ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a forward-looking overview of the complexities of the relationships between Norway and Russia and also discusses the situation before the 2010 maritime boundary agreement. There are at least two main sources of concern in the relationship between the two countries: their complex direct interaction in the Barents Sea, and the broader political relationship between Russia and the West, of which Norway is a part. It deals with the reception of the boundary agreement in Norway and Russia, the place of Barents oil and gas in the broader Norwegian and Russian contexts, the linkages between Norwegian-Russian bilateral relations and broader Russian-Western relations, and implications for the future. Both countries also had reasons to believe that the seabed in the area possessed large potential oil and gas resources, since Norway made numerous offshore discoveries in the North Sea and USSR in the eastern Barents Sea.
