The Nor­we­gi­an Intel­li­gence Ser­vice (Norsk Etter­ret­ningst­je­nes­ten) is get­ting a new spy ves­sel for ope­ra­ti­ons in the Barents Sea. As it´s four pre­de­ces­sors the ship is named Mar­ja­ta. It will be put into ser­vice offi­ci­al­ly in 2016. Sin­ce the 1950s the Nor­we­gi­an Intel­li­gence Ser­vice is prac­ti­cing civil and mili­ta­ry sur­veil­lan­ce in the Barents Sea, sin­ce 1966 with an own ves­sel.

The new Mar­ja­ta will be one of the most advan­ced ships of its kind. It is lar­ger, has a bet­ter sen­sor capa­ci­ty and a wider ope­ra­tio­nal ran­ge than its direct pre­de­ces­sor which will stay in ser­vice until 2016. As the new ship will be able to cover a lar­ger area, it is sup­po­sed that it will also ope­ra­te in polar waters bey­ond the Barents Sea, for exam­p­le around Spits­ber­gen. The Nor­we­gi­an Parliament´s decis­i­on to build a new ship ins­tead of impro­ving the old one is, accor­ding to Kjell Grand­ha­gen, chief of the Intel­li­gence Ser­vice, a signal that a con­ti­nuous Nor­we­gi­an pre­sence in the Arc­tic is of high prio­ri­ty. In the long run Nor­way, as well as the other Arc­tic sta­tes, has geo­stra­te­gic inte­rests in this regi­on, con­cer­ning first of all access to natu­ral resour­ces. A new deve­lo­p­ment can be seen in the poor rela­ti­onship to the neigh­bor Rus­sia.

As Rus­sia announ­ced, the coun­try is plan­ning to inten­si­fy its mili­ta­ry acti­vi­ty in the Arc­tic (see also Spitsbergen-Svalbard.com news Rus­sia inten­si­fies mili­ta­ry acti­vi­ty in the Arc­tic from Febru­ary 2014) and after the poli­ti­cal deve­lo­p­ment in Ukrai­ne resul­ting in ten­si­ons bet­ween Rus­sia and NATO seve­ral cases of bor­der vio­la­ti­ons by the Rus­si­an mili­ta­ry were reco­gni­zed in Nor­way and other Scan­di­na­vi­an sta­tes. As a reac­tion on Russia´s acti­vi­ties in Ukrai­ne the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment recent­ly deci­ded to sus­pend its long las­ting coope­ra­ti­on with the Rus­si­an mili­ta­ry con­ti­nuous­ly until the end of 2015. This coope­ra­ti­on is alre­a­dy inter­rupt­ed sin­ce March 2014.

Howe­ver, in the fields of coast­guard, bor­der guards, search and res­cue ope­ra­ti­ons and the Inci­dents at Sea Agree­ment both count­ries will con­ti­nue coope­ra­ti­on as well as the cont­act bet­ween the Nor­we­gi­an Defen­se Head­quar­ters and Rus­si­an Nor­t­hern Fleet will be con­tin­ued. The­se coope­ra­ti­ons are sup­po­sed to ensu­re secu­ri­ty and sta­bi­li­ty in this regi­on.

One of the new Nor­we­gi­an spy vessel´s tasks will be to regis­ter and to docu­ment all mili­ta­ry acti­vi­ties clo­se to Nor­t­hern Nor­way so that pos­si­ble devia­ti­ons from the norm can be reco­gni­zed.

Sources: forsvaret.no, regjeringen.no, Barents­ob­ser­ver

The new year (hap­py new year to all visi­tors of this web­site, by the way!) has a good start, with a slight­ly delay­ed Christ­mas pre­sent from the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment: as announ­ced, the Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te has made the digi­tal maps from the Arc­tic and Ant­ar­c­tic available as down­loads. So far, the nice digi­tal maps from Spits­ber­gen, Jan May­en and the Ant­ar­c­tic (Peter I Island, Dron­ning Maud Land) could only be view­ed online. Now, they can be down­loa­ded in pixed-based and vec­tor file for­mats and used under “Crea­ti­ve Com­mons Attri­bu­ti­on 4.0 Inter­na­tio­nal (CC BY 4.0) Licen­se”. This means the maps can now be used off­line in the field and by aut­hors, web­site owners and others for publi­ca­ti­ons and this will make some peo­p­le hap­py, inclu­ding the pre­sent owner.

More on the Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te web­site (Nor­we­gi­an).
To get to the down­load site, click here.