322 
Norway has consistently acknowledged the legitimacy of this posi- 
tion, by refusing to permit the stationing of offensive missiles on 
her soil, by vetoing NATO exercises within about 300 km of the 
border, and by insisting that she has not and will not permit the 
peacetime utilization by Polaris submarines of Norwegian radar facili- 
ties. The Norwegians clearly conduct some tactical electronic and 
other surveillance of Soviet developments in the area. The fact that 
the Western coast of the Ribachi Peninsula is within visual, naked 
eye, surveillance distance from the border® makes this inevitable. But 
this limited intelligence-seeking can be tolerated by the U.S.S.R. It 
is surveillance integrated into hostile strategic systems that could not 
be tolerated. Any act or tendency which promised such integration 
would clearly tread on very sensitive Soviet corns.!° 
This is evidenced by articles like the one carried by Krasnaya Zvezda 
in the spring of 1969: 1 it forcefully condemned alleged radio 
and radar communications between Northern Norwegian installations 
and U.S. nuclear submarines on patrol in Northern Waters. . . . There 
appeared little reason to doubt the Norwegian assurances 
that the charge was mistaken. The Soviet Union must furthermore 
have known it to be inaccurate. She presumably had means of verifica- 
tion. One must infer that the Soviet allegation mirrored not belief, 
but rather fear regarding potential activities. It belonged to the realm 
of declaratory policy, a warning of the unacceptability of any such 
communication. 
If Soviet statements have been correctly interpreted then it would 
be logical to conclude that the referred-to type of intelligence integra- 
tion would not only be theoretically unacceptable, but would provoke 
countering actions. A Norwegian departure from her tacit concessions 
to Kola security requirements would likely constitute an invitation 
to ‘“‘a Cuba in reverse”; Kola security demands are so essential that 
Moscow could be expected to accept the risks associated with inter- 
vention.!? 
The astounding Soviet buildup of strategic and maritime facilities 
in the north at one time stirred western fears for northern Norway’s 
fiords.'* This concern now appears less acute. Nuclear and other 
developments shrank the expected burgeoning of Soviet naval base 
requirements; the long range character of emerging fishing and 
merchant fleets similarly defused the expansionary base requirements 
of her Civilian fleets. It is clear that Kola base prospects have not 
been exhausted. A cursory glance at relevant maps furthermore sug- 
8 See i.e. Norw. Min. of Defence G. Harlem in “Parliamentary Debates” (Stortingsforhandlinger), 
1964-65, Vol. 7, pg. 2475. 
® See map “The Kola Coastline, from Nordkapp to Mys Kanin Nos including the White Sea,” Ad- 
miralty, London, 1958. 
10 International Affairs, No. 12, 1969, op. cit. 
'! Krasnaya Zvezda, March 30, 1969. 
12 NATO-aligned communications and early warning systems, NATO manouvers as previously con- 
ducted and the preparation of bases to permit wartime reinforcement of men and equipment 
(described by A. Sington in NATO Defensive Installations in Norway, “NATO Letter,” Jan. 1966) 
certainly represent cause for Soviet anxiety. But such NATO activity can be and has been, tolerated 
and accepted. It does not infringe on essential Kola security requirements in the way that the 
described potential radar utilization would. 
13 See Swedish M. o D.’s ‘‘Sveriges Sakerhetspolitik,”” Stockholm, 1955, or i.e. Capt. Araldsen, The 
Soviet Union and the Arctic’, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, June 1967. 
