ABSTRACT
The late Foreign Minister Knut Frydenlund's play on words pointed to the changing situation for Norway's foreign policy in the 1980s. The Nordic countries traditionally constituted a "quiet corner" of the European continent. Foreign policy issues have often been discussed in terms of three concentric circles: the Nordic, the European, and the Atlantic. This spatial perspective indicates that the policy preferences and the debating constituencies have varied according to the "circle" in question. The end of cold war brought increased complexities to the foreign policy field, particularly as demonstrated by the debate on European Union (EU) membership in the early 1990s. Norwegian territory had a crucial strategic position in the military confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Norwegian economy provided good reasons to pursue both free trade and protectionism. Since the 1950s, foreign trade has amounted to about 40 percent of GNP, which is high even for a small Western state.
