PRESS RELEASE
Norway Makes Itself a Target with New Radar in Arctic Pointed at Russia
June 12, 2017 (EIRNS)—A new radar station under construction on the Nowegian Arctic island of Vardo is causing consternation among the 2,100 residents of the nearby fishing village, and with the Russians. Many locals are worried that the radar station makes the whole area a target for Russian missiles. Vardo is just off the coast of a Norwegian peninsula that sticks out into the Barents Sea and is about 150 km northwest of the Russian Northern Fleet submarine bases that are clustered around Polyarny on the Kola Peninsula. Among the vessels based there is the Borei-class ballistic missile sub Yuri Dolgorukiy. Flight tests of Russian submarine-launched ballistic missiles are launched from the Barents Sea, as well.
The radar station, which is in the process of being equipped with an advanced, state-of-the-art radar called Globus II, is there to watch the Russians, though Norwegian authorities claim it’s there to track space junk in orbit overhead. The Russians have made clear that they believe that it’s part of the U.S./NATO ballistic missile defense system and that they are treating it accordingly.
"Norway has to understand that after becoming an outpost of NATO, it will have to face head-on Russia and Russian military might," the ambassador, Teimuraz Ramishvili, told Norway’s state broadcaster, NRK. "Therefore, there will be no peaceful Arctic anymore."
MIT professor Theodore Postol says the Russians have good reason to be worried.
"If you have a neighbor walking up and down the fence line with a shotgun, he can tell you it’s not loaded, but it raises all kinds of questions about his intentions,"
he told the New York Times.
"It creates the appearance that the United States is doing everything it can to gain intelligence about new Russian missiles and figure out all the measures it can to counter them."
In an interview with Sputnik News in early May, Postol was even more stark as to the potential danger behind the new radar station.
"I believe that the deployment of the new radar in Norway is a result of mistaken American logic," Postol stated.
"It’s only a matter of time when the current arms escalation will result—in one form or another—in a serious confrontation between Russia and China and the U.S. and NATO."
