section_path: Government and politics/Military
section_name: Military
paragraph_text: Military
  
  Greenland does not have its own military. As a territory of Denmark, the Danish military is responsible for Greenland's defence and the island is within the area overseen by the NATO military alliance. The Joint Arctic Command is the Danish military branch responsible for Greenland. It includes several patrol ships, maritime patrol aircraft, helicopters, and the elite Sirius Dog Sled Patrol. The Danish military has personnel based at Nuuk, Kangerlussuaq, Daneborg, Station Nord, Mestersvig, Grønnedal, and a liaison detachment at Thule Air Base.
  
  There is also one United States military base in Greenland: Pituffik Space Base (previously Thule Air Base), which is home to the United States Space Force 's global network of sensors providing missile warning, space surveillance and space control to North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD). Elements of the sensor systems are commanded and controlled variously by Space Deltas 2, 4, and 6. Formerly there had been several U.S. bases in Greenland. The 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement allowed the United States to keep its military bases there, and to establish new bases with the consent of Greenland and Denmark, if deemed necessary by NATO.
  
  In 1995, a political scandal in Denmark occurred after a report revealed the government had given tacit permission for nuclear weapons to be located in Greenland, in contravention of Denmark's 1957 nuclear-free zone policy. The United States built a secret nuclear powered base, called Camp Century, in the Greenland ice sheet. On 21 January 1968, a B-52G, with four nuclear bombs aboard as part of Operation Chrome Dome, crashed on the ice of the North Star Bay while attempting an emergency landing at Thule Air Base. The resulting fire caused extensive radioactive contamination. One of the H-bombs remains lost.
  
  Greenland does not have its own military. As a territory of Denmark, the Danish military is responsible for Greenland's defence and the island is within the area overseen by the NATO military alliance. The Joint Arctic Command is the Danish military branch responsible for Greenland. It includes several patrol ships, maritime patrol aircraft, helicopters, and the elite Sirius Dog Sled Patrol. The Danish military has personnel based at Nuuk, Kangerlussuaq, Daneborg, Station Nord, Mestersvig, Grønnedal, and a liaison detachment at Thule Air Base.
  
  There is also one United States military base in Greenland: Pituffik Space Base (previously Thule Air Base), which is home to the United States Space Force 's global network of sensors providing missile warning, space surveillance and space control to North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD). Elements of the sensor systems are commanded and controlled variously by Space Deltas 2, 4, and 6. Formerly there had been several U.S. bases in Greenland. The 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement allowed the United States to keep its military bases there, and to establish new bases with the consent of Greenland and Denmark, if deemed necessary by NATO.
  
  In 1995, a political scandal in Denmark occurred after a report revealed the government had given tacit permission for nuclear weapons to be located in Greenland, in contravention of Denmark's 1957 nuclear-free zone policy. The United States built a secret nuclear powered base, called Camp Century, in the Greenland ice sheet. On 21 January 1968, a B-52G, with four nuclear bombs aboard as part of Operation Chrome Dome, crashed on the ice of the North Star Bay while attempting an emergency landing at Thule Air Base. The resulting fire caused extensive radioactive contamination. One of the H-bombs remains lost.