Page 53 - North Atlantic and Nordic Defense

North European and North Atlantic Defense: The Challenges Return

well as the P-8 maritime domain awareness strike platform, which can be cross-linked among Norwegian,
American and British platforms.

The role of the UK is seen as of growing significance in the Northern Tier defense efforts, with the coming of
the P-8, the F-35 and the Queen Elizabeth carriers. As Keith Eikenes, director of Norway’s Department for
Security Policy and Operations, put it in an interview in Oslo prior to the airpower conference:

“The UK bilateral relationship is very significant for Norway. We have a small number of allies, the US and
the UK being especially important ones, shaping new capabilities for North Atlantic defense. We are looking
at ways to enhance that working relationship. Even when the North Atlantic defense part took a dip after the
end of the Cold War, the working relationship with close allies remained.”

FIGURE 16 NORWEGIAN F-35 ON THE FORT WORTH FINAL ASSEMBLY LINE, SEPTEMBER 2017. CREDIT: LOCKHEED MARTIN

National, allied and partner exercises are crucial means to shape these new ways ahead, and there was a
clear sense that finding ways to more effectively train for high intensity operations is important. Also, working
with Sweden and Finland is crucial, as is finding ways for Norway to shape a defense concept, one which can
reach back to the UK and forward to Finland.

Clearly, NATO is in times of fundamental change and the Norwegians are among the core allies who take the
challenge seriously.

“Now, we do not consider Russia a military threat against Norway today. I want to be clear on that. However,
Norway is NATO in the North, and we share a border with an increasingly assertive neighbor with
superpower aspirations, a neighbor who has modernized its Armed Forces, significantly increased its military
presence in the High North, reintroduced the old East versus West schismatic thinking, engaged in subversive
actions against Western democracies, violated international law and undermined European stability,” the
minister said.

That approach has significance beyond Norway and is relevant to the NATO alliance’s future.

Page 52