Stupid territorial pissing matches — not just a Northeast Asian thing

In my previous post, someone pointed out that Japan and Korea aren’t the only ones involved in a rather odd territorial dispute. In the barren wastelands near Greenland, Denmark and Canada are apparently at odds concerning the ownership of Hans Island, a barren 1.3 square km island that, save for the occasional flag-planting Danish soldier, is completely uninhabited. A direct you to this excelent piece on the conflict. PolySpy had a pretty funny take on it:

Hans Island, is probably more close to being truly Danish than Canadian, for a couple of reasons. It?��s right off the tip of Greenland, an island around one million square kilometers larger than Quebec, and owned by Denmark, and it?��s called Hans Island, not Gordon Island. On those two counts alone Denmark has a convincing case.

Not that it really matters, Hans Island comprises 3 square kilometers of ice-bound, seal infested rock. It isn?��t large enough for more than one or two Tim Horton?��s franchises, and drive-thrus are out unless you lower the windows for snowmobiles.

The only humans that ever go there are Danes, and they travel there via their own military craft, so it?��s not like they get there on our nickel. If they go there in winter they probably go with one of their four icebreakers. Canada, with it?��s much more significant arctic territory, doesn?��t have any icebreakers at all.

One has to feel bad for Canucks. Nobody shall ever forget the Great Turbot War against Spain. Nor have I forgotten when another plucky ex-colony wanted to flex its newly independent muscle against perceived arrogance on the part of its former colonizers by turning the whole of Canada into a “disputed territory” in 1812. As an American, I’d apologize for burning York (modern day Toronto) to the ground, but I figure you got us back pretty good by toasting Washington D.C., and probably did us a favor by burning Buffalo while you were at it.

Now this brings us to the Mother of All Stupid Territorial Pissing Matches, the Iceland-U.K. “Cod War” of 1975-1976. OK, like most disputes of this kind, the issue itself isn’t stupid — fisheries are important, you got to protect your fisherman and God knows what goodies might be under the seabed. It’s the way in which the dispute is handled that makes it so open to sarcasm. In this case, well, read for yourself:

The Cod! Why is it so popular, particularly with the British public? It is a common species of fish, somewhat unremarkable in taste. It is a rather unprepossessing fish, its main ability is to produce huge quantities of young (or should we say ‘was’)! The fish is now on the brink of extinction! Yet, this dull fish was the cause of two NATO allies going to the brink of war. Between November 1975 and June 1976, Great Britain and Iceland confronted each other over Iceland’s proclaiming its authority over the ocean up to 200 miles from its coast. The issue was the amount of cod caught by British and Icelandic fishermen. This “war” consisted of British fishing trawlers having their nets cut by the Icelandic Coast Guard and numerous rammings between Icelandic ships and British trawlers and frigates. The “war” caused Iceland to threaten to close the NATO base at Keflavik, which would have had major repercussions on the ability of NATO to defend the Atlantic Ocean from Soviet incursions. With this threat hanging over its head, plus the international trend towards a 200 mile economic exclusion zone, and the economic cost of the conflict, Great Britain agreed to have its fishermen stay outside Iceland’s 200 mile economic zone without specific agreements.

You can’t make things like this up, folks. By the way, for some great photos taken from this less-than-proud moment in NATO history, I direct you to this site.

Of course, these are but a few examples, so if I neglect to mention the 1859 San Juan Island dispute, the Aroostook “War” of 1838-1839 or Arizona’s 1934 decision to deploy its National Guard along part of the Colorado River to prevent — by force, if need be — California from building the Parker Dam, it’s not for a lack of respect.