... Norway would ‘have to face head-on Russia and Russian military might’. A similar warning was issued in November 2011, when President Medvedev announced that to prevent nuclear war, Russia may have to launch a limited military strike to decapitate NATO’s missile defence components when the system reaches the maturity to neutralise Russian second-strike capabilities. Further tensions in the Arctic is also evident as Norway is accused of attempting to establish ‘absolute national jurisdiction’ over Svalbard and its shelf. In a breach of the Svalbard Treaty, Russian officials were banned access, while members of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly were invited to the ...
... Norway and Turkey enjoyed the prestigious status of a NATO "flank 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 ...
... their current size and quality[vii]. Norway relies on NATO to secure its national interest in the Arctic Norway sees NATO as “the essential source of security and stability in an unpredictable world”[viii], and is thus actively promoting NATO’s role in the Arctic, mostly to counterweight Russia’s military rebuilding programs in the region. Norway also considers that “only NATO can provide the necessary deterrence and reassurance” in the region. One of the main objectives of the military exercise in Finnmark is accordingly to “show the world, and of course (Norway’s) ...
... expressed, in particular, in its support of Thorvald Stoltenberg’s idea to create the Arctic mini-NATO. A North-European summit meeting was convened in London in January 2011, attended by representatives of Britain, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Experts identify the strategic objective of the new regional organization as curbing Russia’s military influence in the Arctic
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Canada's position concerning NATO's role in the Arctic is opposed to that of Norway. Canada is wary of possible expansion of influence in the Arctic region of those NATO members that as in the case of Britain are not Arctic states. Experts of the Heritage Foundation (U.S.A.) presume ...
