Marines practice amphibious assault on Iceland

Marine Corps Times:
In the popular 1986 Tom Clancy Cold War thriller “Red Storm Rising” Soviet forces carry out a daring assault on Iceland, landing Soviet troops and destroying the NATO U.S. sub-hunting airbase at Keflavík.

The island eventually is wrestled back by United States Marines who carry out an amphibious assault on the Nordic island nation.

But the description of Tom Clancy’s breakout of World War III is not a far-fetched scenario, and the Corps may even be rehearsing such a possibility.

With the lead up to NATO’s largest exercise in more than a decade, Trident Juncture, the Corps is planning a rehearsal amphibious landing on Iceland before it carries out the real thing in Norway for the NATO-led training evolution.

Nearly 2,000 Marines and sailors embarked with the 24th Marine Expeditionary on board the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima are steaming their way toward NATO’s high north in preparation for the amphibious assault.

While the Iceland landing is a rehearsal for Trident Juncture, is it really a message to Russia that the Corps and NATO can and will defend Iceland against Russian aggression?
...
“Faced with a predominantly sea-oriented NATO coalition dependent on control of the SLOCs [sea lines of communication], there can be no question but that the Soviets would have liked to capture or at least neutralize Iceland,” Petersen said in his report.

The capture of Iceland would be a major strategic victory for Russian forces by opening up the Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom, or GIUK gap — a gateway for Russian naval and submarine forces in the Atlantic Ocean.
...
There is more.

The Marines are taking seriously the threat exposed by the Clancy novel.

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