New survey: More than one in four Norwegians fears Russia

Photo: AP Photo / Pavel Golovkin, File

More than one in four Norwegians believes that Russia poses a threat to Norway, according to a survey carried out by InFact for the newspaper Dagbladet.

As many as 28.9% of those surveyed say that the threat from Russia is “high or “very high.” 28.7% think the threat is “small” or “very small.”

In the survey, about a thousand Norwegians answered the question: How big a threat do you think Russia poses to Norway? 

The answers were graded on a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 is “very small threat” and 5 is “very high threat.”

Women are more worried about Russia than men, Dagbladet’s survey shows. Only 6.9% of men think the threat from Russia is very high, while 11.9% of women think the same.

People in Northern Norway are the least worried. There, only 5.9% of those surveyed say that they think the threat is very high. On a national basis, this proportion is 9.4%. People in Eastern Norway, outside Oslo, are most worried. There, a total of 34.1% believe that the threat level is high or very high.

According to Lieutenant Colonel Geir Hågen Karlsen, the fear people express is not unfounded, even though there is no immediate threat. He thinks the danger, in the long run, is substantial – 4 on a scale from 1 to 5.

“Russia will certainly learn from the mistakes they have made now. They will certainly rebuild their forces. And with the government they have, there are no political, moral, or legal restrictions on their use of force. They are only kept in check by the fact that we are able to resist,” Karlsen said.

Source: © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayNews

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2 Comments on "New survey: More than one in four Norwegians fears Russia"

  1. Neat. A strictly defensive Nordic alliance would be far preferable to a now-war-entangling NATO one.
    And the Icelandic Army has ever been defeated. 😎

  2. Since the fall of the Soviet regime (which I would like to think I helped with my research and activism on the 1940 Katyn and other massacres, on ibiblio) the Russians have only been threatening to the extent they have felt/been threatened … and the Western-backed 2014 Kyiv coup made them feel *mortally* threatened.
    After the fall of the Soviet regime, there was no threat either way, and at Gorbachev’s historic end of the Cold War speech at Westminster College in 1992, we were all so happy that the fear was OVER, and we could be friends with the Russians as they wanted to be.’
    And then in 1999 we wrecked that, breaking our promise not to push NATO east and then forcing our/NATO’s war on Yugoslavia/Serbia with Appendix B of the Rambouillet Treaty … whereupon Russian democrat Yeltsin turned Russia back over to its national security community in the person of Vladimir Putin, for its protection.
    But the coup – and we violated Ukraine’s sovereignty with it – is what really cut it.

    The fall of the Soviet regime also promised a “peace dividend,” to redirect funds from weapons and armies to schools, infrastructure, and other more positive needs. That fall also imperiled MANY jobs and careers depending on there *being* The Threat and Russia again becoming an enemy.

    The Russians have claimed their invasion of Ukraine is a “pre-emptive” war, like we less arguably claimed our War On Terror ones in Iraq, Libya, and Syria were, but Russian Army atrocities have nonetheless shocked and alarmed everyone.
    Of course, they would not have happened at all if we had instead supported giving them the fair security treaty we owe them after our past broken security promises and the coup, but Western leaders unreasonably – fanatically – opposed that.

    The evened-out results of the survey are thus understandable and probably a major contrast to before the Ukraine War, but note that the Norwegians closest to the Russians are the least worried, while respondents east of Oslo … where there is a large military community … see the greatest Threat.

    In reality, despite all its bluster and after its Ukraine disaster, Russia is now far less an aggressor threat generally, but with us now wanting to “defeat” Russia in our active war against it, I believe the probability of this ending in nuclear holocaust has now risen from 2:1 to 3:1 odds. (Civil defense? Sivillforsvars??)

    Best wishes to Lt. Col. Karlsen on his career and maybe making it to full colonel.

    I wonder if he’s a wargamer. 😎

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