Placing US Tanks in Svalbard is an exceptionally bad proposal

Now and then, some call for increased military activity in Svalbard. Donald Trump's recent appetite for Greenland has reignited the debate once again.

Wanting more of Trump's military forces in Svalbard at a time when the same president has repeatedly threatened to take over parts of the Kingdom of Denmark with force is an idea that, in itself, faces some logical challenges.

In the polar fog

More on that later.

A demand for increased militarization of Svalbard has long been engulfed in a sort of polar fog. From the political side, the demand has been raised without anyone bothering to define or explain what it actually entails.

About a year ago, Svalbardposten enquired the political parties in parliament what they thought about increased military presence, something most were open to.

"If a greater or more frequent military presence were to become necessary, Norwegian authorities must be ready to implement that. Svalbard is, as the rest of Norway, part of NATO's area of responsibility, and is not demilitarized," said the Conservative Party's Ine Eriksen Søreide, Chair of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, and added:

"This will be situationally dependent. Therefore, it is not something proposed by parliament. As with all other military preparedness in Norway, the Armed Forces and the government assess the need."

The Labor Party, represented by parliament member Nils-Ole Foshaug, did not want to rule out more military presence, but said it is not an aim in itself.

The Liberals' Guri Melby took it a step further and "was open to increased military presence," while the Progress Party's Morten Wold was somewhat more cautious, underscoring the importance of "patrolling Norwegian surveillance aircraft and vessels to assert Norwegian sovereignty."

Opposing voices

The Center Party's Bengt Fasteraune emphasized that the situation must be closely monitored and that increased monitoring should come as a result of pressure against security and sovereignty.

To the extent that opposing voices existed, they came from the Socialist Left and the independent parliament member Christian Tybring Gjedde.

The Christian Democratic Party's Dag-Inge Ulstein, who was also the spokesperson of the latest Svalbard white paper, stated then that Norwegian sovereignty in Svalbard must be enforced "with military measures."

The problem of understanding the extent of these views was that no one defined what "military activity" entails in practice. They all balanced on the edge of a Svalbard Treaty that, to put it mildly, complicates the issue.

According to the treaty's Article 9, Norway undertakes "not to create nor to allow the establishment of any naval base in the territories specified in Article 1 and not to construct any fortification in the said territories, which may never be used for warlike purposes."

The general interpretation of this does not prevent Svalbard from being included in NATO's defense areas, nor does it mean that Svalbard is a demilitarized zone.

In an interview with Dagens Næringsliv the other day, Ulstein calls for stockpiling weapons in Svalbard. That included American weapons, such as tanks, artillery and vehicles. Finally, he wanted to organize more exercises with NATO allies.

Limited outlook

He does not say whether the latter will take place on the islands that together make up Svalbard, or in the surrounding sea and airspace. If this does not involve exercises on the archipelago, my contention is that there is hardly time and space for more Western military exercises in the Arctic than those already taking place there.

There are simply no available dates.

That a politician with an office view of Oslo hasn't registered it doesn't mean that the exercises aren't taking place. It just means his view is limited by a need to assert himself politically.

If Ulstein cannot see that his concretization of a militarization of Svalbard challenges Article 9 of the Svalbard Treaty, he should at least be open to understanding how this will be interpreted by Russia.

The Russian perspective is naturally not decisive for how Norway and the US should operate in Svalbard, but it is not insignificant either. The Norwegian assertion of sovereignty over Svalbard, following a treaty so old that it has survived most international agreements, is based precisely on the ability to maneuver wisely in a turbulent, international landscape.

Therefore, it has been possible to organize meetings under the auspices of NATO's parliamentarians in Longyearbyen. The Coast Guard sails unimpeded, frigates have docked, and the Air Force both land in and fly above the area.

Low tension

In total, this is more about what ensures low tension in Svalbard than what is legal.

Russia has protested underway, but not in a way that challenges Norwegian sovereignty.

When Dag-Inge Ulstein now wants to deploy the same US forces in Svalbard that Trump long threatened to use against Greenland and Denmark, that is not just a logical flaw. It is an obvious breach of a Svalbard policy that has been successful so far.

It is also part of the context that Russia is actively trying to mobilize the BRICS countries, a group of emerging economies, in the Russian settlement of Barentsburg. In addition to Russia, five of these countries, China, India, South Africa, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have signed the Svalbard Treaty.

The Christian Democrat Leader is currently quite alone in his demand for the deployment of forces and weapons in Svalbard.

Most others maintain that such a proposal must be framed within a greater understanding of the security policy in the Arctic.

And that the question of Svalbard's security is also largely about maintaining Longyearbyen as a safe and robust family community. The challenges are lined up in that regard.

That is also a result of political miscalculations.