324 
subsequent to the 1973 Mideast War, spurred emphatic Norwegian 
reassertions of sovereignty,?” and Norwegian-Soviet negotiations.?# 
The security implications of a forest of rigs in the area was a 
‘nightmare to Moscow; knowledge thereof was a nightmare to Oslo.”4 
But before delving further into the legal status of the Svalbard 
archipelago and the Norwegian shelf, and into ongoing negotiations, 
some further note must here be paid to the geopolitical peculiarities 
of the situation; the more so since these exacerbate the sensitivity 
of the area. 
Svalbard is not only sensitive because of its proximity to Kola. 
What makes its status of vital concern to Moscow is its command 
of the northern shore of the mouth of that natural ice-bounded fiord 
through which Kola based vessels must pass on their way to and 
from Western Seas. The ice limit goes south from Spitzbergen to 
about Bear Island, then arches eastward until finding its continental 
anchor at Mys Svjatoi Nos.?? Northern Norway and North Western 
Kola form the southern shore of the ‘“‘artificial’’ fiord, with the distance 
from the Norwegian border to the ice limit being 240 n. miles—not 
counting the smaller fiord leading into Murmansk and the numerous 
bays.” The integration of Svalbard and/or Northern Norway into ac- 
tive anti-Soviet military activities would obviously be intolerable. They 
control not one approach but the only approach to Kola. 
The minimum demand of Soviet and in earlier year Russian policy 
has therefore always revolved around effective Svalbard neutrality. 
It is symptomatic that even the chaos and civil war embroiling the 
early revolutionary regime did not suffice to drown the concern: the 
1918 Brest-Litovsk Treaty between the still young government of 
Lenin and that other outcast, defeated Germany, contained a clause 
demanding equal rights on the archipelago. And although Moscow 
finally acceded to the Svalbard Treaty of 19207? which allowed for 
Norwegian suzereinty return for demilitarization and equal exploitation 
rights for all signatories’ subjects, in February of 1924,?8 she remained 
a jealous guardian of the conditional clauses. Concern as to German 
wartime activities sparked the above mentioned Molotov initiative, 
as well as a followup initiative aimed at making the U.S.S.R. co-: 
responsible for Svalbard’s defence (this demand was only refused by 
the Norwegian Storting in January of 1947, as a biproduct of emerging 
Cold War).”° And similar concern arising from Oslo’s 1949 adherence 
22 Note i.e. Norwegian Ministry of Industry’s Oversikt over Oljepolitiske Spoersmaal, (auth. Jens 
Evensen), op. cit. 
23 Preliminary negotiations were initiated in Sept. 1970. For Soviet “‘progress reports” see i.e. Prav- 
da Dec. 8, 1971, Pravda March 26, 1974,. . . etc. 
*4 Moscow’s concern is only heightened by reports such as carried by Aviation Week and Space 
Technology, Nov. 25, 1974: ‘“‘Defence of North Sea drilling rigs and future automated production 
facilities has become a priority item in NATO planning—"’; Norwegian measures to assuage that con- 
cern are treated elsewhere in the text; suffice it to note the insistence with which she returns to the 
theme in every treatment of continental shelf exploitation problems as evinced i.e. in the Norwegian 
government sources quoted above, as well as in reports such as carried by ‘‘Sea Power,” op. cit. 
*5 Map of the Kola coastline, op. cit., and see e.g. ‘Sailing Directions for Northern U.S.S.R.”, 
Hydrographic Office Publication No. 47, Vol. 1, G.P.O., 1954, and H.O. Publ. No. 550, G.P.O., 1955 
Ibid. 
27 For an excellent presentation and analysis of Treaty background, participants and clauses, see 
W. Oestreng, Oekonomi og Politisk Suverenitet, Universitetsforleget, Oslo, 1974; see also F. Sollie, 
“Arctic and Antarctic—Current Problems in the Polar Regions’’, Cooperation and Conflict, No. 2, 
1969. 
28 T. Greve, Svalbard, Groendahl, Oslo, 1975 
29 Tbid. 
