Norway/Military
Armed Forces
| Norway/Military link () | |
|---|---|
| File:Norwegian Royal Guards.jpg | |
| Motto | "For alt vi har. Og alt vi er." (For all we have. And all we are.) |
| The armed forces of Norway. | |
The armed forces of Norway.
Nord Stream 2
The Norwegian Navy was part of the September 2022 sabotage of the Russian Nord Stream pipeline. According to Seymour Hersh, in March 2022, members of a US Navy team flew to Norway to meet with the Norwegian Secret Service and Navy.[1]
One of the key questions was where exactly in the Baltic Sea was the best place to plant the explosives. The Norwegian navy was quick to find the right spot, in the shallow waters of the Baltic sea a few miles off Denmark’s Bornholm Island. The pipelines ran more than a mile apart along a seafloor that was only 260 feet deep. That would be well within the range of the divers, who, operating from a Norwegian Alta class mine hunter, would dive with a mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and helium streaming from their tanks, and plant shaped C4 charges on the four pipelines with concrete protective covers.[1]
In Washington, planners knew they had to go to Norway. "They hated the Russians, and the Norwegian navy was full of superb sailors and divers who had generations of experience in highly profitable deep-sea oil and gas exploration," a source said to Hersh. They also could be trusted to keep the mission secret. The Norwegians may have had other interests as well. The destruction of Nord Stream—if the Americans could pull it off—would allow Norway to sell vastly more of its own natural gas to Europe.[1]
Controlling the narrative
In 2023, four "experts" from the Norwegian Defence University College, Tormod Heier, Palle Ydstebø, Geir Hågen Karlsen og Tom Røseth, were awarded the Army Medal of merit. The reason given was that they "and contribute almost daily to insight and knowledge about the war in Ukraine. Over the past year, they have shuttled between newspaper columns and tv and radio studios, and communicated, explained and analyzed the war in Ukraine to the Norwegian population." They have all been mentioned in around 1,000 media reports each. According to Heier, "this also makes it easier for his own authorities to anchor decisions around the Ukraine war in the population" and "also help create this willingness to defend that we may one day need."[2]
Foreign bases
The US military began storing equipment for the United States Marine Corps in Norway during 1982, in a network of large climate-controlled caves. The first storage cave commenced operations in 1982, and all of the facilities were completed by 1988.[3]
Kay Griggs, telling of the activities of her husband Marine Corps officer George Griggs who was very involved in the storage program, said the caves were used for weapons and drugs trafficking. She
met the person who was in charge of the drug lord in Norway and he and George, I guess they thought i was really naive, but I heard the conversation...this this fellow was running Norwegian drug operations out of prison, under the nose of of this friend who'd been with my husband at the NATO Defense College in Rome...[these caves] are used as transshipment points for not only weapons but drugs in Germany and in Norway and in England and in other other countries, so they they store these weapons and so forth.[4]
Norway has allowed US intelligence stations since the 1950s, especially equipment used for nuclear war. In 1981, the claims of the Norwegian Government that the numerous intelligence and navigation stations (which include facilities to intercept High Frequency and Very High Frequency communications) in Norway mainly serve Norwegian defense purposes, were disproved. The academics Owen Wilkes and Nils Petter Gleditsch at PRIO came to the conclusion that "not a single intelligence installation [in Norway] described can be judged clearly defensive on the basis of its technical capability alone".[5] Despite using only open information, the two academics were convicted in 1982 of breaching paragraphs 90 and 91 of the Norwegian criminal code[6], pertaining to national security, for their book about the matter.[7]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream
- ↑ https://www.forsvaret.no/aktuelt-og-presse/aktuelt/haerens-fortjenstmedalje
- ↑ https://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/show-daily/modern-day-marine/2015/09/20/inside-us-marine-corps-prepositioning-program-norway/32511065/
- ↑ Kay Griggs: Truth Hurts (2005) Radio Interview Sessions at ariound 2hr7min
- ↑ Owen Wilkes and Nils Petter Gleditsch, "Intelligence Installations in Norway: Their Number, Location,Function, and Legality", PRIO publ., S-4 79, First Draft quoted in Counterspy https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP90-00845R000100150006-5.pdf
- ↑ https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/nou-2003-18/id147094/
- ↑ Owen Wilkes og Nils Petter Gleditsch Onkel Sams kaniner : teknisk etterretning i Norge
