Friend or foe? Russian think-tank discourse on Norway

In the summer of 2022, containers of supplies bound for the Russian mining settlement of Barentsburg stood blocked at the Storskog border crossing. Norway's foreign minister insisted the block was a narrow matter of sanctions on Russian road transport — not an attempt to obstruct supplies to the settlement, nor a breach of the Svalbard Treaty. The goods, she noted, did not have to travel by Russian truck across Norwegian soil; other routes existed. In Moscow, the episode was read very differently.

Andrey Kortunov, the longtime head of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), argued that it was a technical problem to be handled as such. Dmitry Suslov, a senior member of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy (SVOP), interpreted it as part of a wider confrontation with the United States — one that, he argued, had opened an Arctic front before the invasion of Ukraine. And for the nationalists in the Izborsky Club milieu, the affair had less to do with the EU or the US than with an opportunistic Norway exploiting East–West tensions to advance its territorial ambitions in the North.

These interpretations of the 2022 cargo blockade capture the three competing images of Norway that dominate Russian think-tank discourse: a pragmatic neighbor, an American outpost, or a civilizational enemy.

Competing narratives of Norway

I was first introduced to these debates as a student at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. The university is closely linked to SVOP, one of Russia's oldest and most influential think tanks. The dean of my faculty, Sergei Karaganov, was SVOP's co-founder. He has advised both Yeltsin and Putin. During my time there, I saw several of my professors' most central claims vindicated. Among them, the warning that Russia would go to war if the West refused to compromise on the demands put forth by Moscow in December 2021. This made me interested in Russian think tanks. In an otherwise closed and informal system, they offer a rare window into the strategic community's thinking. Several scholars have found that these institutions genuinely shape foreign-policy debate, and that their leading figures often have direct access to decision-makers. Some scholars call them narrative entrepreneurs.

RIAC was established by Russia's foreign and education ministries in 2010 and sits close to the diplomatic establishment. SVOP, founded in 1992, was one of Russia's first private think tanks and has functioned as an informal policy network — its members have included Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and several of his deputies. The Izborsky Club was formed around the nationalist writer Prokhanov, as part of the countermovement to the 2012 anti-Putin protests. It has consistently held the hardest line of the three. Although the milieus are not monolithic, the discourse is structured across them in a way that reflects long-standing traditions in Russian foreign-policy thinking: Westernism, Statism and Civilizationism. Norway becomes a test case for these worldviews. The underlying assumptions shape how each milieu assesses Norway's autonomy and interests, and act as the lens through which the Russo-Norwegian past is read.

For the Westernist, Russia is a European country whose central threat is backwardness — something only cooperation with the West can overcome. Seen this way, Norway is a natural partner. Westernists emphasize a peaceful border, solidarity during the Second World War, and a common northern heritage built on centuries of Pomor trade. The Statist, drawing on Russian history and the anarchic nature of the international system, argues that only a strong and sovereign state can secure its survival. This makes cooperation conditional — on recognition of great-power status, and respect for red lines. Norway can therefore be either a reasonable neighbor or a hostile outpost. Civilizationists, finally, see Russia as a distinct civilization locked in conflict with the Atlantic world. Their narrative places Norway firmly in the enemy camp, a thousand-year rival whose record runs from Viking raids to the "theft" of Svalbard and swathes of the Barents Sea. This account treats Norwegian invocations of a shared Pomor past as a manufactured identity project serving Norwegian security interests. And instead of wartime solidarity, it highlights Quisling and Norwegian participation in Nazi formations.

How the hard line went mainstream

In the past twelve years, civilizationism, a previously hardline, marginal current, has become mainstream. A 2025 SVOP report, for example, credits the Izborsky Club for the civilizational Eurasian identity it now promotes. That is a sharp departure from SVOP's starting point in the early 2010s. At that time, SVOP — like RIAC — identified Russia as a European country, though one that should diversify eastward. Norway was seen as a key partner by both think tanks, including in the eastern turn proposed by the SVOP leaders, who singled out Norway for having a strong interest in cooperation with Russia.

The leadership in the two think tanks interpreted the following decade of ruptures differently. For SVOP, the 2014 sanctions proved the necessity of the eastern turn, while RIAC argued they proved there was no real substitute for Russia's Western partners. SVOP argued that rising tensions in the Arctic resulted from US imperialism and required a greater Russian military presence. RIAC argued that these tensions were themselves partly products of Russian militarism, which should be restrained.

Neither anticipated war with Ukraine. RIAC warned it would be a disaster. SVOP judged it might be necessary but highly improbable, assuming Europe did not want confrontation and would therefore compromise on Russian demands. When that assumption collapsed, SVOP's leading figures concluded they had underestimated Europe's lack of autonomy and the extent of its degradation. Since Norway was viewed as having strongly compatible interests with Russia, it came to exemplify "civilizational decline" — its elites portrayed as acting for a cause that is neither noble nor in Norway's national interest.

In RIAC, the invasion was met with sharp initial criticism from leading members. This criticism, however, faded fairly quickly. A shift in the leadership coincided with a "statist" turn. Norwegian policy was increasingly depicted as dictated by Washington. Nevertheless, an important Westernist strand held on. These experts called for a more moderate line.

Dialogue or coercion: policy approaches toward Norway

The different approaches of the three think tanks ultimately hinge on two assessments: whether Norway's interests are compatible with Russia's, and whether Norway has sufficient autonomy to pursue them. The Westernist RIAC experts and the leading SVOP members agree that the objective interests are compatible, but differ on whether Norway is free to act on them.

Since SVOP's senior members concluded that it is not, they argue that appeals to specific Norwegian interests are pointless: change can be achieved only by altering the calculations of the Western bloc as a whole. In security terms, this means prioritizing coercive signaling and a readiness to impose severe costs over arms control or confidence-building. In legal terms, they warn against illusions about law, which they see as increasingly weaponized against Russia. The 2022 dispute over supplies being transported to Barentsburg is treated as an example of this and the new normal. Karaganov and Trenin's deterrence report, for example, lists Russia's rights on Svalbard among the objects of strategic containment, emphasizing that Russia can only trust in its own capabilities. Following the same bloc-coercion logic, SVOP members urge Russia to maintain membership only in those Arctic institutions that could be used to build leverage against the West, and to minimize selective cooperation. Suslov argues that cooperating on isolated issues, while the West continues what he calls a hybrid war against Russia elsewhere, only lends that campaign legitimacy.

SVOP's program of coercion against the Western bloc is rejected by leading RIAC members for being counterproductive. Far from reducing the threat to Russia, they argue, it would push the Nordic countries toward a "Baltic" model of NATO – meaning, a model of NATO with allied infrastructure near the Russian border, without the restrictions Norway has imposed on itself after the Second World War to reassure Russia. Nor does such a model include the bilateral cooperation that Norway has maintained. This continued selective cooperation — in, for example, fisheries, science, and search and rescue — is of critical importance according to these experts. They argue that such cooperation addresses common regional problems and reduces tension. Even more important, perhaps, is that such selective cooperation may in the long run lay the ground for normalization, which, as they see it, bears on Russia's future global standing. Leading RIAC experts have consistently defended the 2010 Barents Sea delimitation treaty on similar grounds: that is, as evidence of a willingness to compromise between Russia and Norway, and thus a foundation for what might come later.

Izborsky differs from both by arguing that Norway's objective interests are incompatible with Russia's. Its experts argue that Norway's economy rests on competing industries — oil, gas, fisheries, maritime services — that depend on territorial control in the Arctic and the Barents Sea. Following this logic, the official discourse depicting Russophobia as a US instrument used to manipulate Arctic states into going against their interests is turned on its head. Instead, they present Russophobia as deliberately cultivated by Norway. By exploiting tensions between East and West, these writers argue, Norway profits from the war in Ukraine through arms sales and higher energy revenues, and weakens its main competitor in the North — which in turn lets it consolidate control over Svalbard and the Barents Sea. The Izborsky writers see no room for compromise. They call on Russia to mobilize, to leave the 2010 treaty, abandon the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and take back what they call stolen territory — all as part of a wider spiritual and civilizational revival.

What it means for Norway

The debates in the Russian strategic community carry implications for the domestic debate in Norway. The first concerns Norway's traditional dual approach toward Russia. Norwegian officers and defense researchers have increasingly called for relaxing the self-imposed restrictions Oslo has maintained since the Cold War. However, even the Russian think-tank experts most critical of the Kremlin's foreign policy, who condemned the invasion, who criticized Moscow's own military activity in the North — even they view permanent bases, expanded activity along the northern border, and a military presence on Svalbard as clear red lines. It is a consensus across the three think tanks that crossing them will dramatically increase the risk of both incidents and greater conflict.

Moreover, the restrictions matter in the Russian internal debate. For the pragmatic camp, they are the best available evidence that engagement with the West still produces something. Kortunov, for example, presents them as a model for negotiating with NATO: rather than trying to block enlargement by military means, Russia could accept it conditionally and seek to negotiate limits on permanent infrastructure and military activity. Removing the restrictions would play into the hands of the hardliners.

The second implication concerns capability. Some in Norway have argued that Russia is not troubled by Norway's long-term defense plans and might even welcome greater Norwegian capability as a way of reducing the American presence. That is not what I found. The experts I read see the buildup as American in origin, pointing out that Norway has followed US recommendations, and interpret it as part of an emerging Nordic front within NATO directed against Russia.

A third implication concerns memory politics, which is increasingly treated as a security matter on both sides. In Norway, some have argued for the removal of Soviet war memorials. It is right to resist Russian attempts to use shared history to justify the war in Ukraine. But erasing the Soviet contribution to the liberation of Finnmark is unlikely to achieve anything except confirming the civilizational narrative. The Pomor legacy shows how the two ends of the debate can end up reinforcing each other. While critics in Norway attacked the Vardø Pomor Festival for keeping the word in its name, nationalist writers in the Izborsky club milieu, ironically, see the same Pomor identity as a historic falsification, constructed with the support of the Norwegian state. Both argue for dismantling the same evidence that the two countries have a history other than rivalry.

Finally, the material suggests that Russia's practical aim in the North is to restore prior cooperation. Where exiting the Arctic Council is proposed, it is mostly in the context of building leverage against the West. Alternative institutions are barely discussed, and experts warn against dependence on any single country. That leaves room for negotiation.

After 2022, statist and civilizational approaches have become dominant in Russian discourse. While my thesis did not examine causal impact, this shift is seemingly reflected in Russian politics and public opinion. For example, in 2022, Volodin put forward a proposal to pull out of the 2010 agreement — a position long championed by the Izborsky Club. Moreover, rhetoric and vocabulary from SVOP have been incorporated into official Russian politics. Finally, and perhaps most worrisome, some surveys suggest many of the civilizationists' premises do influence the general population. For example, according to a late-2023 survey by NORC, 64 percent of Russians see the conflict in Ukraine as a civilizational struggle between Russia and the West.

Marked differences nevertheless persist. A moderate strand in RIAC has continued to criticize the shift in think-tank discourse as well as the official course throughout the period. Importantly, the Nordic model of deterrence and reassurance surfaces as a key argument in its more moderate approach. This does not mean Norway should defer to Moscow, nor does it answer whether the traditional line still best serves Norwegian interests. As the self in "self-imposed" suggests, that question is Norway's to settle. But to the degree that think-tank discourse reflects actual policy reasoning in the Kremlin, it does suggest the restraints continue to serve their original purpose: avoiding escalation, reducing the risk of misunderstanding while keeping channels open for negotiations in the High North.

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Sindre Mørk is a political scientist. His master's thesis at the University of Oslo examines how Russian think tanks have written about Norway and the High North between 2013 and 2025. He holds a bachelor's degree in international relations from the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.