European Security in a Time of Austerity

The speech is based on a direct transcript of an audio recording 

 

Mr. Secretary General, Mr. Director of the university, Excellences, Ladies and Gentlemen

It is really good to see you here, on the 8^th of May, which of course is the liberation day for Norway, the day that the Second World War was over for our country, and that was a victory that we won together with alliance. The 8^th of May and the preceding war that we experienced from 1940 to 1945 in the case for Norway, was extremely important in updating the security policy outlook of my country, of Norway.

We had in the interwar years had some neutralist tendencies; the idea that we would probably be better off if people did not really see us, if we sort of kept out of conflict. We learned the hard way that it did not work. Of course it worked to a certain extent in the First World War, but it did not work in the Second World War and we quit swiftly after being engaged in conflict with Germany. We engaged in what appeared and eventually became an alliance. With a number of other countries with whom we fought as an independent country with its Government, based in London after losing the battle of the summer of 1940 in Norway. And based on the lessons learned during the Second World War, we chose to become members of NATO in 1949. It was a shock and a very important lesson that we learned. All since then it has been important for us that we are in an alliance, and that we have a collective responsibility, not only for our defense, but also for promoting peace and security, prosperity and clarity when it comes to the European security, the security for the people of Europe, and the security in the world.

Norway is a country that fundamentally believes in international cooperation. We always took the United Nations very seriously. We had the first Secretary General Mr. Trygve Lie. We joined NATO, and we did take part and do take part in European integration.

So I think that it is extremely important that we have this Europe conference on the 8^th of May. A day which is both a day for remembering what happened in the Second World War as well as for remembering the people who fought and also lost their life during the Second World War. To celebrate the victory and to celebrate the independence. But we have also over the last couple of years started to use this day as the platform for marking our deep gratitude to all those who also after the Second World War went out on our behalf to take part in international operations.

As many of you would know, the first international operation after the Second World War came about quite immediately which was the occupation of Germany. My father as many others in his generation was a soldier in occupied Germany on behalf of the alliance. A lot of people had that as their first experience to post Second World War security. Since then, Norway has been engaged in international operation every single day. Some periods with more than thousand people, other times with less in volume. But we always took that very seriously. Trough NATO, through the United Nations, trough the European Union and other formations, but it has always been extremely important for us.

So we thought that having the great fortune, having the sectary general of NATO, Mr. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Secretary General now for many years of the alliance, previously as you know Danish Prime Minister from 2001 to 2009. He actually served as Prime Minister in three consecutive parliamentary terms. I think that is a very good example to follow. We are of course preparing to take his lead and learning how we do that since we are in election year in this country. Mr. Fogh Rasmussen has been a very strongly leader of NATO.

NATO is undergoing very interesting change and we will hear more about it from the Secretary General, but just as a teaser I want to say that, one of the key discussion that we are having in NATO these days is; what will be NATO’s main focus when it is not any longer Afghanistan or even more broadly speaking, when it is not any longer necessary operations. To draw the long picture of NATO’s history: For the first 40 years NATO was a key element in maintaining stability in the cold war, because a few years after the Second World War we came into a cold war setting and the NATO was a cornerstone in our security. We were a boarder country to Soviet Union as we are today a border country to the Russian Federation. Actually Norway is the only country that both had border to the Soviet Union back then as NATO member and currently also has border with Russia today.

We learned from those many years a lesson, which remains valid for many countries, which is that by joining an alliance, by taking an alliance membership seriously, by taking defense seriously, by linking our defense to our alliance, we were able to provide a certainty, a clarity, a predictability that solved many questions about who we were, where we belonged, what our security outlook was, which was good for us, it was good for our alliance but also good for everybody else who may be wondering about that. That is also something we brought with us when we after the end of the cold war, opened up for a new climate of cooperation with what then became the Russian Federation. With whom we work well with on many fronts. The Barents cooperation, the Artic Counsil, visa free travel, increasing trade and increasing border crossings. Very good developments in the High North, which is really a region of High North -  low tension. Predictability and clarity about the rules yes, but NATO remains relevant for us.

For that very reason we have just now had a very historic and important visit. We have the entire NATO’s North Atlantic Council in Northern Norway. First in Tromsø on Monday and then in Bodø on Tuesday. And the Secretary General joined us for the entire Bodø visit and stayed in Oslo today and has also taken part in celebrations of the 8^th of May day at Akershus fortress and elsewhere.

And the reason that we really wanted to bring the NATO’s North Atlantic Council and the NATO Secretary General and the Deputy Secretary General and all the key people from NATO, from Brussels to northern Norway was that we wanted to show what is going on up in the North, up in the Arctic. The good cooperation that we have with neighboring states. We have had a very good visit to the joined headquarters, at Reitan, where we all got good briefs from their regional outlook, which combines issues of military, civilian, environmental, energy, security and many other aspects, really to show what is going on in this region. I would say it was a highly successful visit, and I am really glad that we were able with the Secretary General to do that. I hope that you and the (North Atlantic) Council take with you the strong commitment this country has had, has and will continue to have to the alliance, not only to be in the alliance, but actually to help shape it and to help develop its future.

Then to the specific topic of today, which the Secretary General will introduce. The backdrop of NATO’s outlook when we are entering to post Afghanistan and possibly post operations mode is that we will change from a campaign organization to a more continuous oriented organization. We prepare for different outlooks, but the backdrop is clearly a situation where the world is changing in quite fundamental ways. Point one: the European or Western economic prices, the financial crisis, which puts a lot of strain on our budgets, in all sectors, but obviously also in the defense sector, how do we cope with that?

And again, I would commend the Secretary General for having come up with a series of very innovative and good approaches to how to try to deal with that by doing more together, rather than more on our own, by pooling, by thinking smarter about the defense and security. The other backdrop is a world which in the first 40 years of NATO’s existence we were living in what we could call a bipolar world. When I say bipolar I do not mean bipolar as in the mental disorder, but bipolar as a two alternative power centers of the West. The US, the western Europe on the one hand and the Soviet Union and their alliance, the East of Europe, on another hand, which was clearly the defining division in the world.

Through one and a half decades who many refer to as a kind of a one polar or one union polar system, where the West was clearly dominating in economy, in security, in politics, and then into something that we have not really experienced, which is not bipolar, not unipolar, but maybe multipolar or maybe non-polar. In any case different from everything we have experienced. With the rise of China, the increasing importance of both security tensions, but also security cooperation in Norway, and other parts of the world, like Asia, but also Africa, Latin-America and so on.

So as an alliance we have to once again reinvent ourselves, and reinvent our outlook, what we are together to do.  We are in the midst of that. A fascinating time to deal with NATO issues because it is not business as usual. It is not about doing next year what we did last year. It is really about doing something else, and try to take what we have learned with us so that we can learn again, innovate again and that is what we are here to do. A quote or an argument which is frequently made, and I will just steal that one from you Anders: “Can we actually afford security?” That is one of the questions that is frequently asked, and I think that it is very important. At least our country says that we cannot afford to be without, and we take security very seriously. We have to take our alliance very seriously, and that is why I am very glad to give the floor to the main speaker today, Mr. Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

 Thank you.