US troops in Norway amid Russia jitters
FOR Norwegians, the sight of dozens of US Marines traipsing through the snow in military fatigues – the first time foreign forces have been posted to their country’s territory since World War II – may have brought a welcomed sense of security, but it also harked back to a dark era of the Cold War that many had hoped to forget.
A US military plane on Monday delivered most of the 330 Marines to a garrison in Vaernes, in central Norway, a deployment that Norwegian officials said had been carried out by the United States as part of a bilateral agreement. It was the latest effort by the US and its European allies to buttress their defenses against a resurgent Russia, which condemned the move.
Despite being generally welcomed across the political spectrum, the arrival of the Marines from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina – shown on Norwegian TV dragging their suitcases through the snow – also provoked some jitters in Norway.
A wealthy oil-rich country that is a member of NATO but not the European Union, the Nordic state has long prided itself on its independence. But the deployment recalled a Cold War era in which Russian intrigue grabbed headlines and Norwegians lived in fear of Soviet hegemony.
Neuroses about Russia continue to exert influence in Nor- wegian popular culture. The political TV thriller Okkupert depicts a future in which Norway is occupied by Russia, and with the backing of the EU, takes over the country’s oil production.
Such fears have been magnified in recent years with sightings of submarines across the region that have stoked concern about Russian espionage and intervention.
In October 2014, an unidentified vessel spotted off the Stockholm archipelago spurred Sweden’s largest mobilisation since the Cold War and accusations that Russia was spying on the country. The episode, called The Hunt for Reds in October in the Swedish news media, included unsubstantiated reports of a man in black spotted wad- ing near the vessel. It deeply unsettled the nation, even as the Kremlin issued strenuous denials and accused Stockholm of scaremongering.
Then, in April 2015, the sudden appearance of an underwater vessel in Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, prompted the navy to fire depth charges – the first such warning in more than 10 years.
And Lithuania on Monday said it plans to use EU funding to build a fence on the border with Russia’s highly militarised Kaliningrad exclave to increase security and prevent smuggling, according to Agence FrancePresse. Construction of the 128kilometre, $32 million fence will start this spring and will be finished by the end of the year, said Interior Minister Eimutis Misiunas.
“The reasons are both economic to prevent smuggling and geopolitical to strengthen the EU’s external border,” Misiunas said. “It would not stop tanks but it will be difficult to climb over.”
In Moscow, the deployment of US Marines in Norway has been met with disdain.
After plans for the deployment were confirmed in October, Frants Klintsevich, a deputy chairman of Russia’s defense and security committee in the upper chamber of Parliament, was quoted by Russian news media as saying that the Kremlin viewed the Marines as a direct military threat. He also said the deployment made Norway a potential target for Moscow’s powerful arsenal, which includes nuclear weapons.
On Monday, Russian authorities reiterated their discontent.
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said in an interview with NRK, the Norwegian public broadcaster, that the move “certainly will not improve relations”.
“The relationship between Norway and Russia is put to a test now,” she said. “Instead of developing economic cooperation, Norway is choosing to deploy United States troops on Norwegian soil.”
The deployment of the Marines, who will be stationed hundreds of miles from the border with Russia, comes as countries across Europe have been reinforcing their defenses out of concern over an increasingly assertive Russia.
Last week, a convoy from a US armoured brigade crossed the German border into Poland, the first installment of what are expected to be several thousand NATO troops to be based across Eastern Europe.
Relations between the West and Russia in the Nordic region and beyond have been tense since that country’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and the outbreak of conflict between government forces and pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.
At the same time, presidentelect Donald Trump fanned alarm in Europe in the months leading to his election victory when he questioned whether the United States should automatically defend NATO allies if they were attacked, and predicated US support on the willingness of countries in the alliance to pay their fair share for military protection.
In Norway, some lamented that the Marines’ arrival stood against traditions and threatened to make it a target of its much larger neighbour.
Morten Harper, a leftist member of the local assembly that governs the area housing the military base, said the Marines’ arrival was ensnaring Norway into the United States’ “power struggle” with Russia.
“We see an ever more tense foreign policy situation,” he said. “If there ever was to be a major conflict between the great powers in the future, this makes us a more likely bomb target.”
After World War II, Norway abandoned its neutral stance by joining NATO in 1949 and committing to the alliance’s doctrine of collective defense. But the country, which shares a 194-kilometre northern border with Russia, sought to placate Moscow by pledging that no foreign troops would be allowed to be permanently stationed on its soil.
Norway’s defense minister, Ine Eriksen Soreide, said in an interview Sunday that Russia had no reason to be alarmed by the Marines’ presence. She said the deployment did not flout the boots-on-the-ground restriction because the Marines were there on a six-month trial period that was open-ended.