Krigen i Georgia : konsekvenser for Norge?

The war in Georgia shows that Russia is willing to use force against a neighbouring country when conditions for such actions are favourable. It demonstrates that Russia is capable of effective high intensity operations, but also that it faces some major challenges, in particular with regard to jointness and effective air operations. Even though Russia, for the first time since the Cold War, has gone to war against a neighbour, there is little to suggest that something similar could happen between Russia and Norway. As long as NATO retains a credible collective defence, a Russian military assault on Norway would be highly unlikely. In the longer term, however, we cannot disregard he possibility that bilateral disagreements between Norway and Russia can escalate and that NATO’s cohesion may deteriorate. Norwegian long term planning should therefore include the consideration of such scenarios since political changes like these may occur on much shorter time scales than the time it takes to fundamentally change military capabilities and force structures. Previous analyses at FFI show that there are reasons for concern with regard to Norwegian defence capabilities if faced with a situation similar to what happened in Georgia. The planned reduction in ground based air defence as well as the limited size of the Army is especially problematic in this regard. The readiness profile of the Armed Forces is also less than satisfactory compared with the short timelines of such scenarios.