Page 16 - North Atlantic and Nordic Defense

North European and North Atlantic Defense: The Challenges Return

year we signed an agreement with the aim of allowing easier access to each other’s sea-, air-, and land
domain for common training and defence purposes in peacetime. Almost every week, Nordic combat aircraft
are conducting Cross-Border Training in the North.

And with NATO’s partnership with Sweden and Finland, both countries’ participation in annual winter exercises
in Norway, and their planned participation in next year’s NATO exercise Trident Juncture, we are taking
Nordic and NATO cooperation to a new level.

Firmly rooted in our NATO membership, Norway sees Nordic cooperation as a pragmatic and sensible
approach to increasing predictability, ensuring stability and promoting peaceful cooperation without
confrontation or conflict in our part of the world. We have a shared understanding of the security challenges
we are facing, and we are all adapting our defence capabilities. The value of close consultations has
increased in a changing security security environment.

Ladies and gentlemen,

This year’s topic is “security in Northern Europe”. It’s difficult to navigate in this new and complex security
environment, and you will have plenty of time to dive deeper into these and other issues over the next two
days.

I don’t have all the solutions. But if there is one thing I am sure of, it’s that the challenges we are facing are so
big, interlinked and complicated that we must face them together. And right now, I am concerned that the
European and American political climate change may get in the way of that. Let’s not make that our biggest
challenge on top of all the others.

I hope you have a good seminar, and remember – whatever you do in this Nordic setting – don’t start any
discussions about cross-country skiing.

Thank you.

https://www.regjeringen.no/en/aktuelt/defence-minister-ine-eriksen-soreides-opening-remarks-
leangkollenseminaret-2017/id2538839/

The Norwegian Deputy Defense Minister on Reshaping Norwegian
Defense: Meeting 21st Century Challenges
Prior to attending the Norwegian Airpower Conference in Trondheim, I was able to meet with Mr. Øystein BØ,
the State Secretary and Deputy Defense Minister at the Norwegian Ministry of Defense to discuss his
perspective on the way ahead for Norway and NATO in the Northern region.

A key point that he underscored was the importance for NATO states to invest in defense and to innovate in
delivering new capabilities.

“Article III is the obligation to have a strong national defense and to be able to be a net contributor to
security.

There is no free ride in NATO, we’ve all got to do our part to be able to defend each other.”

Put bluntly, the situation facing Norway is challenging as the Russians are modernizing and exhibiting a more
assertive and less predictable behavior.

Second Line of Defense

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