GEOPOLITICS

Globus II is a radar system, 40 miles from the Russian Kola Peninsula, a territory studded with high-security naval bases and restricted military zones. The project is administered by the Norwegian Intelligence Service.

When the radar was built, the Norwegian official statement was that it was going to be used to monitor objects in space, such as satellites and space debris. This information was to be added to the orbital database provided by the US Space Command. In April 1998, a Norwegian journalist, Inge Sellevåg, discovered that NASA had no knowledge of a new radar being added to the system. This led him to suspect it had other purposes and Sellevåg discovered that it was also going to be used for national purposes such as intelligence gathering.

In 2000, during a storm, the radome was torn off and uncovered the radar dish. At that time, it was pointing directly towards Russia. A local newspaper editor commented: ‘I’m not an expert, but I thought space was in the sky.’ Official comments claimed the radar was still being tested and that pointing towards Russia was a pure coincidence. Russian general, Leonid Ivashov, said in a statement to the Norwegian newspaper, Dagbladet, that Russia had programmed tactical nuclear weapons to attack the radar station.

In May 2017, work to lay a new electricity cable from the Norwegian mainland to the island began. The additional electricity is needed to power a new US-funded radar system called Globus 3. The Russian ambassador in Oslo responded by warning Norway that it should ‘not be naïve’ about Russia’s readiness to respond to this development. ‘Norway has to understand that after becoming an outpost of NATO, it will have to face head-on Russia and Russian military might,’ the ambassador, Teimuraz Ramishvili, told Norway’s state broadcaster, NRK, in response. ‘Therefore, there will be no peaceful Arctic anymore.’