Symposium:
Britain Foreign Policy toward the Nordic
Countries after the Second World War
Nordic House
31 May 2012
From Self-Interested Idealism to Cold War Realism: British
Foreign Policy and U.S. Post-War Military Interests in Iceland
Valur Ingimundarson
In February 1945, the British Minister to Iceland, Gerald Shepherd gave the following
account of the Icelanders in a diplomatic cable to London:
Perhaps as a result of having remained isolated from, and ignored,
by the rest of the world for upwards of a thousand years preceding
our military occupation of this country in 1940, the majority of
Icelanders, other than the relatively few who have travelled abroad,
are as insular mentally as they are geographically so, that they
are narrowly nationalistic, smugly self-satisfied, intensely selfish,
and incredibly obstinate.
In his memoirs 50 years later, Roy Hattersley, the Labour Minister and MP, who was
involved on the British side in the Icelandic-British Cod Wars in the 1970s, echoed this
account of Icelandic chauvinism—even if in a slightly more paranoid way:
The Icelanders, who claimed to be the most educated people in the world, were
masters in the art of disorientation. During the negotiations, they behaved with a
joyous brutality which forced us to choose between all sorts of humiliation and, as
they hoped, taking
responsibility for breaking up the peace talks. In the evenings,
we were feted like honored guests. However, our entertainment was
always
specially planned to remind us that were doing business with Vikings…
The he mentioned historical sites—shown to the British negotiators by their Icelandic hosts—
where executions of women had taken place. And in 2010, Hattersley picked up the same
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theme with respect to the Icesave dispute between Iceland the United Kingdom. In an op-ed
piece in the Times, he started out by saying: “May introduce the bloody-minded Icelanders”
who are “by nature, intrinsically unreasonable.” As the progeny of Vikings, he added, they
aren’t “likely to have qualms about keeping £3.6 billion of somebody else’s money.”
Judging from these quotes, some British politicians and officials have—for
decades—stuck to a remarkably fixed, simplistic and essentialized view of what they see as an
Icelandic national character. Yet, apart from such clichés, the British were, in fact, more
perceptive in their reading of Icelandic politics and the problems associated with the political
and military the integration of Iceland into a Western alliance after the Second World War.
Even if they overestimated their own strength , they had some influence on U.S. conduct and
on Icelandic foreign and security policy thinking.
In general, British postwar policy toward Iceland reflected new geopolitical realities
stemming from World War II: the erosion of the UK’s imperial position; the rise of the United
States to global preponderance; Western ambivalence about the Soviet Union and its
subsequent status as a Cold War foe, and the establishment of the United Nations. Due to
their occupation of Iceland in 1940—and their small garrison after the U.S. military came to
Iceland in 1941—the British claimed a political stake in Icelandic postwar developments.
The key question was whether and how U.S. desire for military rights in Iceland and for
integrating it into its system of postwar overseas bases could be reconciled with British
policy.
The new British documents deal with the nature of the Anglo-American relationship
and British foreign policy toward Iceland at this key historical juncture. They focus on the
question of American postwar military bases in Iceland in 1945–1946 and its potentially
detrimental effects on the other issues such as the stationing of Soviet troops on the Danish
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island of Bornholm and pressure on Norway over Spitsbergen. In addition, they confirm
British faith in the UN as a global security institution. They do not shed much light on threat
perceptions of the Soviet Union, Iceland‘s membership in NATO or its Western integration.
But they confirm British-Icelandic collusion in containing Communism in Iceland, British
support for U.S. efforts to get Iceland into NATO and British use of Nordic contacts to
pressure Iceland permit a U.S. military presence in the country following the Korean War.
In this talk, I explore—partly on the basis of the British Documentary Series and
partly on my own archival research and that of Thor Whitehead on U.S.-U.K. postwar basing
in Iceland—British attitudes toward U.S. post-war goals in Iceland. The British, initially,
attempted to change U.S. policy to preserve their idealistic faith in the UN, to avoid a
potential confrontation with the Soviets over bases in Scandinavia, and to ensure their own
future military access Iceland. Even though the efforts failed, the Icelandic refusal, in 1945–
46, to accept U.S. long-term base rights was consistent with British policy. With the onset of
the Cold War in 1946–47, I argue that a shift occurred in British policy. Accepting the
position of a subordinate partner, the British gave the United States full backing in its quest to
integrate Iceland into NATO in 1949 and to station military forces there in 1951. They also
abandoned their insistence on a UN role and adopted a firm anti-Soviet line. British
cooperation with the United States not only reflected shared opposition to the Soviet Union; it
was also meant to help local Icelandic pro-Western elites battle the Socialist Party. The
convergence of Cold War interests—based on a common anti-Communist outlook and threat
perceptions—was decisive in incorporating Iceland into a U.S.-dominated military construct.
Already in early 1945, the British grappled with the question of how the strategic
importance of Iceland could be accommodated with their postwar objectives. Being bound by
a promise made by them and the United States in 1941 ‘to withdraw all their military forces
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on conclusion of the present war’, the British formally informed the Americans, in March
1945, of their wish to coordinate the pull-out of troops from Iceland. Any future AngloAmerican base rights would have to be decided within the prospective framework of the UN
Security Council. Yet, the British still clung to the anachronistic view that Iceland was even
more strategically important to Britain than the United States. Indeed, for their own future
military benefit, they believed that the UN should force Iceland to accept bases as a way of
contributing to the world body. While later abandoning such coercive language, they still
thought that the UN could pressure what they termed the “difficult” Icelanders into accepting
the desired result.
The Americans were, in the beginning, not averse to UN-sanctioned military rights.
Given Iceland’s strategic importance, they had already made plans in 1942 for permanent
bases there. The justification could be based on Roosevelt's “Four Policemen” idea of a
security system under UN control. But when the British submitted their views to the
Americans in March 1945, the latter had changed their position and opted for an exclusive
long-term bilateral agreement with Iceland. What is more, the United States decided to
convey the request orally to the Icelanders a month later without bothering to inform the
British. When Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin learned of the U.S. unilateral approach—
several months later or in September 1945—he feared that it could upset relations with the
Russians and undermine the prospects for a UN-sanctioned security system. True, the British
Chiefs of Staff thought that it would be of advantage for the UK if the United States obtained
bases in Iceland. But such a deal should only be made between individual states and the
prospective UN Security Council. To the British, the U.S. plan showed a complete lack of
confidence in the UN and might give the Russians an excuse to demand similar bases by
direct pressure on Denmark (Bornholm) and Norway (Spitsbergen). Bevin, who had also
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been deeply upset that the United States had notified the United Kingdom and the Soviet
Union almost simultaneously of the base request, argued that the American action could lead
straight “back to the worst form of power politics and armed neutrality,” but, betraying British
powerlessness in the face of U.S. postwar might, he added that “we can now only make the
best of the difficult situation created by this precipitate American action.”
Bevin wanted the Americans to present the base lease request as a temporary act,
pending the implementation of the UN Charter and Iceland’s UN admission. The Americans
ruled out any such changes and proposed to the Icelanders a long-term base request in
October 1945. But their proposal ran into immediate trouble because it destabilized a crosspolitical Icelandic coalition government, consisting of the conservative Independence Party,
the Social Democratic Party and the pro-Moscow Socialist Party. Prime Minister Ólafur
Thors was certain that the Socialists would leave the government. The Americans knew, of
course, that they would face criticism in Iceland for their handling of the issue, which was
partly driven by the fear that the Icelandic government would insist on the withdrawal of U.S.
forces immediately after the surrender of the Japanese. Icelandic pro-Western politicians
worried little about the strict letter of the 1941 U.S.-Icelandic Defense Treaty. Military forces
could stay in Iceland until the UN Security Council decided on the security arrangements of
UN member states. Besides, since Iceland’s UN membership application had been delayed
because of its refusal—which was motivated by its non-armed status—to declare war on the
Axis, no political party, save for the Socialists, wanted the US force to be withdrawn in 1945.
Yet, unlike the British, Thors was unaware of the U.S. goal to acquire military rights in
Iceland before the UN Security Council was formed to forestall a potential Soviet veto on
such bilateral security agreements
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Despite a faith in a UN security system, the British position was also self-serving.
Britain wanted to have wartime access to Iceland in the event of U.S. non-participation. Thus,
it was prepared to accept U.S. military rights in Iceland in exchange for landing rights in
wartime. When the Truman Administration refused, the British government decided to give
only qualified support to the American plan, insisting that the bases would be later brought
under the UN. This position undermined the U.S. case. It was, however, not decisive, for the
base request proved unacceptable in Iceland for political reasons: a nationalist revival
generated by the founding of the Icelandic republic in 1944—which was also utilized by the
Socialists to frame their ideological anti-Western agenda in nationalist terms—as well as
resistance to the stationing of peacetime troops based on the memories of the huge foreign
military presence during World War II.
Nonetheless, the United States chose to ignore these political realities. The British
wanted the Americans to reconsider Bevin’s proposal for a short-term agreement instead of a
long-term one. The Icelanders knew, of course, that the British support for the American
proposal was only lukewarm. But they falsely interpreted it as meaning that any bilateral
arrangement would automatically lapse, when it was brought under the international security
system. Hence, it would be superfluous to make any short-term arrangement. What the
British feared was that the United States would put the blame on them for its failure to secure
bases in Iceland. While the Americans never did so, they used British worries to press for full
support for their long-term plan. Thus, they were trying to have it both ways—to get
unilateral base rights with UK support but without giving the British anything in return.
The British were aware of the inherent tension in their own policy between the
endorsement of multilateralism and the promotion of self-interest. The Americans cited two
reasons for opposing the sharing of bases: to minimize adversity in Iceland and to forestall a
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negative Soviet reaction. Given the Icelandic opposition to U.S. bases, it would hardly have
mattered if the British had been on board. Indeed, it could even have made it more acceptable
to the Icelanders. It is possible that the Soviets would have reacted more forcefully to a joint
U.S.-U.K. proposal. But the U.S. argument was no less intriguing for another reason: It
meant turning the Soviet factor, which had been used by Bevin to question the base request,
against the British themselves. The British, it turned out, decided against pressing for joint
bases, but they refused to renounce the right to do so in the future. It was, however, Icelandic
resistance, not British skepticism, that sealed the fate of the base request.
In 1946, the U.S. formally abandoned the demand for long-term bases, opting instead
for landing rights in Iceland for military aircraft in connection with its occupation duties in
Germany. The British now offered the Americans their full unsolicited support and
communicated it to the Icelanders in unambiguous terms: “If the Icelandic Government and
Althing do not adopt resolution for an agreement with United States of America which now
being considered and thus unreasonably impede necessary communication with US garrison
in Germany bad impression will be caused in Britain.” Prime Minister Thors received a
parliamentary majority for the so-called Keflavik Agreement with the Americans, but failed to
persuade the Socialists to stay in the government. Hence, the government collapsed.
The agreement, which deeply polarized Icelandic society, amounted to an admission
that Iceland was within a U.S. sphere of influence: It represented the first step toward an
institutionalized postwar cooperation with the U.S., which had replaced Britain as the
hegemonic power in the North Atlantic. Yet it neither provided the U.S. with permanent
military rights nor constituted a defense treaty. Military aircraft were permitted to make
stopovers on their way to Europe, but no ground troops were stationed in Iceland. A
temporary deal between Iceland and the U.S. was what the British had originally favored. But
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with the onset of the Cold War, the premise of Britain’s position—the establishment of the
UN Security Council responsible for world security—was abandoned. Bevin not only
distanced himself from his exalted view of the UN, he was, of course, also instrumental in the
creation of NATO and the enlisting of the United States in it. Needless to say, base rights in
Iceland were part of that project from the very beginning.
From 1947 to 1951, two non-Socialist coalition governments, with the center-right
Independence Party exercising a preponderant role, cemented Iceland‘s integration into the
Western Alliance by joining NATO and by concluding a bilateral Defense Agreement with
the US. While Icelandic ministers cooperated most closely with the Americans during this
period, they also informed the British about threat perceptions of the Soviet Union and the
Socialist Party. Such ideological cooperation served both sides: It helped the Americans and
British to strengthen the position of the Western powers, whose goal was still to acquire base
rights; it also meant that Icelandic politicians could rely on Western political and economic
assistance to lessen the appeal of Communism and the Socialist Party. In 1949, for example,
the British documents show that Foreign Minister, Bjarni Benediktsson—whom the
Americans later credited with bringing Iceland almost single-handedly into NATO—warned
against Socialist strike agitation and asked the British for propaganda material to use against
the Socialists. Not surprisingly, the British saw this as a sign of anti-Communist commitment
of Icelandic awareness of the danger of becoming too dependent on trade with the Soviet
Union.
Following the Czechoslovak coup in 1948—coupled with the Berlin Blockade—the
Icelandic government began to seek ways to enhance the defense of Iceland. Yet, domestic
constraints—nationalist sensitivity on the defense question coupled with a lack of a military
tradition—forced the government to act cautiously. This also explains why it insisted that the
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initiative to join the Atlantic Pact in late 1948 come from the Europeans and the Americans.
A key rationale for U.S. participation in “entangling alliances” was the prospective military
access to Iceland, the Azores, and Greenland. The Icelanders played no part in the
negotiations on a Scandinavian Defense Union, but they wanted to be informed of their
content in the name of Nordic solidarity. The Swedes had, however, rejected Norwegian
request to allow Foreign Minister Benediktsson to be an observer on the grounds that it would
put too much focus on the prospective Atlantic Pact. When Benediktsson joined his Nordic
counterparts in January 1949—when the Scandinavian Defense Union talks were in their
death throes—he wanted Denmark, Norway, and Iceland to explore the possibility of joining
NATO. Yet, to his disappointment, Gustav Rasmussen, the Danish Foreign Minister, and
Halvard Lange, his Norwegian counterpart, did not want to have anything to with Iceland
since such ideas would only complicate the talks on a Scandinavian Defense Union.
The British, like the Americans, correctly reckoned that the way to get Iceland into
NATO was through the Danes, and especially, the Norwegians. As one British diplomat put
it, if Norway and Demark joined NATO, “Iceland would then come in too and the U.S. would
be in a fair way to obtaining her bases in Greenland and Iceland. A neutral Norway and
Denmark means a neutral Greenland and Iceland.” Without the participation of Norway,
Iceland would probably not have opted for membership. But before committing itself, it had
to overcome important domestic hurdles. The coalition partners eventually agreed on a
compromise: as a precondition for NATO membership, there would be no military presence
in peacetime. The Americans were perfectly willing to accept the compromise, with Secretary
of State Dean Acheson even stating, disingenuously, that the US did not want have a military
force in Iceland. The U.S. had, of course, not abandoned its goal of negotiating a base
agreement with the Icelanders, but it realized that it could not get more at this stage.
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Iceland’s admission to NATO evoked strong nationalistic and Socialist protests,
culminating in the most serious postwar riots in Iceland, when the bill was approved in March
1949. The parliamentary building was stoned and government ministers were attacked by
protesters. The British embassy in Iceland characterized the unrest in the following manner:
Within the Althing… the Communist leaders repeated their previous arguments of
treachery and, even by the accepted standards of Icelandic debate, passed all bounds of
personal invective, completely outstripping the resources of all available Icelandic
dictionaries. There can be no other interpretation than that the Communists intended to
cause and did indeed deliberately start the disturbance.
This description shows that British officials viewed political developments in Iceland through
a strict anti-Communist lens. While the Socialists were the most vocal opponents against
Iceland’s NATO membership, their position was shared by many non-Communist
nationalists. The irony was that Iceland—which had made its unarmed tradition the
precondition for joining NATO—should have witnessed the most serious disturbances.
After Iceland’s decision to join NATO, it did not take long before the Western Powers
began to press for military rights. U.S. and British officials calculated that the Korean War
would make the Iceland more susceptible to a peacetime military presence. But they realized
that too much pressure could result in a backlash. The British preferred a multilateral
approach through NATO, not a unilateral one through the United States. In mid-1950,
Foreign Minister Benediktsson took the initiative himself by expressing worries about the
general world situation following the Korean War and Iceland’s defense position. He was
particularly anxious about the presence of a Russian herring fleet near Iceland. The
Americans did not think that the Soviets were planning any hostile acts, but to calm Icelandic
officials, they sent several destroyers to Iceland to keep an eye on the Soviet fleet. Both the
Americans and the British decided to capitalize on Icelandic security worries. The British, in
collusion with the Americans, asked Lange, the Norwegian Foreign Minister, as part of a
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strictly secret plan to prod the Iceland into accepting military defense measures. He was
considered the best person to do so because of his high standing with Icelandic politicians.
Lange was not only willing to assume a mediating role for the British and Americans; he also
promised not to reveal the real sponsors of his mission. But he was not very optimistic: while
Icelandic politicians were uneasy at Iceland’s exposed position, no one wanted to do anything
about it. The Icelandic government had, in fact, decided to approach NATO before Lange
brought up the matter. But given the close relationship between the Icelandic Social
Democrats and their Nordic partners, it is possible that the government knew what Lange had
in store for it.
It was not until early 1951 that the Icelandic government formally agreed to a NATO
request to negotiate with the United States. The Americans proposed to tie the defense
agreement’s duration clause to that of the North Atlantic Treaty. The Icelandic government,
in contrast, demanded a one-year revocation clause as a price for abandoning Iceland's
precondition for joining NATO: the insistence on no peacetime military presence. When the
Icelanders informed the British of the snag, the latter were reluctant to interfere. But the
British sympathized with the Icelandic position on the grounds that they would not have
consented to an agreement without a revocation clause. They contemplated informing the
Icelanders of the terms of the U.S.-U.K. agreement on the stationing of the U.S. forces in the
United Kingdom. It was subject to periodical review and could be abrogated if either
government concluded that collective security had been assured in accordance with the UN
Charter. The British decided, however, that no such unilateral briefing should take place
without informing the United States, fearing that the Americans could interpret it as an
attempt to influence the negotiations.
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There was no need for the British to do anything. The Truman Administration
accepted a “compromise” that corresponded closely to the Icelandic position. Either side
could revoke the agreement on 18 months notice. The North Atlantic Council was also to
give its opinion, but it had no veto power. The Defense Agreement was signed in May 1951.
The process itself was consistent with what Geir Lundestad termed “Empire by Invitation.” It
was the Icelandic government that brought up the question of a defense agreement. But there
had been much pressure on the part of the U.S., with considerable British support, to gain
foothold in Iceland. Thus, the Icelanders reluctantly went along with Iceland’s militarization
in the early Cold War.
To sum up, the British documents reveal several things: British policy toward Iceland
was essentially about the Anglo-American relationship: about the degree to which Britain was
prepared to support U.S. goals. Iceland was, thus, more seen as an object than as a subject in
its own right. The same can be said about the American attitude: it was mostly geared toward
extracting British support for U.S. policies. As for the base request, the Americans not only
ignored the British views of its potentially detrimental effects on the UN or on the relations
with the Soviet Union; they also rejected British wishes for joint Icelandic military rights.
True, the British were, initially, willing—for a mixture idealistic and self-interested reasons—
to distance themselves from the United States. Their faith in the United Nations in postwar
security was genuine, even if their interpretation of the mandate of the UN Security Council
proved wrong. But their position was compromised by their desire for joint wartime base
rights in Iceland.
The question was whether the British were prepared, in 1945, to grant the Security
Council the power to dictate base agreements on their behalf. Ironically, this was precisely
what Prime Minister Ólafur Thors wanted: to stay on good terms with the United States and
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Britain and to keep his coalition government with the Socialist intact. A UN-mandated
decision to establish Icelandic bases would solve both problems. But, when dealing with the
United States, the British never managed to solve the paradox inherent in their policy. It was
impossible to push for a predominant UN role, while at the same time, seeking U.S.
assurances—without UN authorization—for joint base rights. The British exaggerated the
effects of the U.S. base request on Soviet conduct in other countries. The Soviets probably
calculated that Iceland was within the U.S. sphere of influence. While they opposed
American military goals in Iceland, they did not try to use the issue against the United States
or Britain by extending their stay in Bornholm or by renewing their territorial claims vis-á-vis
Spitsbergen. True, after the Keflavik Agreement was signed, the Soviets punished the
Icelanders by not renewing a highly lucrative trade agreement. But there was never a sign of
any hostile military activities against Iceland.
There was also some skepticism in Whitehall toward the reporting of British
Ambassador, Gerald Shepherd, whom I quoted at the beginning of the talk, and who in 1945–
46, inflated Soviet intentions in Iceland. One official argued that in determining Britain’s
postwar policy towards Iceland, “which is in fact likely to be largely determined for use by
the exigencies of the post-war situation and our commitments elsewhere, we should not be
influenced by the “Bolshevik bogey.”’ And Bevin focused exclusively on external issues,
when he complained about the “precipitate American action” with respect to long-term base
rights in Iceland. That the British only gave the U.S. half-hearted support strengthened
Iceland’s resistance to the U.S. proposal. But nationalistic sentiments played a far more
important role in the U.S. decision to withdraw the base request. Indeed, the Americans and
British discovered in this period that the Icelanders could never be taken for granted, when it
came to military rights.
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Following Britain’s military withdrawal from the Iceland, its influence on Icelandic
politics declined markedly. Icelandic politicians continued to seek British advice and
ideological support. To be sure, the British were neither directly involved in the Keflavik
Agreement in 1946 nor in Iceland’s accession to NATO in 1949, even if gave both strong
backing. Moreover, although they were part of the diplomatic process leading up to the U.S.Icelandic Defense Agreement of 1951, they were not instrumental players. But there is no
need to negate their influence in postwar developments in Iceland.
Their suggestion to move the U.S. proposal for a military presence in Iceland through
NATO as a multilateral venue was followed; in addition, they were responsible for enlisting
Norwegian Foreign Minister Lange in their cause. The Anglo-American initiative may have
helped the Icelandic government make up its mind with respect to the presence of foreign
troops. Yet, the British were never in a position to shape—in any fundamental way—
Iceland’s integration into the Western alliance. During the early Cold War, their function in
Iceland was to assist the United States in achieving and maintaining its military rights.
Despite considerable domestic political opposition, it was a goal that was achieved in 1951.
The remilitarization of Iceland lasted until 2006, when the Americans, in face of stiff
Icelandic opposition, left with their troops in the absence of post-Cold War state threats in the
region.
While the contractual institutional structure—as embodied in the U.S.-Icelandic
Defense Agreement—was not dismantled, the current deterritorialized defense guarantee
reflects, of course, a radically different geopolitical landscape than faced by Britain and the
United States at the end of World War II.