Norway and the Bear: Soviet Coercive Diplomacy and Norwegian Security Policy

Soviet Coercive Diplomacy and Norwegian Security Policy Northern Europe is generally described as a region of calm. Except for the portions of Finland which Moscow annexed after World War 11, the Nordic countries have seemed immune from Soviet expansionist pressures. Yet this does not mean that the Soviet Union has refrained from other types of pressures aimed at influencing its Nordic neighbors. On the contrary, throughout the post-war years Moscow has sought to weaken Scandinavian ties with the West and to make of Northern Europe a sort of neutral, ideally pro-Soviet, extension of the buffer zone which it created by force in the Baltic Republics and Eastern Europe. It has not succeeded, but it has not stopped trying. Moscow’s efforts have in particular been directed at Norway, and it is on that aspect of the Soviet-Nordic relationship that this article concentrates. An examination of Soviet attempts to exploit the restrictions Norway has imposed upon its own defense activities highlights the Soviet Union’s longrange objectives for the Nordic area and illustrates its methods for seeking to influence the policy decisions of small neighbors. Soviet tactics are of course tailored to the unique circumstances of each particular country. Yet there are common elements which will become recognizable from a review of the Norwegian case: pursuing long-range objectives patiently and persistently ; applying alternating waves of threat, cajolery, and blandishment; supplementing diplomatic pressures with propaganda efforts to stimulate domestic pressures on governments; and using the unilateral concessions of its neighbors as levers for obtaining still more concessions from them. When Norway and Denmark joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949, it was understood that membership would not entail the basing of foreign troops on their soil in peacetime. In 1957 both countries expanded that policy by declining also to accept nuclear weapons. It is those two policies which Moscow has sought to exploit, lecturing the Norwegians, as well as the Danes, for over thirty years on what they are-and are notpermitted to do in the realm of defense. Choosing to treat these unilateral restrictions as though they were binding international obligations, and giving Robert K. German is a Resident Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. As a Foreign Service Officer, he has served in both Norway and the Soviet Union and as Director of the Office of Soviet Union Affairs in the Department of State. The vims expressed are those of the author and not of the Department of State. International Securify, Fall 1982 (Vol. 7, No. 2) 0162-2889/82/010055-28$02.5010 01982 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 55 International Security I 56 them their own interpretation, the Soviets have repeatedly protested that Norway and Denmark are violating their own base and nuclear policies. Moscow’s complaints to the Norwegians and Oslo’s responses to Soviet pressure are, of course, matters of primary interest to the Norwegians themselves . Yet they are also of concern to the United States and Norway’s other NATO Allies because the credibility of NATO’s pledge to defend Norwegian territory in the event of East-West conflict is at stake-an issue of significance for the Alliance as a whole, given Norway’s strategic location. Because Murmansk is the Soviet Union’s only ice-free port to which access cannot easily be blocked, the Soviets have established in the area just across the Norwegian border one of the world’s largest naval concentrations; the Northern Fleet contains nearly two-thirds of the Soviet Union’s retaliatory submarinelaunched nuclear strike force, as well as major surface units. In the event of war, North Norway would be vital for NATO conventional operations against the Northern Fleet bases as well as for surveillance of Soviet naval movements . Conversely, Soviet operations from Norwegian harbors and airfields would vastly complicate NATO’s task of keeping open the vital sea lanes between Europe and North America. Thus, control of North Norway would be a primary objective for both sides in an East-West conflict.’ NATO’s commitment to defend Norway could be met only if the Norwegians themselves, in the first...