Washington and Reykjavik are downplaying tensions as the Pentagon seeks to expand its Arctic footprint
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has praised Iceland for allowing Washington to “project power” from the North Atlantic island nation into the Arctic.
Iceland is strategically positioned to help the Pentagon monitor Arctic airspace and conduct missions tracking Russian submarines in the Atlantic, not unlike Denmark’s autonomous territory of Greenland, which US President Donald Trump had notoriously threatened to annex. The US president and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen have signed an agreement to substantially increase Washington’s military presence there.
On Tuesday in Iceland, which joined NATO when it was created in 1949, Rubio praised Rejkyavik for allowing “the US military to project power using your land, your air, your sea, giving us a critical outpost for monitoring clandestine behavior and deterring our adversaries.”
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