'Norwegian and Polish politicians should not engage in rhetoric but seriously consider the consequences for their peoples of {the deployment} from 2018 of the US Missile Defence System’ which would lead to a ‘military-technical response’ from Russia.
However, it was Rogozin’s rhetoric that Eide was responding to. Referring to the recent commissioning of the first of the Borei class of SSBN with the Russian Navy Rogozin had stated, ‘Tremble, Bourgeois! You’re done for’.[1] Barth-Eide protested that ‘a language that remains of the Cold War is used too often'.
Such strong rhetoric on the part of the Russians is often dismissed as little more than pandering to a Russian domestic audience. However, it is known that this rhetoric is taken seriously in the wider Norwegian analysis. According to a leaked cable from the U.S. embassy in Oslo from 2010, one Norwegian official from the Ministry of Defence, ‘described the growing "convergence of Russian rhetoric and military capability," which could create a more "interesting" situation with Russia as it furthers its ambitions in the Arctic High North'.[2] It is this combination of military capacity and unfriendly intentions which the Norwegians see as unsettling and is why Russia’s use of such rhetoric contributes to raising tensions in the Arctic.
[1]This is a translation of the original Russian, ‘Drozhitye, boorzhooi! Kirdik vam’.
[2] U.S. Embassy in Oslo,’ EUR/RPM DIRECTOR DISCUSSES NATO, ARCTIC, AND...’ 26 January 2010, (Oslo 000045).
