|
Iceland's defences consist of the Icelandic Coast Guard, which patrols Icelandic waters and airspace, and other services such as the National Commissioner's National Security and Special Forces Units.〔(Varnarmálastofnun Íslands. )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Lög um breytingu á varnarmálalögum, nr. 34/2008. )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Varnarmálalög. )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Landhelgisgæsla Íslands Hlutverk. )〕 Iceland is however the only NATO member which maintains no standing army, although there is no legal impediment to forming one and Icelandic services perform the operations fellow NATO allies relegate to their standing armies. The Coast Guard consists of three ships and four aircraft and armed with small arms, naval artillery, and Air Defence weaponry.〔http://www.iads.is/〕 The Coast Guard also maintains the Iceland Air Defence System, formerly part of the disestablished Defence Agency, which conducts ground surveillance of Iceland's air space.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=NATO Air Policing )〕 Units subordinated to the National Commissioner also take part in Iceland's defences. Foremost of these are the National Security Unit, which handles intelligence operations and the special unit Víkingasveitin, a highly trained and equipped counter terrorism unit which is part of the National Police force. Additionally there is a Crisis Response Unit (ICRU), operated by the Ministry for Foreign affairs, which is a small peacekeeping force that has been deployed internationally, since 2008. This unit also has an unarmed component. Furthermore, there is a treaty with the United States regarding the defense of Iceland; the former maintained a military base known as Naval Air Station Keflavik before it was disestablished in 2006. There are also agreements about military and other security operations with Norway,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=A press release from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. )〕〔(An English translation of the Norwegian-Icelandic MoU at the website of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. )〕 Denmark〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Norway Post: Norway and Iceland to sign defence agreement )〕〔(Aftenposten: Norway to help defend Iceland )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Danmarks Radio )〕 and other NATO countries. Iceland holds the annual NATO exercises entitled Northern Viking. The most recent exercises were held in 2011,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=A press release from the Icelandic Coast Guard. )〕 as well as the EOD exercise "Northern Challenge". In 1997 Iceland hosted its first Partnership for Peace (PfP) exercise, "Cooperative Safeguard", which is the only multilateral PfP exercise so far in which Russia has participated. Another major PfP exercise was hosted in 2000. Iceland has also contributed ICRU peacekeepers to SFOR, KFOR and ISAF. The government of Iceland contributes financially to NATO's international overhead costs and recently has taken a more active role in NATO deliberations and planning. Iceland hosted the NATO Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Reykjavík in June 1987. Additionally Norway has agreed to grant Icelandic citizens the same eligibility as Norwegian citizens for military education in Norway and to serve as professional soldiers in the Norwegian Defence forces.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Norwegian Defence Forces: Alle gode ting er tre )〕 == History == (詳細は''leiðangr''. These armies were divided into units according to the quality of the warriors and by birth. At the end of this period the number of chieftains had diminished and their power had grown, to the detriment of their followers. This resulted in a long and bloody civil war known as Age of the Sturlungs. A typical battle involved fewer than 1000 men. Amphibious operations were an important part of warfare in Iceland in this period, especially in the Westfjords, but large naval engagements were rare. The largest such engagement, known as Flóabardagi, involved a few dozen ships in Húnaflói (bay). In the decades before the Napoleonic wars, the few hundred militiamen in the southwest of Iceland were mainly equipped with rusty and mostly obsolete medieval weaponry, including 16th century halberds. When English raiders arrived in 1808, after sinking or capturing most of the Danish-Norwegian Navy in the Battle of Copenhagen, the amount of gunpowder in Iceland was so small that the governor of Iceland, Count Trampe, could not offer any resistance. In 1855, the Icelandic Army was re-established by Andreas August von Kohl, the sheriff in Vestmannaeyjar. In 1856, the king provided 180 rixdollars to buy guns, and a further 200 rixdollars the following year. The sheriff became the Captain of the new army, which become known as ''Herfylkingin'', "The Battalion". In 1860 von Kohl died, and Pétur Bjarnasen took over command. Nine years later Bjarnasen died without appointing a successor, and the army fell into disarray. In 1918 Iceland regained sovereignty as a separate kingdom under the Danish king. Iceland established a Coast Guard shortly afterwards, but it was financially impossible to establish a standing army. The government hoped that a permanent neutrality would shield the country from invasion. But at the onset of Second World War, the government was concerned about a possible invasion, and decided to expand the Icelandic National Police (''Ríkislögreglan'') and its reserves into a military unit. Chief Commissioner of Police Agnar Kofoed Hansen had been trained in the Danish Army and he moved to train his officers. Weapons and uniforms were acquired, and they practised rifleshooting and military tactics near Laugarvatn. Hansen barely managed to train his 60 officers before the United Kingdom's invasion of Iceland on 10 May 1940. The next planned step towards strengthening the army was to train the 300 strong reserve forces, but this was prevented by the invasion. During the Second World War, the United States took over defense of Iceland from the British, and this arrangement continued well after the war, eventually codified in the Agreed Minute. Expansion was therefore concentrated primarily in the Icelandic Coast Guard, which saw action in a series of confrontations with British fishing vessels and warships known as the Cod Wars. After withdrawal of US forces in 2006, Iceland reorganized some military functions in the form of the Icelandic Defence Agency (''Varnarmálastofnun Íslands'') founded in 2008.〔()〕 under the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The Agency took over operations at Naval Air Station Keflavik, but was closed in 2011 in the wake of the economic crisis, with functions distributed to the existing organizations. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Military of Iceland」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|