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
The Internet during the Cold War The Internet during the Cold War The development of ways to interconnect computers in the United States was heavily affected by needs and demands arising from the Cold War. The system of networked computers known as ARPANET, in service from the late 1960s to 1990, was under military control. ARPANET laid the technical foundations for the present-day Internet. During the Cold War there was constant fear of nuclear attack from the Soviet Union and desire to be "better" than the United States at everything. Once the USSR launched Sputnik in 1957 the United States felt that technologically they were falling