neutrality was highly regarded. Harder heads prevailed and once again, due to the importance
of Icelandic geography in monitoring Soviet surface, submarine and air traffic US forces
returned to Iceland under the 1951 Defence Agreement".
The Iceland-US Defence Agreement is an agreement of eight short articles that gave bases in
Iceland to US forces to operate out of. It did not specify the number of US forces posted to the
country but it did acknowledge that numbers needed to be agreed with the Government of
Iceland®. The US forces were known as the Iceland Defense Force and over the years
included an air element that provided air policing and air space surveillance, naval elements
including naval aviation for maritime patrol and a contingent of Marines for ground defence. All
up during the Cold War the Iceland Defense Force consisted of just over 1000 personnel and
included small numbers of military members from other NATO countries such as the UK,
Norway and the Netherlands?'. The Iceland Defense Force served from 1951 until 2006 when
the US and NATO decided that it was no longer required and it was disbanded and facilities
handed back to Iceland. Despite the initial reluctance of the Icelandic population to join NATO
in the late 1940s the US decision to remove its last forces from Iceland was met with
considerable disappointment from Icelanders and their government”.
Despite the disbandment of the Iceland Defense Force, Iceland still possessed vital strategic
geography as it related to Russian air and sea movements. Following a number of Russian
incursions into Icelandic air space the Icelandic Government made a request to NATO through
the North Atlantic Council for rotational air policing from other NATO members. This was
agreed to in mid-2007 and the first deployment of French fighter aircraft arrived in May 2008.
Successive deployments have continued to the present day®.
With Iceland's geography still strategically relevant to NATO it has been able to continue the
policy of not maintaining military forces. With the existential and grand strategic interests met
by NATO Iceland has chosen to only possess law enforcement capabilities, capabilities that
have, nonetheless, actively pursued Iceland's national interests and contributed to Iceland's
international security commitments. Iceland has two law enforcement organisations, the Iceland
National Police and the Icelandic Coast Guard. It also has a mechanism to deploy both Police
7? Valur Ingimundarson, Britain, the United States and Militarisation of Iceland 1945-1951,
Scandinavian Journal of History (Vol.37, Issue 2, 2012), 208-212.
°°) Defense of Iceland: Agreement Between the United States and the Republic of Iceland,
May 5, 1951, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th _century/ice001.asp
8" Iceland Defense Force http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/dod/idf.htm
8 Valur Ingimundarson, Iceland's Security Dilemma: The End of a U.S. Military Presence.
(31.1 Fletcher F. World Affairs. 7, 24 (2007)), 15.
$5 Icelandic Air Policing https://www.shape.nato.int/icelands-peacetime-preparedness-needs
