Cod Wars of nationalism and party competition for Iceland and pressure from the trawling industry for Britain are reasons that both sides took actions that were of noticeable risk to their broader security interests. Interdepartmental competition and unilateral behaviour by individual diplomats were also factors, with the British Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries influencing the British government's decision 'more than the Foreign Office'. A 2017 study argues that both a combination of powerful domestic pressures on statesmen to escalate and miscalculation by those statesmen contributed to the outbreak of the Cod Wars. The study argues that Iceland won each of the Cod
Collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery that extended to 200 mi offshore. The government wanted to reverse declining fish stocks by removing foreign fishing within the new inshore fishery boundaries. With the absence of foreign fishing many Canadian and U.S fishing trawlers took their place and the number of cod kept diminishing past a point of recovery. Many local fishermen noticed the drastic decrease of cod and tried to inform local government officials. In 1986, scientists did a review of calculations and data after which they determined, in order to conserve cod fishing the total allowable catch rate had to be cut in half. However, even