Den norske Atlanterhavskomité: Spranget inn i fremtiden
Europe is at war. Putin's attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022 marks a turning point in European security. The war is also a preliminary climax in Russian revisionism, which dates back to 1990 and became more marked from 2007 and 2014. Some saw the war coming. From October 2021, insightful analysts and actors in intelligence and decision-making circles in the United States, NATO Belgium and some circles in Norway became increasingly confident that war was on the way. The inner circles had access to very good intelligence. People in positions with deep insight into Russian history watched with growing concern as Russia's bloodthirsty imperial tradition resurfaced, brutal and unadorned - this unpleasant habit of Romanovs and communists to devour neighbors. People in positions with broad knowledge of both literature and governance saw that the authoritarian Russian regime moved in a totalitarian direction and isolated itself, something we recognize from other totalitarian regimes. Experts in the public sphere did not see war as likely, with some exceptions. It was not rational, sort of. Nor had they imagined that the Soviet empire would fall apart. We see what we have seen before: That experts are best at explaining in retrospect why things went the way they did. And that they blame the politicians for not reacting in time. No one knows how long the war will last and how long Putin's Russia will remain a pariah. It is noted that a number of European leaders are working to create peace, several of them in such a way that they themselves can shine. Here we will look beyond the war itself and have a special eye on traditional power and interest politics: What are the long-term challenges and threats of significance to Norway? How should we organize our security policy and our defense? This is a time of great challenges, but also many opportunities. Crises create opportunities. There is an opportunity to make Norway better equipped to handle major changes in geopolitics and technology. We will dwell on the surroundings, especially Russia and the north. We will discuss the Nordic region in NATO as a security policy project. We will discuss the Armed Forces' design, especially the ability to think consistently from thought to action. And we will finally present five bold postulates, which transcend conventional thinking, about what Norway will be able to prioritize in the years ahead.
Revisiting nuclear hedging: ballistic missiles and the Iranian example
Technological shifts have made nascent nuclear arsenals more vulnerable. In this article, Henrik Stålhane Hiim argues that this provides “nuclear hedgers” – states that deliberately seeking to develop the ability to go nuclear – with strong incentives to acquiring ballistic missiles. The article illustrates this tendency through a case-study of the Iranian missile and rocket programs. It finds that missile acquisition has indeed been an integral part of Iran's hedging strategy, and that several of the systems it has acquired indicate an interest in nuclear weapons delivery.
Networked territoriality: A processual–relational view on the making (and makings) of regions in world politics
This article proposes a processual–relational perspective on region-making and its effects in world politics. It revisits the concepts of regionalism and regionalisation to unearth the relational mechanisms underlying these archetypical pathways of regional emergence. Regionalism refers to the bounding of regions – the definition of its inside and outside, and of which actors fall on either side. Regionalisation denotes the binding of regions, the amalgamations of relations around a shared territoriality. I argue that regions affect world politics in their making through the boundaries raised and relations produced in the process. I then mobilise network theory and analysis to propose a framework for studying the making and makings of regions. Regions’ binding and bounding are rooted in brokerage dynamics that sustain clusters of relations denser inside a regional boundary, rather than outside, and allow some actors to control interactions across that boundary. I illustrate this framework with a case study on the emergence of the Amazon as a region in world politics. I analyse interaction networks in UN-level environmental negotiations involving the ecosystem. The analysis shows how the making of the Amazon has been tied to preserving the position of Amazonian states as the main brokers, speaking for and acting on behalf of the region.
RUSMENA round tables in Rome and Florence on 1 and 2 June 2022
Webinar: IUU fishing and the challenges of sustainable fisheries management: the role of Norway and international cooperation.
In this seminar, we will discuss the role of international cooperation and development assistance in addressing Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing.
Re-imagining African—Nordic relations in a changing global order
This study asks how the special relationship between countries in Africa and the Nordic region may be affected by a changing global order, that the African-Nordic cooperation can continue to evolve and remain relevant for both regions. The meeting in Helsinki on 14 June 2022 is the 20th meeting of the forum of African–Nordic Foreign Ministers. The forum was established in 2000 between five Nordic countries and ten African countries. It was intended to emphasize the political importance of Africa and to demonstrate that Africa–Nordic relations went beyond development cooperation. The forum meets alternately and rotates among African and Nordic countries and African hosts have included Benin, Botswana, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania. The number of African countries expanded over time and now numbers around 25. The annual meeting is an opportunity to consolidate the special relationship between African and Nordic countries and creates a space where political issues of mutual concern can be discussed. As such, it has helped to broaden the African–Nordic relations beyond development cooperation and towards a more politically-oriented and interest-based strategic partnership. Beyond the annual foreign ministers meeting, the other aspect the report looks into is what the sum-total of African-Nordic bilateral relations in the areas of trade, development, peace and security and multilateral cooperation reveals about the status of the overall relationship. Africa pursues strategic partnerships that helps it to develop and strengthen the continent’s economic potential, political identity, and its role on the global stage. In this study we pay particular attention to Africa’s relationship with China, Europe, India, Russia and Turkey. One of the dominant features of Africa’s international relations has been its non-alignment. African countries have been careful to seek partnerships with many different states and regions, without being pulled into any one alliance that may prevent it from also gaining support for its development from others. Therefore, in its strategic partnerships, African countries seeks engagements that will help it to grow its economies.
Re-imagining African-Nordic relations in a changing global order
Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet: Sudan
Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet: Iraq
Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet: South Sudan