... country." The situation brought Norway enormous investments from the NATO infrastructure programs, which were effectively used both for military and civilian purposes. Hence, Norway suffers damages from the North’s reduced importance for NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union and would prefer to fuel controllable tensions with Russia in the Arctic.
Oslo has long found itself balancing between these often-mismatched interests, with the optimal scenario appearing to lie in free operation in the North, primarily in Spitsbergen and adjacent waters, or jointly with Russia, with overall support ...
....ca/arctic-arctique/arctic_policy-canada-politique_arctique.aspx?lang=eng
[xviii] http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/65674ottawa_opens_scaled-back_arctic_training_facility_in_resolute_bay
[xix] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/containing-russia-should-not-mean-bringing-nato-to-the-arctic/article18208720/
[xx] http://www.oceanlaw.org/downloads/arctic/Ilulissat_Declaration.pdf
... large extend of its coastlines in the region, and the vast deposits of energy resources and the presence of a strategic maritime route (e.g. NSR) under its sovereignty, Russia is at the same time the most influential and vulnerable Arctic nation. In the Arctic, Russia also stands alone between five NATO members that include two members of the European Union. Russia is thus in a strategic unsteady position, and further NATO presence or enforcement in the Arctic is likely to reinforce Russian feeling of being a surrounded nation. Therefore an enhanced ...
... upholding their national interests within international organizations. NATO’s increasing activity in the Arctic will lead to transfiguration in relations in the area of international security, with new challenges and opportunities emerging for Russia.
The Arctic is becoming a new area of NATO’s influence, an area where security is closely associated with crucially important interests of its member states. In 2009, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer addressing a conference of the Alliance in Reykjavik that discussed prospects ...
