History of the Royal Navy the GIUK gap. In the North Atlantic, the United Kingdom became engaged in a protracted dispute with Iceland over fishing rights. The Royal Navy, supported by tugs from the MAFF and British civilian trawlers, was involved in three major confrontations with the Icelandic Coast Guard from 1958 to 1976. These largely bloodless incidents became known as the Cod Wars, and ended with the recognition by Britain of Iceland's exclusive 200 nautical miles fishery zone. Chatham Naval Base was used for refitting nuclear submarines from 1963 but it closed in 1984. The most important operation conducted predominantly by the Royal Navy
Cod Wars Wars because Icelandic statesmen were too greatly constrained by domestic politics to offer compromises to the British, but British statesmen were not as constrained by public opinion at home. International relations scholars such as Robert Keohane, Joseph Nye, Hans Morgenthau, Henry Kissinger and Ned Lebow have written on the Cod Wars. The 2016 review article finds that lessons from the Cod Wars have most commonly been applied to liberal and realist international relations theory and theories on asymmetric bargaining. It claims that the Cod Wars are widely seen as inconsistent with the precepts of the liberal peace, since democracy, trade