Is it guns, oil or the humble herring that lie behind Russia’s offer to rescue Iceland from financial hell with a €4 billion loan? Cynical speculation over the motives behind the Kremlin’s friendly gesture towards the tiny North Atlantic state has been rife. Could Iceland be on the brink of joining some new Moscow pact with Russian submarines refuelling in Reykjavik and Russian bombers parked at Keflavik, the former Nato airbase abandoned by the US Air Force in 2006?

Such speculation looks overexcited. The Russian Government’s motives for helping Iceland are likely to be more subtle. Iceland was a strategic island during the Cold War because of its proximity to Europe and the Arctic, and it remains so, not for military reasons but for natural resources.

The next race for oil and gas will take place in the far North. Already, the five Arctic nations, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and America, are jostling for territory. Exploration licences are being awarded offshore of Greenland while Iceland will launch a licensing round in January. Russia wants to be in the lead in the exploitation of these resources and has crossed diplomatic swords with Norway in a territorial dispute in the Barents Sea.

It is not only oil but fish that is at stake. Russia is trying to build up its fishing fleet in the Arctic, where there are still big stocks of cod, and it has regular border disputes with Norway. There are many reasons why the loan of a few billion euros could pay off in a future world where fish and oil are more important than banks or even guns.

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