Download or read book No Country an Island written by U. S. Military and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2018-11-10 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States and its Allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) shifted their collective focus away from the North Atlantic in the early 1990s because Russia was no longer a dominant threat to Western security as it had been during the Cold War. After two decades of fighting in the Middle East (since the 1990-1991 Gulf War), in 2011, the United States announced a "pivot to the Asia-Pacific region." Since 2014, however, a resurgent Russia has caused the Alliance to once again turn its attention to the North Atlantic. This thesis assesses Iceland's role in NATO during the Cold War and beyond. It relies on historical information to develop analyses on alliance management and the power of small states. The thesis then turns to contemporary events and sources to explain NATO's heightened state of alarm in the face of an increasingly aggressive and opportunistic Kremlin. Western air and naval forces have witnessed a marked increase in confrontational incidents with Russian military forces, and East-West tension has increased. In this context of NATO's "pivot back to the North Atlantic," Iceland's geostrategic value to the Alliance has again come to the fore.Although Iceland has never had a national military establishment, it was a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949. Due to its geographic location, it has been an extraordinarily important Ally despite its small economy and lack of military forces. However, Iceland's membership in the Alliance was called into question several times from the 1950s through the 1970s due to various factors. Why was Iceland's place in the Alliance somewhat precarious during that time, and might these factors affect Iceland's future role in NATO? How have Iceland's domestic politics affected its actions in the Alliance? What parallels can be drawn between Iceland and other countries with regard to small states in international politics and alliance relations?In the years immediately following World War II, many of the belligerents in the war pioneered novel military alliances with each other. Some of these new alliances reflected an "East versus West" confrontation of communism versus free-market democracy that lasted for more than 40 years. The strongest of these alliances, NATO, was formed in 1949. There were 12 founding members in NATO: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States.One of these countries might seem incongruous in a military alliance because it has never had a national military establishment: the Republic of Iceland. A small country with a comparatively moderate population size, Iceland is separated from mainland Europe by hundreds of miles of sea. In modern times, Iceland has been a nation of peaceful citizens who do not regularly involve themselves in the affairs of other nations. Iceland turned its back on 400 years of preferring non-engagement in military affairs when it helped to found NATO, a military alliance, in 1949. Why did Iceland join NATO as a founding member, and how important are its contributions to the Alliance?

Download or read book Iceland and Its Alliances written by Michael T. Corgan and published by Edwin Mellen Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The growing number of small states in the world makes Iceland's an instructive case for anyone who deals with the role and practices of such states with regard to their military or security policies. Dr. Corgan has brought to bear his extensive experience living and teaching in Iceland along with the study of its culture and language to illuminate how a small state can operate effectively in the world of larger states.

Download or read book House of Ice and Cod written by Jeffrey Allen Moosios and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Nordic Countries and the European Security and Defence Policy written by Alyson J. K. Bailes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1999 the EU decided to develop its own military capacities for crisis management. This book brings together a group of experts to examine the consequences of this decision on Nordic policy establishments, as well as to shed new light on the defence and security issues that matter for Europe as a whole.

Download or read book The Rebellious Ally written by Valur Ingimundarson and published by . This book was released on 2011-09 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Iceland and European Integration written by Baldur Thorhallsson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-03-01 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why has Iceland not sought membership of the European Union? This unique volume uses the case study of Iceland - the only Nordic state to have never applied for EU membership - to explore the complex attitudes of small states to European intergration and provide a new theoretical approach for understanding such relationships. The contributors explain why the Icelandic political elite has been relunctant to participate in European integration. In this context, they analyse the influence that Iceland's special relationship with the US and the fisheries sector have had on their dealings with the EU. Also considered are 'new' variables, such as national administrative characteristics and particular features of the domestic arena of the political elite, as well as the elite's perception of international relations and its political discourse concerning independence and sovereignty. Iceland and European Integration will appeal to all those interested in European integration and the international relations of small states

Download or read book Grand Strategy and Military Alliances written by Peter R. Mansoor and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-02-09 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A broad-ranging study of the relationship between alliances and the conduct of grand strategy, examined through historical case studies.

Download or read book Equal Democracies written by Christina Bergqvist and published by Nordic Council of Ministers. This book was released on 1999 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who Stays at Home?

Download or read book The History of Iceland written by Gunnar Karlsson and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Iceland is unique among European societies in having been founded as late as the Viking Age and in having copious written and archaeological sources about its origin. Gunnar Karlsson, that country's premier historian, chronicles the age of the Sagas, consulting them to describe an era without a monarch or central authority. Equating this prosperous time with the golden age of antiquity in world history, Karlsson then marks a correspondence between the Dark Ages of Europe and Iceland's "dreary period", which started with the loss of political independence in the late thirteenth century and culminated with an epoch of poverty and humility, especially during the early Modern Age. Iceland's renaissance came about with the successful struggle for independence in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and with the industrial and technical modernization of the first half of the twentieth century. Karlsson describes the rise of nationalism as Iceland's mostly poor peasants set about breaking with Denmark, and he shows how Iceland in the twentieth century slowly caught up economically with its European neighbors.

Download or read book Why Iceland written by Asgeir Jonsson and published by McGraw Hill Professional. This book was released on 2009-08-07 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As late as the mid 1980s, Iceland’s economy revolved around little else than a semi-robust cod-fishing industry. By the end of the century, however, it had transformed itself into a major player in world finance, building an international banking empire worth twelve times its GDP. The tiny island nation of 300,000 was one of the global economy’s great success stories. And then everything came crashing down. Why Iceland? is the inside account of one of the economic meltdown’s most fascinating and far-reaching tragedies. As Chief Economist of Kaupthing Bank, the country’s largest bank before the collapse, Ásgeir Jónsson is perfectly suited to examine Iceland’s collapse in painstaking detail. He witnessed behind-the-scenes events firsthand, such as an intriguing meeting in January 2008 when a group of international hedge fund managers gathered in a bar in Reykjavik to discuss Iceland’s economy—an informal affair that eventually became the center of a criminal investigation by the country’s Financial Supervisory Authority. This inside account examines the pressing issues behind history’s biggest banking collapse: How did Iceland transform itself from one of Europe’s poorest to one of its wealthiest countries? What happened to cause the destruction of the nation’s banking industry during a single week of October 2008? Was it the result of a speculation “attack” by hedge funds on the nation’s currency? Iceland remains the biggest casualty of the economic downturn, and the ramifications of its catastrophic failure reach deeply into the economies of Europe, the United States, and other global markets. Ásgeir Jónsson offers a unique perspective and an expert’s insight into the rise and fall of this once-proud banking giant. Why Iceland? provides the who, what, where, and when of Iceland’s demise, serving as a fascinating read and providing the understanding necessary for forecasting when and where the aftershocks will shake up markets in other parts of the world. "Fearsome Vikings discovered Iceland. Hedge funds knocked it down. It was a humiliating tumble for the former financial powerhouse, which was proud of its status in Europe. A late bloomer, Iceland had been the last country in Europe to be settled, the Nordic nation rapidly caught up with its wealthier relations. It was all fine until October 2008, when country's banking system collapsed in a week. Written by an Icelandic economist, Why Iceland? chronicles the meltdown, in the context of the nation's history."--New York Post (A "Required Reading" Selection)

Download or read book Meltdown Iceland written by Roger Boyes and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-10-06 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The economic crisis that emerged in America in 2008 unleashed a veritable epidemic of ill health around the world. However it was Iceland, whose population of three hundred thousand had the world's highest GDP per capita and counted itself the happiest of countries, that caught the worst cold. It has nearly killed them. No story from the economic crisis of 2008 is more evocative than I celand's. The names may be unfamiliar-Johanesson, Bjoergolfsson, Oddsson-but their exuberance, greed, and miscalculation have many counterparts on our shores. And however traumatic the collapse of individual companies may be in the United States, in Iceland's case an entire country melted down. All the wealth accumulated in the previous decade-during which a new breed of Icelanders had dared to believe they could compete economically on an international level, during which Reykjavik became the Capital of Cool-disappeared practically overnight. Iceland's story shows how closely the world economy is interconnected: The default on subprime mortgages in the U .S. led to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which led directly to the run on Iceland's banks, which forced local authorities in Britain to switch off the heating in their classrooms. With panache and color, Roger Boyes tells the inside story of the bankrupting of I celand: how it happened, the human dramas-from politicians to financiers to fishermen-that continue to swirl around it, and the lessons we can not ignore. Published on the first anniversary of its collapse, Meltdown Iceland is a cautionary tale for our times, an authoritative and compelling account of the financial destruction of a tiny country whose saga should resonate for us all.

Download or read book Entangling Alliances written by Susan Zeiger and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2010-03-01 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the twentieth century, American male soldiers returned home from wars with foreign-born wives in tow, often from allied but at times from enemy nations, resulting in a new, official category of immigrant: the “allied” war bride. These brides began to appear en masse after World War I, peaked after World War II, and persisted through the Korean and Vietnam Wars. GIs also met and married former “enemy” women under conditions of postwar occupation, although at times the US government banned such unions. In this comprehensive, complex history of war brides in 20th-century American history, Susan Zeiger uses relationships between American male soldiers and foreign women as a lens to view larger issues of sexuality, race, and gender in United States foreign relations. Entangling Alliances draws on a rich array of sources to trace how war and postwar anxieties about power and national identity have long been projected onto war brides, and how these anxieties translate into public policies, particularly immigration.

Download or read book Background notes Iceland written by United States. Department of State. Bureau of European Affairs and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book America s Entangling Alliances written by Jason W. Davidson and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-02 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A challenge to long-held assumptions about the costs and benefits of America’s allies. Since the Revolutionary War, the United States has entered into dozens of alliances with international powers to protect its assets and advance its security interests. America’s Entangling Alliances offers a corrective to long-held assumptions about US foreign policy and is relevant to current public and academic debates about the costs and benefits of America’s allies. Author Jason W. Davidson examines these alliances to shed light on their nature and what they reveal about the evolution of American power. He challenges the belief that the nation resists international alliances, showing that this has been true in practice only when using a narrow definition of alliance. While there have been more alliances since World War II than before it, US presidents and Congress have viewed it in the country’s best interest to enter into a variety of security arrangements over virtually the entire course of the country’s history. By documenting thirty-four alliances—categorized as defense pacts, military coalitions, or security partnerships—Davidson finds that the US demand for allies is best explained by looking at variance in its relative power and the threats it has faced.

Download or read book Iceland Ireland written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-02-07 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers the first comparative account from contemporary and historical perspectives of Irish and Icelandic memory cultures and addresses the broader dynamics of trans-cultural memory that are surfaced in such comparative approaches of geographically peripheral islands.

Download or read book Secrets of the Sprakkar written by Eliza Reid and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-02 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Canadian first lady of Iceland pens a book about why this tiny nation is leading the charge in gender equality, in the vein of The Moment of Lift. Iceland is the best place on earth to be a woman—but why? For the past twelve years, the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report has ranked Iceland number one on its list of countries closing the gap in equality between men and women. What is it about Iceland that enables its society to make such meaningful progress in this ongoing battle, from electing the world’s first female president to passing legislation specifically designed to help even the playing field at work and at home? The answer is found in the country’s sprakkar, an ancient Icelandic word meaning extraordinary or outstanding women. Eliza Reid—Canadian born and raised, and now first lady of Iceland—examines her adopted homeland’s attitude toward women: the deep-seated cultural sense of fairness, the influence of current and historical role models, and, crucially, the areas where Iceland still has room for improvement. Throughout, she interviews dozens of sprakkar to tell their inspirational stories, and expertly weaves in her own experiences as an immigrant from small-town Canada. The result is an illuminating discussion of what it means to move through the world as a woman and how the rules of society play more of a role in who we view as equal than we may understand. What makes many women’s experiences there so positive? And what can we learn about fairness to benefit our society? Like influential and progressive first ladies Eleanor Roosevelt, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Michelle Obama, Reid uses her platform to bring the best of her nation to the world. Secrets of the Sprakkar is a powerful and atmospheric portrait of a tiny country that could lead the way forward for us all.

Download or read book The Unipolar World written by T. Mowle and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-03-19 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book-length treatment of international politics in a unipolar world that adopts a structural realist perspective. It applies Waltz's microeconomic analogy to a market with a price leader. It concludes that unipolarity is sustainable as long as the unipole distributes rewards to other states.