Eighteen members of Iceland's 63-seat parliament on May 31 submitted a resolution to terminate the country's membership in NATO. All 15 lawmakers from the Left Green Party, Iceland's third-largest party, supported the resolution, as well as three independents. While Iceland has no standing army and commits little resources to NATO, it holds a key geographic position as the keeper of the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom gap, the chokepoint for Russian submarine activity in the Atlantic during the Cold War, and serves as a strategic refueling and logistics base for NATO operations in continental Europe and the northern Atlantic. Despite apparent strong support in the parliament, the bill appears to be an internal publicity stunt for the Left Greens, which have been experiencing strong internal divisions over the past year. That said, it still has the potential for serious implications for the tactical and strategic outlook of the northern Atlantic. Iceland understands the value of its geographic position to NATO and will not hesitate to use it for both domestic and international leverage.
