FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Iceland, the only country in the world integrated into a military alliance without having a single soldier, is redefining its defense policy. The war in Ukraine, the cooling of relations between the two shores of the North Atlantic, the growing interest of Russia and China in the Arctic and Washington's threat to annex Greenland have caused a deep debate in Icelandic politics.
Although the creation of an army does not appear to be on the table, the Icelandic government has pledged to its NATO allies to invest significantly more in defense, in 2024 it allocated just 0.01% of GDP, and is negotiating with Brussels for a bilateral agreement to strengthen its security.
Iceland's case is an anomaly: a founding member of NATO, it is the only one without an army, does not have an intelligence service, is exempt from the Alliance's spending commitments and, with just under 400,000 inhabitants, is the partner with the smallest population.
The Coast Guard, which has traditionally been dedicated to protecting fishing waters, is playing an increasingly important role, including managing an air defense system. The pillars of the island's security strategy
The Atlantic are its membership in the transatlantic organization and a bilateral agreement with the United States, signed in the 1950s.
Despite the improvement in its defense, Valur Ingimundarson, a professor at the School of History at Reykjavik University, rules out the possibility of Iceland ever forming an Armed Forces.
"Iceland has not had an army for centuries, and the status of an unarmed country is sacred to most of society and part of the national identity ," he explains.
Located south of the Arctic Circle, between Greenland and the United Kingdom, and about the size of Cuba or Portugal, Iceland has contributed to NATO for decades by providing a strategic location to monitor the movements of Soviet and later Russian submarines in the North Atlantic. During World War II, it was occupied by British and later American troops to prevent it from falling into German hands and to use it for logistical purposes.
Shortly after the end of the war, Winston Churchill wrote: "Whoever owns Iceland holds a pistol pointed firmly at England, America and Canada."
When the United States promoted the establishment of NATO in 1949, it considered Iceland's location vital to its interests and integrated it into the Alliance. Washington maintained a military base in Keflavik, southwest of the island, from 1951 - the year the bilateral defense agreement was signed - until it abandoned it in 2006 at a time when it was much more focused on Iraq and Afghanistan than on Russian submarines.
Having lost much of its strategic value with the end of the Cold War, Iceland demonstrated its commitment to the Alliance by sending, for example, doctors on missions in the Balkans or civilian personnel to manage Afghanistan’s main airport. Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the outbreak of fighting in the Ukrainian region of Donbas in 2014 revived Washington’s interest in Iceland; troops from the world’s leading power returned to Keflavik and the island’s geostrategic value began to resurface.
Since the Russian invasion of Crimea, NATO military exercises such as Dynamic Mongoose, its largest anti-submarine warfare maneuvers, have been held regularly in Iceland, which hosts allied detachments on a rotational basis to protect its airspace. Last Monday, an advance group of 44 Spanish military aviators arrived in Keflavik as part of Spain’s first participation in this air policing mission.
The war in Ukraine and the growing presence of Russia and China in the Arctic, in the face of new commercial and military opportunities in the region brought about by melting ice caused by climate change, have created a certain sense of insecurity in peaceful Iceland. This concern has been accentuated by the return of Donald Trump to the White House. The US president's demands on his allies regarding defense spending and his insistence on taking control of Greenland - an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, a NATO member - have motivated Iceland to adopt a much more proactive stance on defense matters.
Lini një Përgjigje