Norwegian Security Expert Alarmed by Moscow’s Increasing Focus on Svalbard Archipelago

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 27 – Karen-Anne Eggen, a researcher at Norway’s Higher School of the Armed Forces says that Moscow’s recent statements about and actions around the Svalbard Archipelago suggest that Russian plans to make moves against that Norwegian territory a central part of its new front in the North.

            Her article, “Norway: Spitsbergen, an Arctic Warning about the Next Line of the Front,” is discussed and criticized by Russia’s Regnum news agency (regnum.ru/article/3892222). But the background and basis for her conclusion is discussed in detail by the author of these lines at jamestown.org/program/moscows-first-move-against-nato-could-take-place-in-norways-svalbard-archipelago/).

            My key conclusions there were the following:

• Moscow’s first direct attack on a NATO country may come against Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, a possibility that continues to divide NATO on whether a Russian move there would require an Article 5 response.
• Moscow’s interest in Svalbard, a demilitarized region, has grown because of Norway’s imposition of sanctions, global warming, and Russian concern about defending the western entrance to the Northern Sea Route.
• Russian interest in the area has intensified because China has joined Russia in using Svalbard for research, access to Svalbard’s coal has become more important, and a vast privately owned parcel of land is now for sale.