Danish Armed Forces is the unified armed forces of the Kingdom of Denmark charged with the defence of Denmark and its self-governing territories Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The military also promote Denmark's wider interests, support international peacekeeping efforts and provide humanitarian aid.
The defence of Greenland is the responsibility of the Kingdom of Denmark; the government of Greenland does not have control of Greenland's military or foreign affairs. In the history of Greenland there have been many changes of presence regarding who is in charge of the security of Greenlandic people and its land.
The Royal Danish Navy is the sea-based branch of the Danish Armed Forces force. The RDN is mainly responsible for maritime defence and maintaining the sovereignty of Danish territorial waters. Other tasks include surveillance, search and rescue, icebreaking, oil spill recovery and prevention as well as contributions to international tasks and forces.
The GIUK gap is an area in the northern Atlantic Ocean that forms a naval choke point. Its name is an acronym for Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom, the gap being the two stretches of open ocean among these three landmasses. It separates the Norwegian Sea and the North Sea from the open Atlantic Ocean. The term is typically used in relation to military topics. The area has for some nations been considered strategically important since the beginning of the 20th century.
The River class is a class of offshore patrol vessels built primarily for the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom. A total of nine were built for the Royal Navy (RN), four Batch 1 and five Batch 2. One Batch 1 (HMS Clyde), which was the Falklands guard ship, was decommissioned and transferred at the end of its lease to the Royal Bahrain Naval Force.
The MEKO family of warships was developed by the German company Blohm+Voss. MEKO is a registered trademark. The portmanteau stands for "Mehrzweck-Kombination". It is a concept in modern naval shipbuilding based on modularity of armament, electronics and other equipment, aiming at ease of maintenance and cost reduction.
The Flyvefisken-class patrol vessels are warships of the Royal Danish Navy. The class is also known as the Standard Flex 300 or SF300 class. The five vessels sold to the Portuguese Navy are locally referred as Tejo class.
The Kingston class consists of 12 coastal defence vessels operated by the Royal Canadian Navy. The class is the name for the Maritime Coastal Defence Vessel Project (MCDV). These multi-role vessels were built and launched from the mid- to late-1990s and are crewed by a combination of Naval Reserve and Regular Force personnel. The main missions of the vessels are reservist training, coastal patrol, minesweeping, law enforcement, pollution surveillance and search and rescue. The multi-purpose nature of the vessels led to their mixed construction between commercial and naval standards. The Kingston class is split between the east and west coasts of Canada and regularly deploy overseas to West Africa, Europe, Central America and the Caribbean.
Island Command Greenland, or simply "GLK", was a Level.II authority responsible directly to the Defence Command. It was, among other things, responsible for the military defense of Greenland, maritime and sovereignty maintenance and enforcement, as well as search and rescue. Personnel assigned to the Danish liaison office at Thule Air Base (FOTAB) as well as the Sirius Patrol were also a part of the Greenland Command. Island Command Greenland was amalgamated with Island Command Faroes to a Joint Arctic Command on 31 October 2012.
HDMS Triton is a Thetis-class frigate belonging to the Royal Danish Navy. It is being used to exercise the Danish sovereignty over the waters around Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
HDMS Hvidbjørnen is a Thetis-class patrol vessel belonging to the Royal Danish Navy.
The Viana do Castelo class is a class of offshore patrol vessels planned by and for the Portuguese Navy, as a result of the NPO2000 Project, that are being constructed in the West Sea Shipyard.
The Iver Huitfeldt class is a three-ship class of air defence frigates that entered service with the Royal Danish Navy in 2012 and 2013.
The Knud Rasmussen class is a class of offshore patrol vessels operating in the Royal Danish Navy from 2008. Built to replace the Agdlek-class cutters on a one-for-one basis, the Knud Rasmussen-class vessels are significantly larger, enabling patrols further offshore.
Harry DeWolf-class offshore patrol vessels are warships of the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) built within the Government of Canada Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ship (AOPS) procurement project, part of the National Shipbuilding Strategy. In July 2007 the federal government announced plans for acquiring six to eight icebreaking warships for the RCN.
StanFlex is a modular mission payload system used by the Royal Danish Navy. Originally conceived during the 1980s as a way of replacing several classes of minor war vessel with a single class of multi-role ships, the StanFlex system consists of weapons and equipment mounted in standardised containers, which can be loaded into slots on the ships. These containers can be swapped out in a short period of time, allowing the ship to switch between roles when needed. The success of the modular payload system led the Royal Danish Navy to design all new warships with StanFlex slots, and to install slots on older vessels during major refits. By 2012, nine ship classes capable of carrying StanFlex payloads were in service.
The Arafura class is a class of offshore patrol vessels being built for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Initially proposed in the 2009 Defence White Paper and marked as procurement project SEA 1180, it was originally planned that 20 Offshore Combatant Vessels (OCV) would replace 26 vessels across four separate ship classes: the Armidale-class patrol boats, the Huon-class minehunters, the Leeuwin-class survey vessels, and the Paluma-class survey motor launches. Although having a common design, the ships would use a modular mission payload system to fulfill specific roles; primarily border patrol, mine warfare, and hydrographic survey. The 2013 Defence White Paper committed to the OCV project as a long-term goal, but opted in the short term for an accelerated procurement of an existing design to replace the Armidales, and life-extension refits for the other types. This resulted in the Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) project and the number of vessels reduced to 12. However, this was further increased to 14 when 2 further Mine Counter Measures variants were proposed under SEA 1905.
Maritime domain awareness (MDA) is defined by the International Maritime Organization as the effective understanding of anything associated with the maritime domain that could impact the security, safety, economy, or environment. MDA is said to work as a ‘key enabler’ for other maritime security issues, such as anti-piracy patrols, in the way that in order to do effective patrols you need to have the ability of conducting effective MDA. The maritime domain is defined as all areas and things of, on, under, relating to, adjacent to, or bordering on a sea, ocean, or other navigable waterway, including all maritime-related activities, infrastructure, people, cargo, and vessels and other conveyances.
The Joint Arctic Command is a direct Level II authority in the Danish Defence. Joint Arctic Command's primary mission in peacetime is to ensure Danish sovereignty by monitoring the area around the Faroe Islands and Greenland. The command also handles tasks such as fisheries inspection, search and rescue (SAR), patient transport and other tasks that support the civil society. In short, the Joint Arctic Command handles military tasks, coast guard duties and disaster response - all in one organisation.
Royal Danish Navy 
