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Or as the Minister of Foreign Affairs said from the podium here in Kirkenes, east in Norway on the border with Russia, when he presented the government’s Arctic Strategy:
“We are facing a whole new reality. We are in the middle of the most dramatic security policy situation since World War II.
High time
It was therefore time for an updated Arctic Strategy. The last official document is a white paper from the Solber Cabinet in 2020-2021. The title then was “People, Opportunities, and Norwegian Interests in the North.”
Since then, both people and opportunities have declined, an ongoing trend that can be traced back to 2005, when the Arctic Policy shifted from a military focus to a civilian one in the nation of Norway.
In other words, the Solberg Cabinet’s white paper came long after Russia had attacked Ukraine, but preceded our understanding of the overshadowing threat of war that materialized in Europe in February 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and has since cold-bloodedly continued the war.