Loftis on Visir on the Closing of Icelandic Base
Amb. Robert Loftis, Professor of the Practice of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, was recently interviewed on the closing of the Kevlavik Naval Air Station in Iceland in 2006.
The Kevlavik Naval Air Station was a Cold War base the United States had been using since the end of World War II. Donald Rumsfeld unilaterally closed the base without consulting Iceland. Both through the NATO alliance and a separate bilateral U.S.-Iceland defense agreement, the U.S. is responsible for the defense of Iceland. According to Loftis, the bad feelings engendered by Rumsfeld have largely disappeared.
Loftis was interviewed for an October 6, 2016 segment on the Icelandic station Visir.
From the interview:
It was also surprising to some of us that were also involved in the negotiations because that was not the original intent of starting this negotiation.
In my view, let me put it this way, it was a bad way of doing it. If you really want to close the base, and we’ve closed a lot of bases throughout Europe as we’ve consolidated, the conversation really needed to be about how does the United States continue to meet its defense needs to Iceland in a changing world. That conversation didn’t take place.
Certainly Secretary Rumsfeld was insensitive to the perception of the way he was doing this. I don’t think the commitment of the United States went away. You have to deal with what the partner thinks is important, and that didn’t happen at the time.
You can watch the entire segment below:
Robert G. Loftis served in the State Department and Foreign Service from 1980 to 2012, where he held a wide variety of assignments, including Acting Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (2010-2012), Special Representative for Avian and Pandemic Influenza (2009), Senior Adviser for Security Negotiations and Agreements (2004-2007), Ambassador to Lesotho (2001-2004) and Deputy Chief of Mission in Mozambique (1999-2001). You can read more about him here.