Iceland sticks to US security umbrella despite Trump

Iceland has regained strategic geopolitical importance as tensions rise in the Arctic, but with no military it still relies on Washington for its security -- despite the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump.

By rejecting a resumption of its suspended European Union membership talks in a referendum last weekend, Icelanders voted in favour of maintaining the status quo.

This involves combining European economic integration -- it already has access to the single market through the European Economic Area -- with Atlanticism in defence matters.

Iceland has never had a military since gaining independence in 1944.

Instead, it has depended on NATO, of which it is a founding member, as well as a 1951 bilateral defence agreement with the United States.

Trump's repeated threats to take over control of Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory located fewer than 300 kilometres (185 miles) from Iceland, and his trade showdown with Canada have rattled Iceland, although it remains steadfast in maintaining its close ties to the US.

"Of course, the political rhetoric is concerning. But it's important also to try to strengthen the relationship," Iceland's chief of defence Jonas Allansson told AFP.

After the end of the Cold War, the US closed its Keflavik base in 2006, about 30 kilometres as the crow flies from Reykjavik.

It gradually returned from the mid-2010s onward, amid renewed tensions with Moscow following the annexation of Crimea.

The US Navy regularly deploys maritime patrol aircraft over Iceland, while NATO members police its skies and the Alliance ramps up military exercises.

The North Atlantic island is a key outpost in the so-called GIUK gap, the strategic corridor between Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom through which Russia's Northern Fleet submarines must pass to reach the Atlantic via the Norwegian Sea.

"The situation that we have today is quite comparable" to that during the Cold War, Allansson said.

"In some ways there is more uncertainty in the equation now because of the policy of the Russian regime."

All the more so as China also shows growing interest in the Arctic, whose resources and sea routes are becoming more accessible as climate change causes the ice pack to melt.

- 'Watchtower' -

"Today, supposed Russian and Chinese research vessels are conducting joint patrols (in the Arctic) but we all know they're not up here counting puffins," NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Alexus Grynkewich, said during the alliance's Northern Viking exercise in Iceland in late August.

Presenting itself as a "watchtower" in the North Atlantic, Iceland aims to play the role of "force multiplier" in NATO, investing in cybersecurity and infrastructure to facilitate allies' presence and transit in the region.

Reykjavik plans to devote 1.5 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to these efforts by 2035.

But the plans have met with some opposition.

A leading figure in Iceland's longstanding anti-military movement, Stefan Palsson, told AFP it was "very irresponsible" of Iceland's government to open the country's doors so widely to the US and NATO.

"More military infrastructure in Iceland makes it more likely, rather than less likely, that we will be dragged into conflict that basically has nothing to do with us," he said.

"It is completely clear in my mind that the US military presence in Iceland has never been about the interest of Icelanders or our defence but it has always been about US military interests," he added.

He fears that in a worst case scenario -- which he himself judged "very unlikely" -- Iceland could end up serving as a logistical support base if Washington were to resort to force to seize Greenland.

Mikaa Blugeon-Mered, a geopolitics researcher at the University of Quebec, noted that the mutual assistance clause provided for in EU treaties ultimately carried too little weight with Icelanders, compared to the guarantees offered by a superpower like the US.

"Joining the European Union today would not allow Iceland to simply swap its American umbrella for a European umbrella," he told AFP.

"Paradoxically, Donald Trump's threats have reinvigorated the European debate in Iceland but they have not necessarily convinced Icelanders that the European Union would offer them a better military guarantee than the set-up they already have."