Earlier this week, news broke that two battalions of troops from the 11th Airborne Division, headquartered in Alaska, were placed on stand-by for deployment to Minnesota. 1
The 11th Airborne Division is generally comprised of light infantry and airborne infantry specializing in arctic warfare. A quick Google search on the first brigade yielded this AI overview:
The 1st Brigade, 11th Airborne Division, nicknamed the “Arctic Wolves,” is the U.S. Army’s premier Arctic-focused infantry brigade, specializing in extreme cold-weather and mountain warfare, operating from Fort Wainwright, Alaska as part of the reactivated 11th Airborne Division (the “Arctic Angels”). This light, mobile unit trains for rapid deployment in the Indo-Pacific and Arctic regions, focusing on seizing critical terrain in harsh, high-latitude environments where other forces can’t.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement forces are concentrated on operations in St. Paul, a decidedly urban environment.
We’re meant to believe that a battalion each of specialized arctic infantry and arctic airborne infantry are going to be introduced… here? 2
OR — does it make more sense that the troops are actually being readied for an incursion into Greenland (an actual, you know, arctic location, complete with mountainous terrain), which Trump has been threatening for weeks now? 3
I wonder.
- Cooper, H. (2026, January 18). Pentagon Tells 1,500 Troops to Prepare for Possible Deployment to Minnesota. The New York Times. Retrieved January 18, 2026, from https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/18/us/politics/pentagon-troops-minnesota.html ↩︎
- Lamothe, D., & Somasundaram, P. (2026, January 18). Pentagon readies 1,500 soldiers to possibly deploy to Minnesota, officials say. The Washington Post. Retrieved January 18, 2026, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/01/18/trump-minnesota-insurrection-act/ ↩︎
- Associated Press. (2026, January 18). Republicans and Democrats are trying to contain Trump’s Greenland aggression. Will it be enough? The Washington Post. Retrieved January 18, 2026, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/01/18/congress-republicans-trump-greenland-denmark/b6cb7720-f486-11f0-9ceb-4c268b6e1369_story.html ↩︎
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