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Arne O. Holm believes:
Bodø ‘New City - New Airport’: Did the Funeral Take Place in Silence?
Comment: They were building a whole new city. The slogan, "New City - New Airport", gleamed brightly from the billboards. Ambitious while also controversial. A High North project. It would be smart, green, and world-class. Then the Armed Forces came knocking.
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This is a comment written by a member of the editorial staff. All views expressed are the writer's own.
I am looking back on the documents that describe Bodø's Big Hairy Audacious Goal after a crushing military defeat in 2012. A massive parliamentary majority under a Labor government decided to move the Main Air Base from Bodø to Ørlandet in Mid-Norway.
Defeat
The defeat, with its consecutive whining and grief in Bodø, was gradually reshaped into new opportunities through hard work. The breakthrough followed a few years later. The forced move became a starting point for a whole new city on the old lot.
A power move that frustrated everyone else who sought state support for investments in the North.
The air base was moved before Russia first attacked Ukraine in 2014. When they first broke ground for the new airstrip in 2023, the full-scale invasion was already a fact. The relocation of the airport would free up areas equivalent to today's city center.
The project has not been buried, but figuratively speaking, it has one foot in the grave. At least if the basis of comparison is the shiny advertisements some of us still remember.
When the Armed Forces return
Because after having slammed the door shut on the Bodø Main Air Base, the Armed Forces has now returned, with a list of demands. The decision to place NATO's new Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) at the airport sets definite limitations on the civil ambitions. The area shrinks, also because of security zones and noise requirements.
The international law requirement that civilian considerations be taken into account when new military facilities are built was quickly brushed aside by lawyers in the Ministry of Defense.
No ban
There is no ban on civil society locations, just a plea to consider the conflict between civilians and the military. In the rhetoric of war, a military base is a legitimate bomb target. No matter where it is located.
Even if bomb shelters and other parts of civil preparedness have a greater backlog than the Swedish men's relay team during the Winter Olympics.
The material consequences of the war also eat up other areas. Such as the explosive growth in data centers. Modern warfare is a significant consumer of data centers, gobbling up electricity and industrial areas in competition with civil industries.
A greater backlog than the Swedish relay team.
Social welfare is protected as much as possible. But only temporarily. Across Europe, state budgets are turned upside down on the hunt for money for weapons and military forces. After the Cold War, heavy investments were made in welfare and civil society, while the defense share became increasingly smaller. Now, the money flows in a different direction.
Two of NATO's defense chiefs, those who control the biggest of money bins, German Carsten Breuer and British Richard Knighton, recently warned of what awaits us in a number of international newspapers:
"The path ahead calls for courage and an honest conversation with our citizens."
Plea for transparency
Generals do not just work for the nations' interests, but also their own. In the series of military strategic arguments, the plea for transparency is a clear signal to politicians with the power to decide.
The decision to place NATO's air headquarters in the center or near the center of Bodø does not pass this test. Perhaps it was the only possible decision.
But a significant and overwhelming political majority in the municipal council must not be confused with the necessary transparency and inclusion of the city's population when important military decisions are to be made.
Most of us do not spend time in the municipal council chambers.
Trust and legitimacy require that the municipal council spend time with the local population.
