Norway's Security Dilemma

After 9/11, the United States—led by President George W. Bush—made it clear to the world they would pursue al-Qaeda and any other threats to the US national security. But rather than working directly through established security alliances like NATO, the US chose to pursue new plans, and new alliances. This shift precipitated a downturn in diplomatic relations with many nations around the world, and a critical point of decision for many others.

This episode explores these diplomatic shifts and struggles through the story of the Norway-US alliance. Through firsthand testimony from Norway's leaders—including Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik—we'll explore how Norway's leaders resisted the US call to provide troops for military action in Iraq, a move that was extremely unpopular with many of their own voters. To make it even more challenging, Norway, like other NATO allies, remained anxious about US actions in the Middle East distracting them from existing European concerns.

Transcript

Season 1 – Cross Currents: Navigating U.S.-Norway Relations After 9/11

Episode 2: Norway’s Security Dilemma 

Release Date: June 6, 2022

Hosts:

Dr. LaYee Leong 

Fellow, SMU Center for Presidential History; Senior Fellow, John G. Tower Center for Political Studies

Polina DeClue

Student Research Assistant, SMU Center for Presidential History

Editorial Note and Disclaimer: 

This transcription has been prepared according to the strictest practices of the academic and transcription communities and offers our best good-faith effort at reproducing in text our subject's spoken words. In all cases, however, the audio of this interview represents the definitive version of the words spoken by interviewees.

Citation:

Leong, LaiYee, host. “Norway’s Balancing Act.” Firsthand History, Season 1, Cross Currents: Navigating U.S.-Norway Relations After 9/11 (podcast). SMU Center for Presidential History. 9 June 2022. Accessed [date, month, year]. https://www.smu.edu/Dedman/Research/Institutes-and-Centers/Center-for-Presidential-History/Podcasts/Firsthand-History/Season-1---Cross-Currents---Navigating-US-Norway-Relations-After-9-11 

[Begin Transcription]

 DeClue: [00:00:19] Welcome to Episode 2 of the SMU Center for Presidential History podcast, “Cross Currents: Navigating US-Norway Relations after 9/11.” We examine how 9/11 shook up diplomatic relations between the United States and our European allies as seen through the lens of the US-Norway alliance during the Bush presidency. My name is Polina DeClue and with me is Dr. LaiYee Leong, a Fellow at the Center.  Dr. Leong is the lead scholar who conducted the oral history interviews providing the material for our podcast. 

 Leong: [00:00:49] Hi Polina.

DeClue: Hi Dr. Leong. In our first podcast episode, we talked about how the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, invoked its collective defense clause after 9/11. The United States however chose not to work through the security alliance when attacking Afghanistan to chase down al-Qaeda. Then the United States turned its focus to Iraq. That shift – and the way it was done – caused a downslide in diplomatic relations between the United States and European allies during the first term of George W. Bush’s presidency. 

Leong: [00:01:19] That’s right, Polina. And in this episode, we’ll explore how one of those countries – namely Norway – resisted an American administration  that leaned hard on allies  to provide troops for military action in Iraq, a move that was extremely Unpopular with their own voters. To make it even more challenging, Norway – like other NATO allies - was also anxious about the US drifting away and taking its eyes off European concerns. [00:01:49] So - how did Norway manage its relations with the world’s sole superpower while pursuing its own interests? 

DeClue: Let’s do a quick recap and then dive in. Why was the situation so tricky from the perspective of the Norwegians?

Leong: Sure. Norway is small and it doesn’t carry the same level of influence as, say, France or Germany. So as conflicting interests worried NATO members, Norway found itself compelled [00:02:19] to strike an awkward balance between the US, which was a close ally across the Atlantic, and European allies closer to home. For Norway, at least two other factors complicated its foreign policymaking. First, war in the Middle East made the US seem less engaged with security in the high north. The high north – that’s the area north of the Arctic Circle - is where Norway shares a border with Russia. [00:02:49] Second, Norway – like other NATO members - faced increasing pressure to send troops to the Middle East and engage in active combat. Active combat was something it hadn’t done since World War II. That type of involvement threatened to undercut its reputation as a so-called “peace nation.” It’s after all the country that awards the Nobel Peace Prizes. And it’s a reputation dear to Norwegians because [00:03:19] it accords the country a good deal of soft power well beyond its size. So Norwegian leaders found themselves navigating many political and security cross-currents. 

DeClue: That’s intriguing and a lot to unpack. We’ll return later to some of those observations. To continue from where we left off in the previous episode: after 9/11, President Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan. But it didn’t take long for him to begin rallying for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as part of the [00:03:49] Global War on Terror. How did this go down with US allies?

Leong: Not very well. Our allies were presented with a stark choice: to join or not to join / the invasion of Iraq. Here is Norwegian journalist Kristoffer Egeberg’s take on a question many foreign governments raised.

Kristoffer Egeberg: “Is this really an honest way of combating terror and building a [00:04:19]sound democracy in Afghanistan, or is this something else, you know the Bush Doctrine and preemptive war, which is a concept very far from the Norwegian spirit, et cetera, which is really against the whole concept of the peace nation or the peace broker of the world, peaceful solutions and a UN-led peaceful solution always should be the [00:04:49] preferred solution to any problem. So, the aggressiveness conducted on the ground in Afghanistan and the kind of looming war in Iraq, was the reason that the support of the whole war against terror plummeted in Norway and most other European countries, immediately”

DeClue: How did Norway respond to the stark choice you mentioned, as to whether to join the US invasion of Iraq?

Leong: Mr. Kjell Magne Bondevik was [00:05:19] the Norwegian prime minister during this period. He represented a small political party and led a coalition government that included a much larger Conservative Party. The Conservative Party tended to follow the US lead in foreign policy and put a good deal of value on keeping US-Norway relations on the strongest possible terms.  Shortly after 9/11, Mr. Bondevik visited Washington DC and met President Bush. He threw Norway’s support [00:05:49] unequivocally behind the invasion of Afghanistan – which was not so hard to do in 2001. But when the question of IRAQ came up, the political landscape had already changed dramatically. By that time, in Norway, like in much of Europe, there was antagonism against President Bush. The president’s rhetoric and his demeanor (which came across as swagger) put people off. In terms of action, [ 00:06:19] the Bush administration’s eagerness to use military force rather than treat terrorism as a law enforcement issue – which Europeans preferred - came across as heavy-handed. And frankly, like some Americans who opposed war at that time, many Europeans also believed US troops going into Iraq had more to do with oil than weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, or democracy-building. 

DeClue: [00:06:49]Given such a backdrop, did Norway’s prime minister face a serious dilemma?

Leong: Absolutely, it was a dilemma with many aspects – political and also related to foreign policy and international security. In the interviews I conducted, a number of people recounted this incredible moment in 2003 when President Bush called up Mr. Bondevik on the phone to ask Norway to join the so-called Coalition of the Willing, [00:07:19] to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Mr. Bondevik was there with most of his cabinet and everyone felt on edge. There had been this very public political build-up to this moment. It seemed the US ambassador to Norway at that time, Mr. John Ong, had lobbied extremely hard, and quite publicly, for the Norwegian government to step up. He had even used some language that the Norwegian news media and others in the diplomatic community thought [00:07:49] needlessly abrasive. News reports noted that he apparently suggested if Norway didn’t join the war against Iraq, there would be adverse repercussions for bilateral relations. Jan Petersen, the foreign minister at that time, describes the impression that Ambassador Ong gave to his hosts: 

Jan Petersen: “Well, he was pretty strong on this, of course.  I think I perceived this as, "Well, this is his job."  I mean, his job was to urge us [00:08:19] to participate, and my job and our job was to say that, “Well, we need, A, the proof, B, the UN Security Council resolution,” and it more or less stayed on — I mean, the other positions were very clear, so this was — I mean, the key issue was not in the discussion between us.  The key question was about whether the proof could be provided or not.—But he was seen as putting a lot of, I mean, real pressure [00:08:49], also public pressure -- on us, and a lot of people were upset by that.”  

Leong: A lot of people were upset. Such a bellicose approach didn’t endear the US ambassador to the Norwegian public. It only confirmed the opinion of the US as being overbearing. That put Prime Minister Bondevik between a rock and a hard place. By all accounts, he felt extremely nervous about so much being at stake that day [00:09:19] when he was expecting President Bush’s phone call. Mr. Bondevik had already heard from his Conservative Party coalition partners that they would like him to say yes to sending troops. So Mr. Bondevik felt pressed by domestic opinion on one side, by the forces of governing politics on another, and on a third side by the president of the United States himself. Mr. Bondevik personally had deep reservations about invading Iraq. [00:09:49] During his phone conversation with President Bush, Mr. Bondevik described his reasoning for refusing to join the invasion of Iraq.  

Bondevik: “I said, “Mr. President, I’m sorry to inform you that we cannot, and I have two main reasons for that.  First of all, you have no mandate from the UN to do it, and you can’t act militarily in another part of the world if you don’t have a mandate or if you don’t have been attacked yourself, and you have not been [00:10:19] attacked.  You have no mandate.  Secondly” -- and I was very cautious about that, but I had made up my mind before I went to do it?.  I said, “Out of my Christian ethical values” -- and he knew my background as an ordained Lutheran pastor and a committed Christian -- which George W. Bush is himself.  I said, “From my Christian ethical values, we cannot do this, because in accordance with these values [00:10:49], using military means must be the very, very last solution after you have tried all peaceful means.” 

DeClue: The Norwegian prime minister appealed to religious principles in his diplomatic efforts? 

Leong: That’s right. Mr. Bondevik has spoken about his rapport with President Bush, a rapport he believes is based on a shared faith. 

DeClue: So how did President Bush respond to Mr. Bondevik?

Leong: As the Norwegians I spoke with remember it, even though Mr. Bondevik said no [00:11:19] to President Bush, President Bush expressed understanding and proved friendlier afterwards than the Norwegian government had dared to expect. Because there was real anxiety among Norwegians that diverging from US policy would damage bilateral relations in the security sphere. I’ll say a little more about that in a second. To finish the anecdote, after the phone call, everyone breathed a big sigh [00:11:49] that it didn’t damage ties between the US and Norway. And without the negative consequences that had been feared, Mr. Bondevik also did not suffer political blowback from his Conservative Party colleagues in the coalition government.

DeClue: Wow, that’s quite a story – it’s such a telling vignette about how international relations operate at the human level.

Leong: Yes, it’s also a moment that distills the multi-layered challenges facing quite a few American allies around the world [00:12:19] in 2003.

DeClue: That thorny moment passed but was that the end of the challenge facing Norway?

Leong: No, and the bigger challenge has to do with the security issue I just hinted at. Because Norway, like the rest of NATO and Europe in general, remained deeply concerned that the US no longer saw the continent as sufficiently important for close attention or to collaborate with as an equal partner. Here’s Norwegian Ambassador Knut Vollebæk [00:12:49] talking about his mission in the US:

Knut Vollebæk: “It was definitely to remind the United States that we are here, (laughs) we are alive and kicking, but we need still your attention.  We should be an interesting partner.  We are a great oil producer.  And then our neighborhood to Russia was important.  To the north, the Arctic environmental [00:13:19] issues. So it was very much to try to remind also the Bush administration of the historical close ties, the contributions we had made over the years, both bilaterally but also then multilaterally in cooperation with the United States, and to be able to strengthen and further improve those links and relations.” 

DeClue: But the Cold War was over. What was the rationale for European governments [00:13:49] wanting to keep the US invested across the Atlantic? 

Leong: That’s right, the Cold War was over, but Russia was reemerging as a troubling actor as its leader Vladimir Putin consolidated his power. I referred to the High North earlier on in our conversation. In President Bush’s first term, the Arctic region, where Norway shared a land and sea border with Russia started appearing on the radar as a site of geopolitical contention. The Arctic has a wealth [00:14:19] of oil and gas resources, it’s got numerous fisheries, and of course it offers the potential of a northern sea route that has ramifications for world shipping and for control of the seas. Climate change and global warming in the early 2000s made the Arctic ocean more accessible. And Norway was right there, facing down Russia. Elsewhere in Europe, Russia’s authoritarian turn under Putin [00:14:49] and its insidious interventions in post-Soviet republics also concerned NATO. Those were some of the reasons Norway and others, remained keen to keep the US interested and anchored in Europe. Here’s how journalist Kristoffer Egeberg describes the anxiety of the Norwegian defense policy community:   

Kristoffer Egeberg: “I think the big scare was that you had a president that early, both in his campaign and presidency, [00:15:19] signaled that he would be more protectionist, that he would pull American troops out and not make -- that the U.S. would not be the kind of police in the world as they had been, that they would withdraw their troops from Europe and make Europe take care of their own problems.” 

DeClue: In addition to what its ambassador did in Washington DC, how did Norway work to keep the US attentive to NATO and to the High North?

Leong: Norway’s government approached [00:15:49] the challenge very strategically. A major part of it was to leverage personal relationships. Here’s a good example. If many Europeans didn’t care for President Bush, they certainly didn’t care for US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld had sharp elbows and he didn’t care about ruffling feathers. He lectured his counterparts in NATO about the need for updating and reforming the alliance so it could respond faster and more effectively. [00:16:19] He didn’t hide his displeasure with NATO allies that didn’t join in the invasion of Iraq. But Norway decided strong bilateral relations with the US meant cultivating a strong relationship with Donald Rumsfeld. 

DeClue: How did Norway do that?

Leong: Some of our listeners may well remember Secretary Rumsfeld drawing a lot of flak when he spoke of France and Germany as “old Europe.” He was dismissing these countries, along with Belgium and Luxembourg, [00:16:49] that were old NATO allies but unwilling to support US action against Iraq. In contrast, Rumsfeld noted that “new Europe” supported the US. He meant countries of the former eastern bloc like Hungary and Lithuania that joined NATO much later and were more accommodating of American demands. Norway wanted to make sure Rumsfeld saw it as being on the right side, as being part of this “new Europe,” at least [00:17:19] in its cooperative attitude. Here’s its defense minister at that time, Kristin Krohn Devold. She explains how smaller and newer NATO allies did tend to form a bloc within the NATO membership: 

Kristin Krohn Devold: “You had some tendency to see that the different countries grouped up along these lines, and that was also why, I think Donald Rumsfeld used the expression "old and new Europe," because of course Germany and [00:17:49] France is old, old, large, powerful countries; new countries were the Eastern Europeans.  But of course it wasn't totally -- I could understand that he used the rhetoric, but it wasn't perfectly correct, (laughs) because you always had what I call the North Sea alliance…I understood him at the moment actually, I did.  He wanted to -- well, it's a way of saying that you're not so relevant any more.”

DeClue: It sounds like Ms. Devold [00:18:19] developed good rapport with Mr. Rumsfeld. How did she do it?

Leong: You’re right Ms. Devold did develop quite a professional friendship with Secretary Rumsfeld. She told me that when she took office, she and other Norwegian foreign policy hands made it a point to find out how to reach out to her American counterpart. Among those they consulted was John Ong, the US ambassador to Norway.

Devold:“Mr. Ong said that he is only interested in practical solutions, [00:18:49] if you can help him, be useful to find good solutions, then you would be useful, but there’s no point in going over there, and just like a lot of the European leaders did, went over there and told the Americans what they wanted.  We would like you to – you know, that’s no point.  How can you be useful, that’s the point.  And we really tried to make a suggestion, how NATO’s command structure should look like, that we knew would help the Americans with their ambitions to modernize the structure, and we also could [00:19:19] provide some useful resources into that new structure.” 

DeClue: Would you say Norway’s approach worked?

Leong: It certainly seemed Norway’s approach worked in getting Mr. Rumsfeld’s attention and goodwill. As it turned out, Ms. Devold and Mr. Rumsfeld also hit it off quite well at the personal level – they both have dynamic personalities. Ms. Devold belongs to a small and exclusive club of female NATO defense ministers. In fact, [00:19:49] Ms. Devold earned Mr. Rumsfeld’s trust sufficiently that, and she told me this, he asked her to sit in for him in leading a NATO meeting. Here’s journalist Kristoffer Egeberg recalling Ms. Devold’s charm offensive:

Egeberg:“I think the U.S., at that moment, really needed some visual support from friendly NATO countries, but also they needed solutions, to someone who could actually work with the U.S. [00:20:19] in restructuring NATO, and Kirstin Krohn Devold presented herself as the greatest ally the U.S. could have in Europe, 

… … This was not sucking up to the U.S. for sucking up to the U.S., but this was absolutely in the interests of Norway, especially during the war against terror, to not lose the attention on the high north, you know to keep the U.S. [00:20:49] from pulling out their forward storage in Norway.” 

Leong: It meant of course that Norway’s government had access to the ear of the US Defense Secretary. It probably buffered some potential negative consequences following from Norway’s unwillingness to take part in the invasion of Iraq. Norway’s stock in Washington DC remained quite high. Ambassador Vollebæk told me the White House and the US State Department included him in an inner circle of foreign diplomats that they privileged with information, an inner circle [00:21:19] that sometimes excluded other European allies. But important as the investment in personal relationships went, Norway also took concrete steps to demonstrate its investment in a close relationship with the US, and also to keep the US anchored in the multilateral approach to regional security in Europe. 

DeClue: What concrete steps did it take?[RP1] 

Leong: Under Ms. Devold’s leadership, [00:21:49] Norway took an active role in supporting US plans to restructure NATO. This happened to coincide with Norway’s own pressing need to modernize its military capability and infrastructure. So that was a happy coincidence. We’ll talk more about this development in the next podcast episode. But that’s not all. To demonstrate its support for US priorities, Norway also made significant contributions, first to the reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, and second [00:22:19]to the stabilization efforts in Iraq. These steps came with a heavy price tag for Norway in terms of blood and treasure. They did however go a long way towards maintaining strong ties between the US and Norway.

DeClue: As you say, we have plenty to discuss in the next episode, when we will explore how US-led wars in the Middle East impacted NATO allies like Norway. We started this episode hearing about the dramatic moment when Prime Minister Bondevik said no to President Bush, [00:22:49] but we learned it didn’t stop Norway from getting pulled into military action far from its shores. Please listen in to our third and final episode to hear how Norway navigated the political and diplomatic cross currents in the remaining years of the Bush presidency. Thank you for listening!

Brian Franklin: We’re so glad you joined us for “Norway’s Security Dilemma” – Episode 2, of our first season of Firsthand History. Thank you to Dr. LaiYee Leong, [00:23:19] our project leader for the oral history collection this podcast is based on, “Transatlantic Diplomacy after 9/11: The U.S. and Norway.” And thank you to Polina DeClue and Wardah Alvi, both former research assistants with the Center for Presidential History.

Season 1 of Firsthand History, “Cross Currents,” is a production of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University.  Our thanks to the SMU Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences for their support. Thank you to Pro Podcast [00:23:49] Solutions, who helped edit and produce this episode. Theme music—entitled “Endless Story”—was written by Nick Petrov, and licensed through PremiumBeat. For more information on this podcast, and the oral histories it is based on, visit our website at www.smu.edu/cph.

Thanks for listening, and stay tuned for the next (and final) episode of Season 1: Cross Currents: US-Norway Relations After 9/11 [00:24:23].

[End Transcription]