American pullout leaves Iceland defenceless

American pullout leaves Iceland defenceless
The Telegraph ^ | 07/21/2006 | David Rennie

The people of Iceland are about to join one of the world's smallest clubs - those nations without armed forces on their territory to defend their borders.

The United States, which had assured Iceland's defence for decades, stunned the country in March when it announced that it would be closing its bases on the island, withdrawing its F-15 fighters and thousands of servicemen in the space of just six months.

This bombshell was dropped in a single telephone call from an underling at the State Department, followed by a letter from the US ambassador.

Iceland, with just 300,000 people scattered over a landmass larger than Ireland, has never had a military of its own in modern times.

The country has fewer than 1,000 policemen, most of them unarmed, and two civilian coastguard ships.

The closest thing it has to a military is a civilian "crisis response unit", which performs peacekeeping duties overseas. But that has just 50 men.

The United States is still legally pledged to defend Iceland from attack, but it now insists that it can do this from a distance.

Within the Icelandic government, the brutally swift American pullout has sparked a debate about whether their remote, wealthy little island needs defences.

To Geir Haarde, the prime minister, the answer is a clear "yes".

"We cannot allow ourselves just to sit back and think that nothing is ever going to happen here," he said.

But Iceland was not likely to build its own army, Mr Haarde argued.

"We have no military tradition, and I think it would be very difficult politically to get the public here interested in developing that kind of capability, and spending the required resources on it."

Mr Haarde remains focused on salvaging the best defence deal possible with the US.

The only time Iceland has been invaded in modern history was by British forces, in May 1940.

Locals woke to find that British troops had occupied the streets of the capital, rather that let the island fall to Germany.

A year later, Winston Churchill arranged for the US - which was then neutral - to step in and provide a protective garrison.

Apart from a brief gap after the Second World War, the Americans never left.

The island's strategic heyday came in the 1980s, as Soviet bombers, carrying nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, flew past on their way to train off the east coast of America, and Soviet submarines prowled in the icy waters below.

In 1985, fighters from the American naval air base at Keflavik intercepted 170 Soviet bombers. While a non-military nation, the Icelanders are hardly pacifists, being descendants of the Vikings.

During the two "cod wars" of the 1970s, when Iceland banned foreign trawlers from vast swaths of sea, the government sent its civilian coastguard to cut British fishermen's nets. Britain was forced to back down under American pressure.

Things are quieter now than in the Cold War, but in the wider region, senior figures have voiced concern that the Pentagon has missed strategic changes that are taking place in the High North, with Norway and Russia set to ship growing quantities of oil and gas to North America.

With the vital lifeline passing close to its shores, Iceland will soon stop being a security backwater.

"I do not think anyone is going to attack Iceland," said Espen Barth Eide, the Norwegian state secretary for defence.

"But there is an issue with the increasing importance of the High North when it comes to energy security."

Nato might need to get involved in co-operation on surveillance flights, radar stations and air defences, he says.

That is music to the ears of Iceland's leading defence hawk, Björn Bjarnason, the minister for justice and ecclesiastical affairs, who oversees the coastguard and police.

"I think we need to look at why the Norwegians are modernising their military," he said.

"You will soon have oil and gas tankers crossing the Atlantic to Canada and the United States from the Barents Sea - that will completely change the nature of the shipping in our area.

"I have been arguing for years that we need to think about having a military.

"We have the economic capability, and - even though we only have 300,000 people - we have the manpower.

"There is nothing inherent in Icelandic society that says we cannot do it."

The situation could one day require the "tactless" Americans to be invited back, Mr Bjarnason thinks.

"This is not a static situation in the north Atlantic, I think it is very short sighted if the Americans do not realise that," he said.

"And the manner in which they leave, politically, could affect the way they would be welcomed back."

I haven't seen much evidence that Americans are all too welcome in any european setting. I don't know much about Iceland but I doubt they're too much different from the rest of Europe.

Well, when they start seeing all those servicemembers' dollars drying up, they change their tune.

I for one think it was a colossal mistake to withdraw from Iceland. As the article correctly points out, it is an important site from which to intercept Russian bombers.