Norwegian politicians talk about “a lasting gold standard” in Norway’s relationship with the USA. What are foreign minister and former defence minister Espen Barth Eide and former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland referring to?
Is it the large Norwegian emigration to America that has created a special bond across the Atlantic? Or is it NATO membership? In fact, it’s neither. The “lasting gold standard” the two politicians are referring to is intelligence cooperation. It constitutes an important part of the political foundation in the relationship between the two countries – and has been so since the 1950s.
For the USA, it was initially about geography, the simple fact that Norway was a neighboring country to the Soviet Union. Then, during the Cold War, the USA’s archenemy began deploying many of its most fearsome weapons in the border areas towards Norway. From both Moscow and Washington’s perspective, the shortest route to strike the opponent with nuclear weapons is in an arc over the North Pole. Today, NATO and the USA fear that a conflict elsewhere in the world could spread to the Arctic regions. For NATO, the Arctic is therefore more important than ever.
Nuclear missiles
From its bases in the Kola Peninsula, Russia can launch nuclear missiles that would obliterate all major American cities. Norway was the closest neighbor to these feared weapons when Vladimir Putin put the nuclear forces on high alert and threatened nuclear war during the Ukraine conflict in 2022, which could have potentially led to the USA attacking the Russian weapon systems in self-defense. An American attack could have been carried out with bombers from Ørlandet. In recent years, Russia has been preparing for such an attack, once again highlighting the significant military importance of Norway’s proximity to Russia.
Against this backdrop, it is understandable that the USA took the initiative for a secret bilateral cooperation with Norway on espionage against the Soviet Union shortly after World War II. The agreement was not part of the NATO cooperation. It aimed to acquire knowledge about the enemy’s military buildup, weapon development, and military operations. The imagination was the only limit to information gathering, ranging from balloons to aerial photography across the border with aircraft and agents sent deep into the Kola Peninsula for eavesdropping on military communications.
Partnership evolved
Collaboration on such operations has provided the military leadership in Washington with valuable information. It has also led to a very trusting relationship between the intelligence services in Norway and the USA. In fact, Norwegian intelligence has been seen as one of the most important supporters of American intelligence, if not the most important.
As I will document in this book, the partnership has evolved in recent years with entirely new tasks, such as cooperation on space surveillance, military operations in Afghanistan, and activities in the new military domain of cyber. Both the USA and Norway can conduct offensive cyber operations; it is not only Russia and China doing so. This activity is not widely known, and the main reason is simple: intelligence services see the benefit of secrecy. This is based on the idea that the task is to gather as much information as possible while preventing an enemy – or potential enemy – from knowing that this information is in their possession. This secrecy sometimes leads to extreme measures. Even the formal agreements between American and Norwegian intelligence, known as the NORUSA agreements, are confidential. The first agreement was signed in 1952. It was secret then, and it remains secret more than 70 years later.
Little has been written about the intelligence alliance between the USA and Norway. An exception is the book “Strengt hemmelig” from 1997 by history professor Olav Riste and historian and researcher Arnfinn Moland, which covered Norwegian intelligence history from 1945 to 1970. The two concluded that intelligence may have been Norway’s most important contribution to the Western alliance during the period they covered. At the same time, there is little evidence to suggest that Norway’s intelligence contribution has diminished in recent decades. The intelligence service’s budgets have more than tripled since 2005. For 2023, the Parliament allocated 2.9 billion to the Intelligence Service. This is roughly half of NRK’s budget.
My previous book “Stalking The Bear” (Pax, 2015) was the first independent and uncensored account of the Norwegian intelligence service from World War II to the present day. The book “Strengt hemmelig” was written at the request of the Ministry of Defense. The work was funded by the department and reviewed by the bureaucrats there before publication. This book has not gone through any such approval process. “Spionkrigen” is a follow-up to “Stalking The Bear.” The book reveals unknown aspects of the American-Norwegian intelligence cooperation and is based on accumulated knowledge on the subject over more than 20 years, interviews with former operators and chiefs in Norwegian intelligence, the material leaked by Edward Snowden, and a wide range of open sources.
This is an American-Norwegian ground station for a listening cable out into the Barents Sea.
I document, for example, a network of listening cables from Finnmark, how the Intelligence Service was at the forefront during the war in Afghanistan, and how the service now collaborates with the USA on cyber espionage. In this book, I am also concerned with democratic control, or the lack thereof. The NORUSA agreements have never been discussed in the Parliament.
One might argue that with the Ukraine war, this is subordinate to other, more important issues. I disagree. We must understand Norway’s role as a small state in relation to both the USA and Russia individually, and in a power rivalry between the two that is now worse than in 30-40 years. We must understand and take a stand on how we, with Norwegian intelligence – as a significant player, maneuver in a dangerous game between the two powers. I would argue that without knowledge of the “lasting gold standard” in the relationship between the USA and Norway, the Norwegian security debate suffers from a weakness, regardless of whether one believes that Norway is militarily dependent on the USA in the event of a Russian attack or not. In a time when there is a risk of war spreading from Ukraine, an informed public debate is crucial. Especially now, it will contribute to good democratic processes and decisions that ensure a common desire to avoid war in Norway.
In this book, I also write about Russian intelligence. I describe and document various methods, but the secrecy is even greater in the Russian secret services than in the Western ones, which is the main reason why I do not write more about them.
Assessed the credibility
Access to sources is a significant challenge when writing about intelligence. All employees in the Intelligence Service must sign a lifetime confidentiality agreement. Nevertheless, some former employees and others associated with the service have agreed to be interviewed. Confirming information given in these interviews from other sources has been difficult. It is sometimes claimed that former employees may be unreliable sources because they may have various personal reasons for coming forward. They may boast of knowing more than they actually do to appear interesting, or they may have unclear motives like a desire for revenge or ethical qualms when reflecting on what they have been involved in, to name a few possibilities. I have assessed the credibility of all my sources to the best of my ability, and where I have been uncertain, I have tried to indicate it in the text.
The Freedom of Information Act, which is supposed to provide the public with access to public documents, also applies to the Intelligence Service. In practice, however, access is severely limited. The Intelligence Service is exempt from the public post list, which can provide a lot of important information. Most documents – even those that are 40, 50, or 60 years old – are still classified for reasons of national security.
Edward Snowden´s leak
This book is therefore assembled like a puzzle. Small pieces, information gathered from many and very different sources, are put together to form a comprehensive picture. In the USA, journalists, researchers, and former intelligence officials have written thorough books on the development of the American intelligence organization National Security Agency (NSA). These books have provided valuable insights. The same goes for Edward Snowden’s leak of thousands of NSA documents. These documents tell both about the NSA as a whole and directly about the NSA’s close cooperation with the Intelligence Service in Norway. “Spionkrigen” is the first book to systematically go through this material from a Norwegian perspective.
Many puzzle pieces are also sourced from the internet. There may be information in official documents, journals, research reports, press releases, book presentations, newspaper articles, online articles, websites, or social media.
Part of Defence
My interviews with former employees in Norwegian intelligence, Norwegian intelligence chiefs, and other Norwegian defense leaders are also part of this puzzle. Conversations with former top politicians have contributed new pieces to complete the picture of the organization responsible for foreign intelligence on behalf of Norway. Until 1970, it was called the Intelligence Staff. From 1970 to 2003, it was known as the Defense Intelligence Service, and since 2003, simply the Intelligence Service. This service conducts civil and military intelligence today but is part of the Defense and under the Chief of Defense and the Minister of Defense.
It is clear that both American and Norwegian top politicians are well aware of the importance of the espionage cooperation between the USA and Norway. A testament to this is a letter President Donald Trump wrote to then-Prime Minister Erna Solberg after her visit to the White House in January 2018. In the letter, Trump highlighted how “Norway is the ‘eyes and ears’ of the northern flank of The North Atlantic Treaty Organization.”
Against this backdrop, I have been concerned with the following questions: How does the Intelligence Service work? How close is the service’s relationship with the USA? How is the democratic control of the Intelligence Service? And, to put it bluntly: Does the Intelligence Service actually serve Norwegian interests? With an unpredictable neighbor like Russia, it is essential to keep an eye on the neighbor. But how is that job done?
With this book, I aim to present new knowledge about a secretive part of Norwegian society, a part that is crucial for Norwegian defense, foreign, and security policy, and therefore for Norway’s place in the world. Norway is vulnerable as a small state in a time of increased rivalry between the great powers, and the public deserves to know how we deal with this.
