Iceland in the Cold War Iceland in the Cold War Throughout the Cold War, the nation of Iceland was a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and allied with the United States, hosting a US military presence in Keflavík Air Base from 1951 to 2006. In 1986, Iceland hosted a summit in Reykjavík between United States President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, during which they took significant steps toward nuclear disarmament. Five years later, in 1991, Iceland became the first country to recognize the renewed independence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania when they broke away from the Soviet Union. Early in
Effects of the Cold War unprepared and relatively sudden end. National security and defense for nuclear-weapons states must be frequently reevaluated. The international arms-control treaty and verification regime inherited from the Cold War is only slowly being updated to reflect the realities of a broken international security environment. Internal national-security military postures still dominate behavior among sovereign nations. The former superpowers have not formally consummated their stand-down from Cold War military equipoise. Strategic and tactical nuclear and conventional forces remain at levels comparatively high for a peacetime environment. Localized conflicts and tensions have replaced the former bilateral nuclear confrontation. As a lingering result, large inventories