Publications
Japan and Strategic Connectivity: Policies, Partners, and Possibilities
This report analyses the increasingly important role of infrastructure development and connectivity as a central arena of global geopolitical competition, particularly focusing on Japan’s connectivity policy under the banner of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific. The core aim of this report is to explore how Japan seeks to utilise strategic connectivity, specifically through its multi-layered approach, as a pivotal geopolitical instrument to project influence and promote a rules-based order, amidst rising competition with China. The report offers ten actionable policy recommendations, in particular, for the European Union.
Når USA gjør det slutt – hva Trumps sikkerhetsstrategi betyr for Europa - og Norge
Dagens Næringsliv: Ole Jacob Sending (NUPI) forklarer at av-og-på forholdet mellom Europa og USA er lite oppbyggelig, og i utenrikspolitikken også direkte farlig. Han viser til Trump administrasjonens nye Nasjonale Sikkerhetsstrategi, og skriver at Norge blir vesentlig mer utsatt fordi USA nå svekker det viktigste av tre ben i den norske utenrikspolitiske strategien.
Not What to Have, but How to Have It: Japan’s Debate on Acquiring Counterstrike Capabilities 2016-2023
Wrenn Yennie Lindgren (NUPI) and Charlotte Børing (UD) shed light on Japan's historical rearmament and how parliamentary debates in the country are increasingly discussing the use and implementation of counterstrike capabilities.
Hybrid threats in high latitudes: Facing Russia on Svalbard
Kari Aga Myklebost (UiT), Stian Bones (UiT) and Thomas Nilsen (the Independent Barents Observer) explore Russia's sustained use of hybrid measures on Svalbard. They recommend Norway to meet this development with a two-pronged strategy that deters hybrid threats and strengthens Norwegian resilience through better institutional defences, increased public awareness, closer international cooperation and support for independent editorially governed media.
Autoritære regimer former nå verdenspolitikken - i et system skapt av Vesten
Aftenposten: Alexander Dukalskis (University College Dublin) og Alexander A. Cooley (Columbia University) konkluderer med at det er viktig at Norge forsvarer sine liberale prinsipper i en tid med demokratisk tilbakegang. De sier Norge bør styrke båndene til likesinnede demokratier, fortsette å investere i egne sivile institusjoner, medier og forskningsmiljøer for å bygge motstandskraft mot de nye illiberale påvirkningskrefter i en verden i endring.
Keep All the Flawed Options on the Table: Europe’s Nuclear Future
In light of Trump's policies, Europe must reassess its defense capabilities. Henrik Stålhane Hiim (IFS) argues that Europe's best strategy is to combine continued American protection with strengthened European deterrence; this includes British-French nuclear cooperation, the build-up of conventional forces, and potentially nuclear latent capabilities in selected countries.
Nordic Perspectives on Arctic Security
Andreas Østhagen (FNI) and Andreas Raspotnik (FNI) have written a chapter on the Norwegian perspectives on security in the Arctic in The Arctic at a Crossroads: The Making of a New Frontier. The chapter sheds light on how the Arctic region has over recent decades attracted global interest due to its climatic, economic and political changes.
Alaska, not Greenland, should worry the United States in the Arctic
The Arctic Institute: Erdem Lamazhapov (FNI) and Andreas Østhagen (FNI) argue that the US is letting itself be distracted by Greenland. While China is planning to begin construction of yet another icebreaker this year and is conducting joint military exercises with Russia in the Arctic, the US Coast Guard has delayed the development of several icebreakers until around 2030, and chosen to focus on Greenland. The FNI researchers emphasise that China's emerging maritime power has changed the strategic significance of the North Pacific.
Reacting to a Geopolitical Setback: NATO expansion in Sweden and Finland through the lens of Russian Geopolitical Culture
Matthew Blackburn (NUPI) analyses Russian geopolitical culture, and points out that the discourse surrounding the NATO enlargements in the north (Sweden and Finland) has been characterised by realism and pragmatism, not only by threat deterrence and securitisation as it is often portrayed.
Reacting to a geopolitical setback: NATO expansion in Sweden and Finland through the lens of Russian geopolitical culture
The accession of Sweden and Finland to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is typically seen as a serious geopolitical setback for Russia, the opposite of its goals to limit the alliance’s spread eastwards. In contrast to Moscow’s stances on Ukraine and Georgia, however, its reaction to NATO’s Nordic expansion is more ambiguous. This article uses the framework of critical geopolitics to analyse several layers of Russia’s discursive reaction: practical, formal, and popular. This study finds that much of the popular geopolitics continues pre-2022 trends, presenting a securitised and nationalistic construction of NATO as a threatening ‘Other’. On the other hand, more moderate and pragmatic assessments in formal geopolitics balance against bellicosity and highlight the agency of the Nordic states, suggesting Russia may return to peaceful cooperation. In practical geopolitics, there is a gap between discourse and practice. Alongside more negative official discourse on NATO Nordic expansion, there was also reduced Russian military activity and an avoidance of provocative steps. These two faces – realism and pragmatism as opposed to securitised and nationalistic threat deterrence – reflect the structure of Russian geopolitical culture when it is applied to the North and Nordic NATO expansion.