Norway: Dr. Paal Hilde

Historically, Norway has had a somewhat complex view of nuclear weapons in NATO and thus national security. While Norway has never seriously challenged the role of nuclear weapons as NATO’s, and thus Norway’s, ultimate deterrence and defense instrument, from 1957 Norway has explicitly held that no nuclear weapons may be present in Norway in peacetime. 

Today, Norway is a firm supporter of the NATO consensus line. Domestic political strife over the nuclear ban treaty led to the 2018 publication of a government study that set out Norwegian policy. It confirmed Norway’s support for security through deterrence, including nuclear deterrence, balanced by a continued, active pursuit of nuclear disarmament with the ultimate aim of “a world without nuclear weapons.”

To my knowledge, the Norwegian government has no publicly formulated view of these questions (or even explicit non-public ones). See next question for general reflections.

Norway has previously supported withdrawing the B61s from Europe, even as a unilateral move. Given the evolution of European security in the past decade, Norway now holds the NATO consensus view that such a withdrawal should come as a result of negotiations with – and lead to reciprocal action by – Russia; despite the prospect of this being dim. 

A German decision to end its participation in technical nuclear sharing would not directly jeopardize allied security but would likely lead to a highly divisive debate. It could trigger a similar move by the Netherlands and potentially Belgium and Italy. This would leave no allied DCA in northern Europe and would likely increase the pressure from allies in the east to move the B61s, for example to Poland; a view that may gain traction in the United States, particularly if the present administration stays in office. (Norway would probably oppose moving the B61s to Poland, as presumably would Germany.) Given that the main significance of nuclear sharing is political rather than military, a unilateral German decision would thus weaken solidarity and political unity in NATO and therefore harm European security. I thus presume that Norway would prefer Germany not to rock the boat through unilateral decisions, but rather maintain a DCA capability until such time that negotiations with Russia are possible.