ABSTRACT
The stability of US-Soviet balance of power is now questioned, and challenged. The question and challenge focuses on the Barents and Arctic Seas. The Polaris threat could move through North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-controlled waters, supported by facilities in Greenland, Iceland, Britain and Norway. Moscow’s counter had to brave ocean reaches and passageways dominated by NATO anti-submarine warfare potential. Moscow concentrated through the 1970s on securing the sanctity and non-violability of the Barents Sea and adjacent Arctic waters. The US Administration evinced scant interest in Norwegian defence schemes per se. What concerned Washington was the reliability of Norwegian base support for strikes against the Barents Sea. The operative trends appeared to leave Norway with only two options. One was that implied by increasing public support for nuclear-free concepts. The second argument might refer to the fact that Norway entered NATO at a time of widely held threat perception, combined with confidence that a military answer was possible, practical and survivable.
