inning the Atlantic
Is the British Government pursuing a sensible policy towards Iceland over the 'cod war '? Lady Tweedsmuir has been to Reykjavik, has talked with Icelandic ministers, has been booed by Icelandic youngsters, and has returned, apparently empty-handed. The dangerous squabbling at sea between British trawlermen and Icelandic vessels continues. Sir Alec Douglas-Home speaks of sending a warship into the area. No progress is being made; and indeed it is difficult to see how any progress can be made, as long as the United Kingdom stands on its presumed rights in international law awaiting the decision (in two or three years' time) of the World Court at the Hague and as long as Iceland refuses to concede on a matter which is obviously vital to Icelandic national interest. It is right that a British government should vigorously defend a British interest; and simply because Iceland is small and weak is not necessarily sufficient reason to sacrifice a small but important British interest to Iceland's national interest. However, consideration of Britain's overall strategic interests might well lead the British Government to conclude that such interests coincide rather than conflict with Iceland's Atlantic Ocean interests; and in this event the course of wise diplomacy would be for us to change our policy without further ado.
There are two grounds, each sufficient on its own, on which to base this change of policy. First, we cannot afford to antagonise Iceland excessively and unbearably: Iceland's strategic position in the Atlantic is obvious to anyone with a map; the United States is rightly anxious to preserve its airbase at Keflevik, which is part of NATO's defence; the Soviet Union would be very pleased indeed with an Iceland amicably disposed towards it as a consequence of British hostility. Second, the claims that Iceland is making about the water surrounding the Icelandic coast are precisely the claims that we ought to be making about our own surrounding waters: we already have made (and enjoy the fruits of) such claims in respect of undersea gas and oil; we have dickered as to whether we should claim our continental shelf outright, even though we would be among the chief beneficiaries of such an international decision (which, fortunately, looks like being arrived at without our help). Next year, at Santiago, a Law of the Sea conference is to take place which will seek to regulate on these crucial matters, and, at that conference, the United Kingdom will only be able to preserve and advance its own interests and those of its alliances, if it is in substantial agreement with the policy at present put forward by Iceland and resisted by our Government.
It is to our benefit to concede victory to Iceland, to accept their terms and compensate the east coast trawlermen appropriately, and to jettison the once noble and useful set of ideas about the freedom of the seas' before we become the only nation left holding them. False sentiment must no longer determine our Icelandic policy. We must look to our true interests. We must change course. We must lose the 'cod war' if we are to win the continuing battle of the Atlantic.
