As a newspaper, High North News is also participating in the conference by inviting to a discussion about the significance of journalism in storytelling about the North. What words or issues we choose when we are to describe the world as it looks from within the Arctic.
Several underlined the need for schooling both nationally and internationally, including Anu Fredrikson, Director of another major High North conference, Arctic Frontiers.
But back to the introduction and Defense Chief Eirik Kristoffersen. When asked what our time’s greatest threat is, the defense chief answered climate change. For many, an unexpected reply from a general. The second greatest threat was nuclear threats.
He believed that these threats were overshadowed by the complex hybrid threats.
Nothing new
“Hybrid threats are nothing new,” he explained, and continued by saying that we would undoubtedly experience such threats again.
“But we cannot protect ourselves against everything. No one wants to live in a country in which the defense chief and chief of police govern their lives. We want to live in a democracy. One of the biggest challenges is when we start to blame ourselves and not our enemies. This is about how we respond to threats. You can give me more power, but I don’t want it. That is not the kind of society that we want.”
That is how a chief of defense can quite succinctly describe one of democracy’s dilemmas. We may be able to both technically and politically secure ourselves against most threats.
Securing democracy is a far more demanding task. And also the most important.