Al-Jazeera Arabic
The diplomatic efforts between the West and Russia over Ukraine. What are the prospects?
NRK Debatten
The current dramatic situation caused by the Russian military build-up around Ukraine.
Dagsnytt18 om NATO, USA, Russland og Ukraina
Debate about the release of intelligence to thwart Russian offensive operations against Ukraine
Kan Norge oppleve et cyberangrep i dag?
This oped discusses the risk of a cyber attack on Norwegian energy infrastructure after the introduction of sanctions against Russia in connection with Russia's war against Ukraine.
Heading Forward in Response to Crisis: How the Ukraine Crisis Affected EU Maritime Foreign and Security Policy Integration
This chapter discusses the impact of the Ukraine crisis on EU foreign and security policy integration. It finds that the EU has responded to Russia’s aggression by deepening cooperation in areas not directly linked to Ukraine. Two least likely cases are analyzed: The EU’s Maritime Security Strategy and the EU’s Arctic policies. In both of these cases, agreement among the EU member states to adopt a common EU policy was driven mainly by Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. This crisis functioned as a critical juncture, moving EU security policies to the top of the EU agenda and affecting reluctant member states’ positions in favor of forming common policies. In the foreign policy domain, crisis triggers more integration as the EU member states reactively seek to address common challenges.
How War Becomes Acceptable: Russian re-phrasing of Chechnya
This dissertation investigates how violence against a given territory or group of people becomes acceptable to leaders and their publics. Some wars are launched only reluctantly, and support dwindles once the high human costs are revealed. Others, however, are undertaken with a sense of urgency and righteousness. The brute violence employed appears not only acceptable, but even necessary. The second post-soviet war which was launched against Chechnya in 1999 was such a war. In this dissertation I explore the re-definition of "Chechnya" from 1996 to 2001. The official narrative that portrayed Chechnya as a potential partner in the interwar years was replaced by one that represented Chechnya as an existential terrorist threat from 1999 onward. This securitization of the Chechen issue comprised a re-drawing of the boundaries between "Chechnya" and "Russia" in Russian discourse that served to legitimize the increasingly violent practices against Chechnya and Chechens. The thesis employs and develops a post-structuralist version of securitization theory. This approach emphasises securitization as an intersubjective and ongoing process of legitimation, not as an instance or a moment. The social construction of Chechnya and Chechens as "terrorist" is conceptualized as a collective endeavour. Not only statements by the Russian leadership, but also historical representations as well as those of the wider political elite, journalists and experts contributed to this rough categorization. In the final chapter the thesis investigates how this linguistic categorization materialized in the brutal practices employed during the Second Chechen War.
Russian Certainty of NATO Hostility: Repercussions in the Arctic
How does a security dilemma dynamic between parties deemed not to hold hostile intentions toward each other emerge and escalate? This article investigates Russian official discourse on NATO engagement in Europe post-Crimea (2014), and its impact on security interaction in the Arctic. We also examine how Russia represents NATO intentions and actions in a context seen by Russia as a relation of war. We identify the effect of these changing representations of self and other for the emerging securitization dilemma in relations between Russia and NATO, arguing that they have replaced uncertainty about NATO’s hostile intentions with certainty. Although Russia still articulates the Arctic as a unique cooperative region, there may be little space left for non-conflictual Russian action when encountering NATO in the Arctic. We highlight the agency and importance of evolving political rhetoric in creating a dangerous situation where lethal conflict can occur between parties who do not seek it, and also suggest that adjustments to patterns of official speech could be a tool of mitigation
Ståle Ulriksen
Ståle Ulriksen is a researcher at the Norwegian Naval College, part of the Norwegian Defence University, with a 20 percent position at NUPI, in Th...