U.S.-Icelandic defense relations during and after the Cold War

Naval War College Review, Autumn, 2004 by Gudni Th. Johannesson

In May 1951, the United States and Iceland signed an agreement on the permanent presence of American forces on the island. The arrangement was in many ways momentous. For the first time in its history, the United States had made a bilateral defense pact with another state. (1) Also, troops were stationed in Iceland in peacetime for the first time since the settlement of the island over 1,100 years ago. When the first contingent arrived, a Bank of England official who dealt with Icelandic matters in London summed up the significance of its appearance by saying that from now on the Icelanders, having survived for so long without permanent military forces, would live in "the shadow of the Superfortress." (2)

Mutual interests seemed to lie behind the making of this new defense relationship. Spurred on by the tension between East and West, the authorities in Reykjavik felt that the Icelanders, without a military of their own, needed effective protection from the Soviet Union. At the same time, the United States wanted to establish a base in Iceland, both to aid offensive operations in a possible war and to watch Soviet movements in the North Atlantic. Nonetheless, the bond was often strained. The relationship was obviously a marriage of convenience. The Icelanders were a "reluctant ally," resentful over the need to have foreign troops on their soil but apparently determined to make the most of it, materially and politically. (3) For their part, the Americans sometimes disliked the hostility and opportunism that they claimed to encounter in Iceland.

Unsurprisingly, the end of the Cold War upset the balance of interests in the U.S.-Icelandic union. Throughout the 1990s, forces in Iceland were reduced, most notably by the withdrawal of a number of F-15 fighter jets; in May 2003, the American ambassador in Reykjavik notified the Icelandic government that within a month all the remaining aircraft would be removed. The Icelanders adamantly protested and argued that the defense of the island would not be credible without the planes. The American authorities agreed to postpone and reconsider the proposed departure of the F-15s, but the Icelandic bargaining position had clearly deteriorated since the Cold War era. Thus, it had to be asked why the United States should maintain its forces there. The whole basis for that presence seemed to have disappeared.

THE ARRIVAL, DEPARTURE, AND RETURN OF U.S. TROOPS, 1941-1951

In May 1940, British forces occupied Iceland, then a sovereign state within the Kingdom of Denmark. The following summer (a good six months before Pearl Harbor), the United States, anxious to assist Britain in the Battle of the Atlantic, took over the protection of Iceland. (4) In a matter of a few years, Icelandic society was transformed. Before the war, Iceland had been among the poorest countries of Europe, isolated and struggling with the effects of the Great Depression. But suddenly unemployment vanished and the Icelanders prospered, more or less protected from the horrors of war. Icelandic seamen suffered most, as they sailed in the submarine-infested North Atlantic, carrying fish to Britain for Lend-Lease dollars and bringing goods from the United States on favorable terms. Runaway inflation was an unfortunate side effect; furthermore, the Icelanders found it hard to accept the new arrivals on the island. More than fifty thousand troops were stationed among its 130,000 inhabitants, and although relations with the locals were on the whole satisfactory, the foreigners realized that they were not welcome. Charles S. Minter, a U.S. Navy pilot in Iceland during the war who was to end a distinguished career as a vice admiral, later recalled that Icelanders "were very standoffish. As a matter of fact, more than standoffish. I think they really resented our presence there, and that's not too difficult to understand. We were a sizeable military presence." (5)

As the war progressed, the strategic importance of Iceland was confirmed, and American statesmen came to the conclusion that after the end of hostilities and the departure of U.S. forces, the United States would still need facilities on the island. In 1945-46, Washington rather clumsily insisted on a long-term lease of bases, which the authorities in Reykjavik rejected. Iceland had declared full independence from Denmark in 1944, and the general public would almost certainly have condemned a pact of that kind. Instead, the two sides made the compromise that U.S. civilian contractors would run Keflavik Airfield, the main base during the war and a vital stepping-stone for airplanes flying across the Atlantic. This agreement, it has been said, "amounted only to a minimal concession, but under the circumstances the United States could be grateful for having maintained any foothold in Iceland, albeit a tenuous one, which could hopefully serve as a 'point of departure' for a later solution." (6)

The deficiencies in this arrangement were quickly visible. To begin with, security at Keflavik was utterly inadequate. Pilfering and black marketeering upset the Americans. (7) More ominously, however, a hostile power could obviously capture the airport. In early 1948, when the communist coup in Prague caused great anxiety in Western capitals, the foreign ministers of the Scandinavian countries told their Icelandic colleague Bjarni Benediktsson "how fortunate Iceland was to be situated out in the Atlantic." But the open sea was no longer a sure protection, as indeed the recent war had demonstrated. "I would be much happier if Colonel Snyder [that is, U.S. forces] were still here," the American charge d'affaires in Reykjavik remarked when Benediktsson told him of the conversation. (8)