Norwegian Defense Minister: NATO Decision Making Process Too Slow To Deal with Emerging Crises

Norwegian Defense Minister  Ine Eriksen Soreide and Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Feb. 4, 2015Western relations with Russia will never again be the same after the war in Ukraine, Norwegian Defense Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday.

“We are faced with a different Russia. I want to warn against the fact that some people see this as something that is going to pass. The situation has changed. And it has changed profoundly.”

There is “no going back to some sort of normality or some sort of back to normal business. Because that normality does not exist.”

Norway, a NATO member country, shares a northern border with Russia….

It is critical, she said, that Russia and Europe “avoid miscalculations” that could “easily happen in a situation like this.

“NATO countries are required to come to the defense of each other — an attack on one is an attack on all — but Eriksen Søreide said the organization is ill-prepared to respond quickly.

“The decision structure in NATO is working quite slowly if something was to happen.”

“That is something that we need to work.”

Image: Norwegian Defense Minister Ine Eriksen Soreide and Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Feb. 4, 2015 (photo: NATO)