A game of chance Norway can not start with – Dagsavisen
After Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 this year, many have had to rethink old positions. This applies not least to the NATO parties Rødt and SV. While Rødt has withdrawn completely from the debate and overshadowed all reorientation, SV has – very meritoriously – opened up for a new NATO debate that could result in a change in policy when the next party program is to be adopted at the national assembly next year.
It is NATO that applies. It should be clear to everyone now.
It is a sign of quality in political thinking that one seeks new positions when the world changes. When Sweden and Finland began to orient themselves towards NATO earlier this winter, the already unrealistic latest alternative to SV – a Nordic defense alliance – was in reality stone dead. If things go as many people think, and a formal membership process for the two Nordic countries starts at the NATO summit in May, the discussion about a Nordic alliance should be parked for good. It is NATO that applies. It should be clear to everyone now.
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It is understandable that this is a difficult situation for SV, which was based on NATO resistance in its time. Nevertheless, it is strange to read the proposal from the party’s deputy leader, Torgeir Knag Fylkesnes, who still argues that Norway should leave NATO and enter into Nordic co-operation, even if Sweden and Finland join the Atlantic Alliance. “Regardless of whether Sweden and Finland do not become members of NATO or not, a Nordic” Article 5 “will be what makes it possible to leave NATO in the long run,” he told Klassekampen. The other SV deputy leader, Kirsti Bergstø, is also still against Norwegian membership.
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NATO’s Out of Area strategy, and in particular the war in Afghanistan, has been very difficult for many on the left. That’s an honest case. There is a lot to criticize this war for. No one claims that NATO membership is free or unproblematic. An alliance with the more “innocent” Nordic countries may perhaps appear more pleasant than the NATO alliance, which provides the security guarantee from the superpower USA. But this solution has served us very well since 1949, and it has been a prerequisite for our security and freedom. If you have not understood it before, you should have realized it this winter.
We want SV to listen to others than its deputy leaders when the party is to carve out a new alliance and security policy.
Fylkesnes claims that the Nordic region has a larger defense force than Ukraine, and that a combined Nordic defense will be one of the ten largest in the world. His plan must involve a massive rearmament and an equally massive game of chance that Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland together will deter Vladimir Putin, as a new global, dominant military bloc.
Of course, Norway can not start with this game of chance. We want SV to listen to others than its deputy leaders when the party is to carve out a new alliance and security policy.
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