Norway will sign an agreement on military cooperation with Sweden and Denmark on Friday, Minister of Defense Frank Bakke-Jensen (H) has stated. He says the agreement is a recognition that a serious security policy crisis in the Nordic region would affect all Nordic countries.
“The vision with the agreement is that we should be prepared to act together in peacetime, and if a conflict arises,” he said.
Bakke-Jensen has said that the collaboration is based on developing the operational collaboration, including information exchange and joint planning work.
“This makes the security policy picture more secure. It is both a good deterrent and has a significant security effect that the analysis of the security situation is the same in all the Nordic countries,” said Bakke-Jensen.
Russian concern
Sweden’s Minister of Defense Peter Hultqvist has said that Russian military exercises affect security in the Nordic countries, including in Øresund and the North Sea.
“It does, of course. Russia is ready to use military force to achieve its goals and intentions,” he said according to TV4, and called the cooperation necessary.
Hultqvist said that it has been necessary to initiate closer operational cooperation with neighboring countries for a long time to increase military capacity in all three countries. The agreement includes joint military exercises. The three countries have also done this before.
Addition to NATO
Norway has previously entered into a military cooperation agreement with Sweden and Finland, where the Northern Cape is defined as the area in which they cooperate. It has given Norway a link to Sweden, which is not itself a NATO member, but a partner, and to the EU’s defense cooperation, of which Norway is not a part, but of which Sweden is a part.
In the agreement with Denmark, southern Scandinavia, and the Kattegat, the Baltic Sea and the North Sea are at the center. Bakke-Jensen maintains that NATO is the most important alliance for Norway but says the agreements with Sweden, Denmark, and Finland are an important supplement.
“In NATO, we have a large plan for the defense of the member countries. The value of cooperating with Sweden, Finland, and Denmark is that we can adapt our plans to the areas we have in common,” he said.
Source: © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayNews
Do you have a news tip for Norway Today? We want to hear it. Get in touch at [email protected]
Before World War 2, the Swedes wanted a Scandinavian defensive alliance, but Denmark and Norway chose to trust the Nazis and British – who wrecked Norway’s neutrality in the Altmark Affair and then had plans for a “friendly occupation” of Norway themselves – instead … and we know how that worked out.
However, the Swedes have become quite bellicose – note their unwarranted (regarding the North) statement “It does, of course. Russia is ready to use military force to achieve its goals and intentions.”
The Russians do NOT want a war up here … or anywhere else … but after our 2014 Kiev coup they are more reactive to any possible threats, as we saw in their huge buildup along the Ukraine border – even bringing over their Siberian Reserve – a hugely symbolic as well as strength-shifting move, remembering its role in the 1941 Battle of Moscow.
(Apparently, there has been an agreement that the Biden administration will not allow Ukraine and other key buffer states to join NATO, since the Russians have decisively de-escalated their buildup.)
Then too, there is the Univ. of Lund’s Jens Bartelson going around saying war isn’t necessarily a bad thing and is part of European culture! (NO, major war became obsolete on 6 August 1945, and in his book War in International Thought he’s been hawking he suspiciously omits any mention of the West’s coup-/revolution-/war-spreading “neoconservatives” – they’re not at all conservative – who have caused these Mideast holocaust wars and the Cold-War-restarting Kiev coup.)
As long as this is a strictly defensive alliance, it is for the good, but the way the Swedes have been talking if not behaving, I have doubts.
Will there be any interest in desperately needed sivillforsvars/civil defense initiatives in this new alliance? (At least the Swedes have passed out a do-it-yourself manual for it.)