Greenland radars vulnerable to hypersonic missiles, critics warn

Since the early days of the Cold War, the early warning radars on Greenland have been a linchpin for defending North America against nuclear attack by intercontinental ballistic missiles.

But the radars themselves are vulnerable to attack by hypersonic missiles, critics warn. U.S. bases in Greenland can neither detect those missiles, nor shoot them down.

“The U.S. does not have a standing integrated air and missile defense shooter layer in Greenland today,” Troy Bouffard, director of the Center for Arctic Security and Resilience at the University of Alaska, told Defense News.

“The new and future threat of hypersonic cruise missiles has changed everything, because the existing defense system cannot defend against them,” Bouffard said.

In a recent essay for Small Wars Journal , Bouffar