The Arctic Is a Place of Unusual International Cooperation. Can That Last?

Apr 17, 2021 | Larry Luxner
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For decades, Norway’s policy towards neighboring Russia has balanced “between deterrence and reassurance” and combined “firmness and predictability,” says Ine Eriksen Søreide, the country’s minister of foreign affairs. “This policy remains unchanged. But it has become an ever more challenging task in the face of a steadily deteriorating security environment.”

Søreide spoke on March 19 at Looking North: Conference on Security in the Arctic, hosted by the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. The event focused on geopolitical, security, economic, and environmental challenges confronting the eight countries whose territories lie north of the Arctic Circle.

Russia’s military has become “much more assertive and much less predictable” in recent years, “and this is deeply worrying” to Norway, warned Søreide.

“Maintaining the north of Norway as a strong, resilient, and prosperous region is a vital investment in both security and economic growth,” Søreide said. “What we do domestically in the north of Norway has major implications including with Russia”—with which Norway shares a 198-kilometer border.

She added that “there are enormous opportunities for science-based cooperation” with Russia. “The Arctic environment is quite fragile, and climate change takes place twice as fast in the Arctic as anywhere else on the globe,” she noted. “We have to act on this very quickly.”