinary meeting of EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday, the EC President announced that the EU would increase defense spending in Greenland, including for icebreakers.