The foreign policy of small states tends to attract little public or scholarly attention. Much of the discussion about the international role of less powerful nations seems to acquire a mocking tone, flippantly dismissing Switzerland’s quaint neutrality or famine-stricken Eritrea’s place in the US coalition for the war in Iraq. Since the powerful naturally contribute more to the shaping of international circumstances, a discourse that eschews weaker countries in favor of more influential ones makes practical sense. Examining small states, however, amounts to more than musing over puzzling curiosities. It can inform the consideration of pressing practical issues by improving the means used to approach them.

In other words, small states provide compelling test cases for international relations theory. Examining the presence of relatively impotent states at the margins of broad military coalitions sharpens the debate between competing theoretical models of international alliance. Specifically, current weak-state behavior in military coalitions demonstrates that a purely neorealist theoretical perspective is insufficient. Accounting for domestic and institutional factors provides a more complete explanation of alliance patterns. Weak-state behavior also lends empirical credibility to the idea that states may choose to bandwagon with, rather than balance against, a pressing threat.

The argument leading to these conclusions will begin with an explanation of the relevant theory. It will then consider two case studies: Iceland and its membership in NATO, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia, as well as these nations’ relationships to the US-led war in Iraq.

Essential concepts shared by these theoretical models are bandwagoning and balancing. Richard Harknett and Jeffrey A. VanDenBerg, Professors of Political Science at University of Cincinnati, explain: “Balancing is alignment driven by the desire to find security in resisting or defeating one’s most pressing threat; bandwagoning is alignment driven by the desire to find security in appeasing one’s most pressing threat.” States may balance or bandwagon regardless of theoretical approach; an approach that accounts for omnialignment recognizes that balancing and bandwagoning may occur with and against threats both internal and external.

Specifically, neorealism holds at its basis that external pressures will outweigh domestic ones as state leaders rationally choose a foreign policy that will minimize security risk in an anarchical international system. In other words, the neorealist approach, whose foremost advocate is Kenneth Waltz, presumes that elites—the empowered individuals shaping their nations’ foreign policy—will be free of any domestic constraints that might sway their strategy for global interactions. National politics, international institutions, and ideological or cultural affinities among nations have little relevance.

At odds with neorealism is the domestic-level (or “liberal”) theoretical approach. Miriam Fendius Elman, Professor of Political Science at Arizona State University, writes that scholars in this camp “expect that state attributes and societal conflicts will affect foreign policy choices … and will often render statesmen incapable of responding to the exigencies of the international environment.” Institutionalism also places a limit on the neorealist premise of fully rational and self-interested leaders seeking risk minimization. Its constraint, however, comes from the binding political and ideological ties forged within and cemented by such international institutions as the United Nations.

On balance, the truth lies between the extremes. Supposing that leaders who author foreign policy have absolutely no stake in the politics of their nations is as impractical as supposing that they are so preoccupied with those politics as to develop strategy without giving any thought to external conditions. It is similarly difficult to conceive of major global institutions as either having no effect at all upon leaders’ thought processes or as compelling leaders to take action that runs directly counter to their national interests.

How does a nation that “laid down arms sometime in the 14th Century,” according to its Ambassador to the United States, end up a member of NATO? Iceland is—quite literally— in the North Atlantic, but that geographic distinction hardly seems to have any significance as a membership criterion, as Greece would no doubt attest. This is indeed an intuitive quandary: Iceland has no military but participates in the world’s most powerful formalized military coalition.

The lack of an armed force is not to suggest, however, that Iceland contributes nothing to NATO. The coalition maintains a base at Keflavik, which was once a strategic location for defending the Atlantic against a possible Soviet threat. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the base’s particular location no longer provides a particular advantage, but the forces it accommodates must be stationed somewhere. (Incidentally, the capital city of Reykjavik is also a preferred location for NATO summits and meetings. As the site of the groundbreaking 1986 summit between US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev, Reykjavik has a political symbolism that promotes the public image of a conciliatory and peace-seeking post-Cold War NATO.) NATO’s expected cost of defending Iceland from external attack is negligible—the small, non-belligerent, and relatively remote nation is hardly a logical target. There is little difficulty in understanding, then, why NATO wants Iceland.

Instead, the question of theoretical significance is why Iceland wants NATO, of which it has been a member since the 1940s. That Iceland’s greatest (and perhaps only) substantive threat is Great Britain might seem surprising. Iceland has long endured heavy economic dependence on its fishing industry and has consistently attempted to assert exclusive fishing rights in surrounding waters. Indeed, no other nation has historically been more reliant upon its fishing industry; even with recent diversification spurred by tourism, marine products account for over 70 percent of the value of Iceland’s exports. Depopulation of fishing grounds and serious competition in maritime industries, then, are among the most serious threats to its domestic stability and welfare that Iceland faces.

In 1975, concerned by declining cod populations and a growing British industry presence, Iceland unilaterally extended its control over fishing rights to 200 miles from its borders, out from the previous demarcation of 50 miles. The British refused to comply, and a territorial battle ensured. Icelandic trawlers and coast guard ships and more powerful British frigates rammed, slashed, and—in rare cases—shot at each other. This was the closest to military conflict Iceland had been since Viking days. It was the Cod War, and there were casualties (injured crew members on both sides) and substantial property damage.