Why Iceland is immune to wars

this is the most peaceful country in the world and ever since the Global Peace Index started in 2008 it has ranked Iceland at the very top of that list and they have somehow accomplished this with no military you heard me right Iceland doesn't have a military in fact it never has it might sound crazy but Iceland has depended on other countries for protection throughout most of its history whether that being the Norwegians Danes reddish or now the Americans and NATO they've always had protection just not by themselves see according to the national security policy in Iceland the two pillars of ice and security are the alliance with NATO and the 1951 bilateral defense agreement with the United States of America still however the country does have a coast guard and they're not as small and harmless as the name might imply but the story behind why they have a coast guard is quite interesting see while the country hasn't been directly involved in any major conflicts it did fight and win a few configs against a major power Great Britain the thing is though these wars weren't about land or oil but fish in the 1970s more than 80 percent of the country's export earnings came from Fisheries so it makes sense that Iceland would fiercely protect its access to fishing areas so in 1958 Iceland announced that its exclusive fishing Zone would expand it from 4 to 12 nautical miles out from the country's Coastline the UK objected to this because it would deny British fishermen the right to fish there so Eisen sent its Coast Guard Patrol boats to fend off the larger British ships and even got aggressive with the British fishing vessels by cutting their Nets and cables the icelanders even complained to the U.N security Council about a British Invasion finally the UK gave in and accepted the change in 1961. but that wasn't the end of what's now known as the cold Wars see in the mid-1900s the fishing technology used by the richest countries Advanced by a huge March and started reducing fish populations around the world this drove Iceland to expand their exclusive fishing Zone again to 50 nautical miles in 1972 and finally in 1975 they expanded it to 200. eventually the UK gave in and accepted the 200 nautical miles which eventually became the international standard aside from one Icelandic engineer accidentally killed during the cold Wars while preparing a ship no one died in the altercations so the term war is a bit generous despite Iceland's Victory today the country is of course the most peaceful on Earth but it could hold a vital duplicate role in the future Iceland knows this and it's done incredibly well to position itself as a friend to everyone and as the planet warms the world's superpowers are eager to seize new opportunities for Mining and shipping routes in the Arctic Circle which according to the latest U.S national security strategy notes could bring increasing geopolitical tensions as the Russian and Chinese presidents in the Arctic grows still Iceland has Law long had good relations with Russia and has become closer to China over the past decade according to a paper by The klingendale Institute a Dutch Think Tank Iceland started moving closer to China after it withdrew its application to the EU in 2015. the two countries signed a Free Trade Agreement China's first with a European country and the countries have also collaborated on geothermal energy more worryingly though is the newly built China Iceland Arctic Science Observatory of the north of the island which the report warns may have long-term security implications that should not be ignored the report also notes quote dual use capacity of the research station which follows China's dual U strategy notably used for investments in robotics space artificial intelligence and other high-tech sectors useful for both military and civilian purposes but regardless of China's true intentions in Iceland their moves have already elicited a reaction from the United States after the Chinese ambassador to ice and invited the country to join China's belt and Road initiative in 2018 then U.S Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and vice president Mike Pence both visited the country and stressed the importance of Iceland to the U.S and soon thereafter the Pentagon announced in 2019 that it would spend 80 million dollars to upgrade runways at Iceland's keflavik airport to help native surveillance missions to boost the U.S presence in key Maritime passageways in the Arctic to countered Chinese and Russian activities it remains to be seen whether Iceland will have to choose sites if the geopolitical Divide between the U.S and China evolves into a new Cold War but for now it seems Iceland size has been a huge advantage in dealing with the superpowers Iceland doesn't take sides as you can probably see which means it's wise its best to be friends with everybody now after the financial crisis of 2008 Iceland started the process to join the EU all while taking loans from the IMF and even Russia so perhaps with this contact text the decision to form closer ties with China makes a lot more sense but there's another factor that explains why this island nation sitting in the North Atlantic Ocean is so peaceful geographic isolation see Iceland is nearly 1 000 kilometers away from the UK and Mainland Scandinavia which kept the island relatively safe from Invaders throughout most of its history with a few major exceptions after the mid 1200s Iceland was ruled by Norway and then Denmark being under foreign control meant that Iceland relied on these country's First Defense by the time World War II started Iceland was a semi-independent country still under Danish control but in 1940 Denmark itself was invaded by Nazi Germany and Iceland had to fend for itself for the first time in nearly 1 000 years the Germans sent warships and planes to visit Iceland but the British quickly decided to occupy the island before the Germans could stage an occupation in March of 1941 Hitler officially sets his sights on Iceland by extending their war zone to include soon afterwards it was time for the British to replace their troops stationed there alarmed at the thought of the Nazis controlling this strategic location the U.S soon stationed 60 000 troops on the island see having an air base in Iceland would be critical to keep supplying the UK in the fight against Germany while the U.S hadn't officially entered World War II yet they had been sending military supplies to allies like the British since September 1940. since the US wasn't officially in the war they had to get creative to justify the occupation U.S President Franklin D Roosevelt therefore decided to redraw the map of the Western Hemisphere to include Iceland essentially praising the country in America's backyard the reason for this was the U.S public wasn't too keen on another War so it was easier to justify keeping Nazis out of America's backyard than sending troops to far away Europe by the time the U.S entered the war five months later on December 7 1941 controlling Iceland gave the US a convenient place to refuel aircraft traveling between Europe and the US after the war ended I Iceland became a founding member of NATO which it remains a part of to this day the U.S kept a military base on the island which remained strategically important throughout the Cold War it was only in 2006 that the U.S military finally left its spaces in the country to illustrate the amazing advantages of eisen's distance and its two political alliances let's imagine for a moment what would happen if a country tried to invade the country well given the distance from Iceland to other population centers any Invasion would require supply lines crossing hundreds of kilometers of open ocean considering that Iceland is a NATO member and given that NATO's Article 5 States an attack against one shall be considered an attack against them all Iceland would have a considerable backup that basically no country would want to mess with not to mention nobody wants to get their ass kicked by Iceland in another cold war and that brings us to another deterrent natural resources Iceland is rich in basically three things geothermal energy hydroelectric power and of course fish fish are are hugely important to Iceland still to this day and Iceland's fishing interests were even a deciding factor in his decision to abandon EU membership in 2013. seeing if they had joined Iceland would have to respect EU quotas and the EU common fishery policy but for the rest of the world no amount of fish would make an invasion worth the trouble and since Iceland doesn't really have any enemies except perhaps for some angry fisherman it seems like the largest threat to Iceland isn't human at all in contrast to their peaceful Politics the country features breathtaking but violent nature with 200 or so volcanoes spread across the island in 2010 the unpronounceable Aya fella yerko volcano erupted disrupting fights across huge swaths of Europe for days but as long as nature cooperates Iceland is a pretty peaceful place and there's one last Factor explaining this that I haven't covered Iceland's population with less than 400 000 people in the entire country Iceland operates on a smaller scale than many cities and that means its population can make big changes more easily than countries with hundreds of millions of citizens take the 2008 financial crisis for example Iceland's three major Banks had taken on debt worth over 10 times the country's GDP when Foreign Credit dried up after the financial crisis started in the U.S Iceland's government let the banks fail the result was soaring unemployment 18 inflation and a huge drop in its currency reducing the once powerful Icelandic Krona to less than half of its formal value like in the US there were huge protests and according to the BBC two to three percent of the entire nation gathered in front of parliament in a country with a small population it's easier to hold officials accountable and the result was that 25 Bankers were jailed including the CEOs of the top three Banks so if there's ever another crisis Iceland's small population has proven it can hold its officials accountable it also helps that Iceland is the world's oldest democracy with its Parliament existing for nearly 1 000 years and with its population and strong democratic tradition see seemingly able to cope with future challenges the idea of a Civil War in Iceland seems incredibly unlikely Iceland's Geographic and geopolitical advantages also make a foreign Invasion basically impossible but what do you think is Iceland immune to war or will a melting Arctic make it the next geopolitical hotspot well that's it for this video thank you for watching and I'll catch you in the next one

Channel: OBF

Views: 411,198

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Id: yEzCOTvgrp4

Length: 10min 22sec (622 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 14 2022