The answer is simple, but seemingly ambiguous. For that reason it is easy to draw hasty conclusions, as Høyre and FrP are now in the process of doing.

According to ordinary linear logic, more “bang” will lead to more deterrence. That is the case with conventional weapons. But when it comes to nuclear weapons, it is different.

Their mutual ability to annihilate the opponent completely means that the strategy for their use follows a different logic from classical military strategy.

In a heightened situation it will be rational to use them first, in order not to risk being annihilated oneself if the opponent uses them first.

Nuclear weapons on Norwegian soil will obviously contribute to deterrence and reduce the danger of a conventional attack against Norway.

But at the same time they will increase the danger of a pre-emptive strike in a heightened situation between the great powers. And the development of tactical nuclear weapons has lowered the threshold for using them.

In such a situation Norway will be particularly exposed, with our position as a buffer state, and with our proximity to the Russian strategic nuclear weapons systems.

If the war in Ukraine escalates further, or if a crisis arises in the Barents Sea or the Baltic, where the Russians already feel under pressure, the calculation for the Kremlin will change radically if Norway stations nuclear weapons at Ørland, Evenes or Bardufoss.

For the Russian general staff the question will then be simple: “Can we allow these weapons to survive the first minutes of a conflict, and risk that they destroy our own strategic retaliatory capability on the Kola Peninsula? The answer is: nyet!

Russia possesses, among other things, hypersonic Iskander missiles, for which there is no effective defence and which in less than 10 minutes can reach all strategic targets as far south as Trøndelag. Such a tactical pre-emptive strike could in a given situation be regarded as an existential necessity.

The logic is the same as during the Cuban Missile Crisis. With nuclear weapons, Norway goes from being an “ordinary” NATO base to becoming a possible existential threat to Russia. Nuclear weapons will make Norway a priority target for a nuclear pre-emptive strike.

This applies whether the nuclear weapons are our own or those of others. When the Russians calculate survival windows, such weapons under American or French command and control will in fact be at least as threatening for Russian planners as if they were Norwegian.

Primarily because of our location close to the Russian delivery systems. The same applies to Finland. Both countries have therefore wisely, for the time being, been cautious about the French offer to come under France’s nuclear umbrella.

Secondly, because the great powers prefer to fight their wars on the territory of third parties rather than on their own, as illustrated by the proxy war in Ukraine. Geopolitically, Norway and NATO’s northern flank are as exposed as Ukraine is on the southern flank.

France has offered Germany and seven other countries in Europe protection under French nuclear weapons. This concerns the stationing of the French strategic Rafale bombers on a type of rotational basis.

Among others Sweden and Denmark have expressed themselves positively about this. Poland has done so as well, although it shares a border with Russia. This nevertheless represents yet another escalation in the war against Russia and a further lowering of the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.

Added to this is the fact that Norwegian authorities will have neither command nor control over any nuclear weapons on Norwegian soil. Their use would be decided by the presidents of the United States and France respectively.

Nuclear weapons, whether tactical or strategic, will therefore only be used if it serves the interests of the nuclear powers. Their interests will not necessarily coincide with Norwegian interests.

A pre-emptive nuclear strike against the Russian intercontinental strategic missiles (ICBM) in north-western Russia, or against the Russian nuclear submarine fleet on the Kola Peninsula, will never be in Norway’s interest. It would lay our own country waste for a thousand years.

Nor would the use of tactical nuclear weapons be in Norway’s interest. The great powers in Europe could nevertheless, in a given situation in which they themselves are under pressure, see advantages in moving the battlefield from their own territory to the more distant and sparsely populated Fennoscandian Peninsula.

These were precisely the kinds of strategic considerations that were made in the general staffs in London, Berlin and Paris before the Second World War. Planning in Paris or Brussels concerning the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons will, in a pressured situation, not be very different from the preparations that were made in 1940.

The stationing of nuclear weapons on Norwegian soil under foreign command and control means that Norway would move to the top of the target list already in the conventional phase of a conflict.

We sacrifice our geographical buffer, the one that until now has made Norway a less attractive first-strike target. We increase the danger of ourselves becoming the battlefield in a proxy war, as Ukraine has. And we increase the danger of being annihilated ourselves.

What we should do instead is as quickly as possible to rectify old sins and rebuild the national defence. It was almost completely dismantled as a result of the Defence Reform at the turn of the millennium.

It was based on erroneous security policy assumptions and created a military power vacuum that has greatly weakened our own security. For a long time fortune has been better than judgement. That should not be allowed to continue. The security situation in Europe has not been as unstable as it is now since 1940.

Instead of a dilatory Storting continuing to drag its feet, and Høyre and FrP making themselves receptive to the French nuclear umbrella, the Storting should follow up the recommendation of the Defence Commission from 2023 without delay or further postponement.

It led to a national catastrophe when Arbeiderpartiet dismantled large parts of the Armed Forces in the interwar period. It was a forewarned catastrophe when the Storting once again dismantled 85 per cent of our national defence capability at the turn of the millennium.

It is an even greater scandal that the Støre government now, after war has returned to Europe with full force, still shows reluctance to follow up the Defence Commission’s recommendations and the broad defence settlement concerning the Long-Term Plan from 2024.

Despite the settlement being unanimous and presented as a “historic defence lift”, financing and implementation have failed to materialise. In 2025 FFI pointed to a missing appropriation of 78 billion kroner. The Office of the Auditor General (Riksrevisjonen) has described the deviations as “strongly reprehensible”.

Instead the government prioritises giving the money to others: 300 billion to Ukraine, 200 billion in development aid since the war in Ukraine began in 2022, as well as several hundred billion (no one knows how many) annually to immigration, which occupies an ever larger share of the state budget.

The political agreement in the settlement has proved to be more an exercise on paper and symbolic politics than a real commitment to action. “The historic defence lift” therefore lags behind both the ambitions of the Defence Commission, the defence settlement in the Storting and NATO’s expectations.

What is now happening is that our political leaders are once again guilty of a grave sin of omission. They prioritise others over the security of their own population. They undermine Norway’s credibility as an ally, and they once again make us an object of the interests of the great powers.

Replacing the American nuclear umbrella, which presupposes that there should be no nuclear weapons on Norwegian soil in peacetime, with French nuclear weapons on a rotational basis will make matters worse. Making Norway a nuclear weapons state and a first-strike target is not wise.

We live in a turbulent and dangerous time. Our political leaders do not understand the seriousness of the situation. They squander our money and fail to carry out their most important task: safeguarding the security of the population and the country. No other task is more important.

Rather than taking responsibility for their own security, they seek a cheaper but far more dangerous solution under the French nuclear umbrella. But the solution for Norway does not lie in nuclear weapons subject to the command and control of other powers.
It lies in deterring the Russians by rebuilding a credible conventional defence, while at the same time reassuring them that the Norwegian defence is primarily subject to national command and control, even though we are part of a defence alliance.

Nuclear weapons on Norwegian soil under American or French command will obviously not reassure the Russians. Instead of deterring them, it will increase Russian fears that these weapons will be used against them, thereby increasing the danger of a Russian pre-emptive strike against Norway.