Simon Gros

---

The recording stages, in a compressed sequence of keynote address, moderated dialogue, and later expert panel, a single overriding problem-space: how political agency is to be re-described once the inherited grammar of a “rules-based order” no longer functions as an unforced background condition, yet also cannot be abandoned without dissolving the very medium through which small and medium-sized states render their security interests intelligible.

What immediately governs the event’s compositional frame is a double optics: the institutional self-presentation of a convening body—explicitly identified as the Atlantic Committee—paired with a rapid shift into the strategic seriousness that the convenor claims as the conference’s raison d’être. The opening voice frames the situation through a diagnostic question set—what role can the European Union play, and how can small and medium states like Norway safeguard their security interests in an international system “increasingly shaped by rivalry” among great powers who place “might before right”—and then supplies a dense, quasi-briefing inventory of Norway’s geographic and infrastructural significance: a “frontline actor in the high north,” a monitor of Russian nuclear posture on the Kola Peninsula, the holder of a long coastline functioning as “entry point for allied reinforcement,” a state modernising its navy while remaining dependent on allies’ willingness to prioritise collective defence. The economy of these claims is less about persuading an uninformed audience than about fixing the interpretive horizon in which everything that follows will be heard: the argument will turn on geography as constraint and on the transition from juridical language (“might before right”) to capability language (monitoring, reinforcement, modernisation). Even the procedural mention of Slido and QR codes matters as paratext: questions are invited through a managed channel, signalling that “participation” is welcome, though in a form whose timing and admissibility remain under moderator control. The event thus announces, almost inadvertently, its own epistemic regime: input is permitted, but filtered; security talk is public-facing, but disciplined; the conference is dialogical, yet governed by a choreography of turns and roles.

The first major stratum is the prime ministerial address, delivered by Jonas Gahr Støre, which performs a characteristic move of late-modern diplomatic rhetoric: it begins by thematising the very image-world in which politics must now operate. He enters “looking at Monk,” imagining “if this was a new rule-based order,” and asks about the inspiration behind “fabulous drawings.” The reference functions as more than ornament: it foregrounds that “order” is always already mediated by representation, and that the desire for a rule-based order is inseparable from the need to picture it, to render it available to sensibility. The speech then openly names its own meta-task—“connect and communicate and develop thinking”—thus placing the conference within a reflective tradition that treats security as an object requiring conceptual labour rather than as a self-evident imperative. Yet the reflection is immediately constrained by the central category that will recur as a stabilising device throughout the event: “the new normal.” Støre defines it by refusing two extremes: it is “not a fixed square thing,” yet it is also “not complete unpredictability.” The formulation is philosophically consequential because it rejects both substantialist permanence and chaotic contingency, seeking a middle concept that can secure policy agency without pretending to return to stable equilibrium. The “new normal” becomes a regulative rather than descriptive term: it is what must be grasped to render action possible.

He introduces rupture language via a quotation attributed to a Canadian colleague at Davos—Mark Carney is later named in the subsequent segment—and re-situates rupture within a longer historical ontology: history is “a long row of ruptures,” and its “only permanent thing is change,” though now change comes at a pace that challenges “some fundamental values.” The move is structurally important: it converts what could appear as an exceptional crisis into an intensified version of historical becoming, and thereby frames present anxiety as a question of tempo and value-stress rather than mere novelty. By doing so, Støre can claim continuity with a long narrative of transformation while simultaneously legitimising emergency-like shifts in policy priorities.

The first concrete “component” of rupture is the war on Ukraine, named as a “full-scale military war in Europe” continuing “into a new year,” with “terrible consequences” locally and “broad consequences” beyond. The speech offers an illustrative chain that stretches the war’s meaning outward: a representative from the Republic of Korea testifies to what the war means for security on the Korean peninsula, in terms of North Korean soldiers fighting in Ukraine and what Russia delivers back. The internal logic here is worth tracking carefully. Støre is not presenting an empirical study; he is producing a warrant that the war is not regionally containable. The example functions rhetorically as a synecdoche of interdependence: one theatre reveals itself as a node in a transregional exchange of violence and capability. This allows the speech to convert Norway’s local adjacency to Russia into a global diagnostic.

From this point, Støre’s analysis pivots from military war to economic coercion, explicitly naming United States as “weaponizing economic policy,” while also generalising that “major economic powers” use “value change” as a means of promoting interests. The phrase “value change” appears in the transcript as a likely transcription distortion, yet within the speech it behaves as a category for the use of economic instruments to reshape the normative-economic landscape. He places China alongside the United States, describing large subsidies and market penetration that can “destabilize” markets. Then he claims a reintroduction of tariffs contrary to the post-1940s arc of tariff reduction. The speech distinguishes tariffs as trade rebalancing instruments—about which “most economists” might question efficacy—from tariffs used against allies “as a political means,” connected to “the perspective on Greenland” and “wanting to grab land from another land inside an alliance.” This is among the most charged moments of the address because it brings the alliance’s internal contradiction to the surface: the system designed to constrain predation now hosts predatory speech acts within its own membership. Støre’s rhetoric here does not dissolve into denunciation; it places the event within a conceptual tension the conference will repeatedly return to: how can an alliance whose justificatory grammar is rules and solidarity survive when a leading member deploys coercion toward allies?

Yet, crucially, Støre refuses the apocalyptic thesis that “the world order is breaking down completely.” He says part of that order “should change,” and introduces the perspective of “the south,” raising the legitimacy problem of the United Nations Security Council being composed of victors of the Second World War, while India, Africa, and Latin America are not represented. The force of this turn is methodological: it undercuts any complacent Western invocation of “rules-based order” as though it were self-legitimating. The order’s deficit is not only that it is violated by aggressors; it is also that it encodes an historical distribution of voice. Støre’s “value-based pragmatism” is thus introduced as a self-corrective posture: protect democracy, freedom, human rights, and rules “where they apply,” while also listening to “legitimate concerns” about trade, influence, and participation. The phrase is a hinge concept: it attempts to hold together a normative fidelity and a strategic adaptability without allowing either to cancel the other.

The speech then performs a striking reduction to first principles: “there’s one thing that does not change and that is geography.” Geography becomes “point of departure” for interests, vulnerability, opportunity. What follows is an enumerative proof of the claim: Norway’s second-largest coastline, its economic zone and seabed exceeding land, its provision of “one-third of Europe’s gas” and “almost 40% of UK gas,” its critical raw materials for value chains needing defence against state attacks, its development of space activities in the north. Here, the speech’s conceptual register shifts from the universal language of values and global order to the materially specific language of infrastructure, supply, and strategic terrain. The movement is not merely additive; it re-specifies what “values” can mean in practice. Values are no longer abstractions; they become conditions for sustaining the independence of value chains, of energy security, of technological capability. The event’s philosophical interest intensifies precisely here: “values” are articulated through the medium of what can be shipped, monitored, launched, supplied, and defended. Normativity migrates into logistics.

Within this geographic frame, Støre makes a procedural-collaborative gesture, valuing that the EU high representative—later introduced as Kaja Kallas—is going to Tromsø for Arctic Frontiers. This is a small detail, yet it functions as a sign of recognition: presence in the north is itself a political act that acknowledges geography as a shared concern. Then comes a carefully bounded statement about Europe: Støre emphasises deepening and anchoring Norway’s “European participation,” explicitly excluding the question of EU membership as “not the issue today.” This bracket matters, because it models a way of sustaining cooperation without reopening identity-defining constitutional questions. The focus becomes the European Economic Area and the strategic importance of Norway’s trade orientation toward Europe and the United Kingdom. The EEA is reinterpreted as a platform for “economic security,” for protecting value chains, and for participating in Europe’s defence and promotion of independence. Støre’s phrase “defense and promotion of its independence” is philosophically revealing: “independence” is no longer merely a national predicate; it becomes a regional property requiring a defence that is also a promotion, a proactive shaping of conditions under which autonomy is possible.

The speech also names Europe’s constitutive diversity—“27, 30, 35, you choose”—as both the reason he “loves Europe” and a source of fragility and weakness. This is an unusually candid articulation of pluralism’s double aspect: diversity as value and as operational difficulty. In this way, the speech anticipates later segments where unanimity requirements and institutional slowness become explicit problems. Støre’s policy logic then takes form as a chain of partnerships and procurements: strategic partnership on security concluded last year, participation in European programmes, Norway’s defence industry’s historic reasons and present relevance to Europe and Ukraine, emphasis on air defence as a Norwegian strength. Again, the conceptual point is that the meaning of “Europe” is being narrated through industrial and capability integration rather than constitutional identity.

The second “point” of response is the enduring US dimension. Here Støre introduces one of the event’s most rhetorically potent scenes: he recounts meeting Donald Trump and looking him “in his eyes,” saying that 100 kilometres from Norway’s border is the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, “not directed against me, Mr. President, but against you.” This is an exemplary instance of strategic speech that simultaneously asserts Norwegian relevance and re-educates the ally’s self-understanding. The structure is almost Hegelian in its economy: Norway’s apparently peripheral position is mediated into centrality through the nuclear vector; the small state becomes necessary to the great power’s security because it provides monitoring and early warning. Støre then declares Trump’s claim that the US has given everything to NATO and NATO gives nothing in return as “plain wrong,” and redefines collective security as “not a charity” but “self-interest.” This formula will recur across the event, sometimes affirmed, sometimes complicated, functioning as a conceptual anchor that allows speakers to discuss alliance obligations without appealing to altruistic morality alone.

From this point, the speech translates conceptual claims into domestic political commitments: strengthening defence will require telling sectors of Norwegian society there will be “less more in your area because there has to be more” on defence. The transcript’s awkwardness here preserves the speech’s lived political difficulty: reallocation is politically costly, and the speaker stages the cost rather than hiding it behind technocratic language. He then details reliance on alliances: NATO in good shape in the north, modernised regional plans, all five Nordic countries in NATO under command in Norfolk, 25,000 troops exercising in northern Norway and Finland, large French and American delegations. The mention of “4,000 pages” of plans is not evidential proof of readiness; it is a symbol of bureaucratic and operational seriousness. It performs the alliance as an apparatus of planning and standardisation.

A particularly significant moment occurs when Støre describes MAGA movement dynamics yet insists that collaboration in the north has become “deeper and closer again” because it matters “deep down.” This is a reconciliation attempt: while political rhetoric strains the alliance, operational cooperation may intensify where interests are indisputable. The event repeatedly explores this split between discursive volatility and institutional-military continuity, a split that later becomes itself an object of anxiety: can operational continuity survive discursive delegitimation?

Støre then moves to a European “step up” logic, carefully stating it is “only logical,” “not because of Trump,” though Trump “put pressure on it.” He reframes the call for increased European spending as a long-standing American theme across administrations, thereby de-personalising it and integrating it into structural expectation. The stress falls on coordination: do more “wisely,” avoid duplication, integrate capabilities. The example of Norway, Sweden, and Finland having 250 fighter jets and working more integratedly positions Nordic integration as a model of deterrence through interoperability.

The speech’s later portion brings in partnerships with the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Poland, and mentions the joint expeditionary force among Nordic, Baltic, UK, Netherlands. Here Støre names his concept “euro NATO,” insisting it must happen “inside NATO” because NATO has command structure, experience, and “appearance” of the Americans—almost certainly meaning presence. The concept is subtle: it aims to intensify European responsibility without creating institutional bifurcation that would make chain of command ambiguous. The conclusion returns to values, aspiration, and “some degree of optimism,” while acknowledging he is “20 seconds over time,” a procedural self-awareness that reinforces the conference’s time discipline as another layer shaping speech.

Second comes a set of claims about economic weaponization. Støre attributes this to the United States and to other major economic powers, placing China’s subsidies and market penetration alongside the “reintroduction of tariffs” by an “elite ally.” The phrasing matters: allyhood is not denied, but its ethical comfort is suspended. Tariffs are described as counter to the post-late-1940s experience of tariffs being “built down.” This is a historical narrative of liberalization as a norm, now reversed. He distinguishes tariffs as a trade rebalancing tool—economists might question whether it works—from tariffs as political coercion against allies. The critical example is “two weeks ago” when the US used tariffs against allies to force a perspective on Greenland, described as “wanting to grab land from another land inside an alliance.” Here the event introduces a second destabilizing axis: even within alliance structures, the category of territorial acquisition reappears, and it reappears without the normal shame attached to it in postwar European discourse. The implicit philosophical claim is that the modern order’s legitimacy rests on a taboo against conquest; if conquest becomes speakable again, legitimacy must be reconstructed under adverse conditions.

Yet Støre immediately complicates the “world order breaking down” narrative. He says it is not “completely” collapsing into something like “back to the rebels,” and he adds that there are “good reasons” part of it should change. The most concrete reason is the composition of the United Nations Security Council: victors of World War II, with underrepresentation of India, Africa, Latin America. This segment is philosophically important because it prevents a simple moral binary in which “rules-based order” is simply to be defended. Instead, the order is treated as a historically contingent arrangement whose legitimacy deficit is itself a driver of its vulnerability. The West, if it speaks only as defender, will appear hypocritical; if it listens to the South’s “legitimate concerns” on trade, influence, participation, it can recast “values” as a framework that can be revised without being abandoned. Støre names this stance “value-based pragmatism,” and by doing so he attempts to solve a deep problem of contemporary liberal diplomacy: how to hold values as non-negotiable in their core while treating institutional embodiments of those values as revisable.

The speech then pivots to Norway, and the pivot is explicitly anchored in geography: “one thing that does not change” is geography. Geography becomes the “point of departure” for interests, vulnerability, opportunity. This is not a mere realist slogan; it is a method claim. It asserts that in a time when norms are contested and institutions are slow, states should begin from material constraints that remain stable. Støre then lists determinations: the “world’s second largest coastline,” an economic zone and seabed “seven times more” than land, Norway providing one-third of Europe’s gas and almost 40% of UK gas, critical raw materials, space activities from the north, and the importance of being “up north.” Each item functions as a way of translating abstract order-talk into concrete dependencies. Importantly, this list also redescribes Norway’s value-based stance as a resource-based fact: Norway is not merely a moral voice; it is a supplier and infrastructure node. This too belongs to the event’s economy of legitimacy: a state that provides energy and maritime access is permitted to speak with authority on strategic coordination.

Støre’s response to the changing world is given as “two points.” First: deepen and anchor European participation. He explicitly brackets the membership question (“not an open door to the big questions” about membership), redirecting attention to current arrangements: rule-based trade in Europe, 80% of trade going to Europe and UK, value chains as strategic. He wants to “safeguard” the European Economic Area and expand cooperation into “new strategic areas” not primarily about rules and directives but about “economic security” and value chains. This is a conceptual shift: the European project, often narrated as rule harmonization, is here narrated as a security apparatus for economic independence. Støre then frames Europe as a diverse yet fragile assemblage (“27, 30, 35. you choose”), which he loves for diversity but acknowledges as a weakness against major powers. Norway must be part of Europe’s “defense and promotion of its independence.” He references strategic partnerships, industrial participation, air defense as something Norway is “good at,” and the protection of Ukrainian cities “as we speak.” The effect is to fuse national capability with European strategic ends: a small state’s niche capability becomes a piece of continental defense.

Second: the enduring US dimension. Støre recounts an encounter with Donald Trump where he told him that 100 km from Norway’s border is the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, not directed against Norway but against the US. Norway monitors submarines and shares data. Therefore, the claim that the US has “given everything to NATO and NATO gives nothing in return” is “plain wrong.” This passage is methodologically significant. It treats alliance contribution as intelligence and geography-mediated deterrence, not merely as budget percentages. It thereby contests the monetization of alliance relations. “Collective security is not a charity. It is made out of self-interest.” This line is repeated and becomes a motif throughout the event; its recurrence signals an attempt to shift discourse from moral pleading to rational reciprocity.

Støre then outlines domestic consequences: strengthening defense will require explaining to sectors that there will be “less more” in their area because more must go to defense, naval rebuilding, etc. The awkward phrasing in the transcript actually reveals something important: the politics of reallocation is hard to render elegantly because it is inherently conflictual. The speech does not hide that defense policy is social policy by other means: it competes with other goods.

He then underscores reliance on allies and the NATO alliance, describing modernization of regional plans (“4,000 pages”), all five Nordic countries now in NATO under command in Norfolk, and upcoming exercises with 25,000 troops in northern Norway and Finland, with large French and US delegations. Again: not charity, mutual interest. He claims that as the MAGA movement moves, collaboration in the north has become “deeper and closer,” because it “really matters.” This is a subtle attempt to separate the political theater of Washington rhetoric from the operational continuity of military cooperation. The event repeatedly tries to hold these two layers apart: the executive’s messaging and the security apparatus’s practices.

Støre then addresses the European dimension: Europe must step up, not “because of Trump” alone—pressure perhaps, but a long-running theme across US presidents. Europe must do more “wisely,” coordinated procurement, capability planning. The examples of Norway, Sweden, Finland with 250 fighter jets, integrated exercise, deterrence force, serve as a micro-model: regional integration as pragmatic defense.

He then enumerates bilateral industrial integrations: frigates from UK as integration, submarines and tanks from Germany as industrial integration, security partnerships with France and Poland, joint expeditionary force among Nordic, Baltic, UK, Netherlands. He names this a northern European dimension of security to be built further, calling it “euro NATO,” which must happen inside NATO because NATO has command structure, experience, and “appearance of the Americans” (a phrase that reads as both literal presence and symbolic guarantee). Here the event’s conceptual architecture becomes visible: European autonomy is reconceived as European responsibility within NATO, avoiding a dual chain of command that would be “dangerous.” The speech ends by returning to values and optimism: values are defended, millions aspire to them, we should have confidence.

The transition to the moderated exchange with Kallas reframes the same material under a different epistemic regime: questioning. The moderator’s prompts are not neutral requests for information; they function as conceptual constraints that force the speaker to define terms and choose between competing narratives. The first question asks whether we are witnessing a transition or a rupture, explicitly invoking Mark Carney’s “rupture.” Kallas accepts the general structure: crises as bases for developing international systems further, from League of Nations to UN. She says United Nations is “definitely not delivering the way it should,” and she reports a global perception: many countries want rules-based order because most are small and medium states; if it does not work, it does not “give you the coverage.” She acknowledges an argument that rules-based order has been an “illusion,” law of the jungle, yet adds that even in jungle animals cooperate. This analogy is carefully chosen: it concedes realism while preserving a minimal normativity. Cooperation is naturalized, not idealized.

Kallas then identifies what is “really lacking”: accountability. The United Nations Charter is “very good” in principles but lacks accountability for breaches. Security Council paralysis when a permanent member attacks another country in breach. She echoes representational mismatch. The philosophical core here is a diagnosis of institutional incompleteness: norms without enforcement become rhetoric; enforcement without legitimacy becomes domination. The event’s problem-space is precisely this: how to maintain a rules discourse when enforcement is structurally blocked.

The moderator then shifts to agency: personalities or structural changes? Kallas treats this as a classic IR question. She proposes a dialectic: interests rule, but personalities matter as drivers and illustrations of change. She cites Putin as encapsulating more than his personality—authoritarian rule with deep roots—yet also driven by personal preferences and endurance. Similarly Trump’s speech in Davos is “so much him and the MAGA movement,” and one must extract how much is “really us” and how much is his exposure. China’s leader is mentioned similarly. Yet she insists the deeper root is interests and power. This passage is important because it sets up a methodological ambiguity that the event never fully resolves: if interest is primary, then institutions should focus on structuring incentives; if personalities can significantly deform interest calculation, then institutions must build buffers against idiosyncrasy. The later panel will intensify this ambiguity, speaking of the commander-in-chief’s “whims.”

The moderator pushes further: “all international politics are personal,” SMS, social media, intervening with other leaders, institutions ignored. Kallas responds with an almost bureaucratic anxiety: officials are concerned leaders text and know nothing. Yet she sees it as bringing leaders closer, a necessary tool because events are rapid and institutions are “10,000 times too slow.” She gives an example: a “board of peace” (transcript unclear, but treated as a sudden development) on a Saturday morning; she and Norway’s foreign minister talk before 8:00; legal experts by 10:00; ten colleagues connect; analysis within the day. The point is not the content of the board but the temporal structure: the legitimacy of institutional deliberation is challenged by the need for same-day coordination. This creates a conceptual problem: speed can enhance responsiveness, but it can also erode accountability and deliberative transparency. The transcript’s reference to officials “knowing nothing” about leader-to-leader texting already hints at this tension. The event thus thematizes speed as both necessity and institutional hazard.

The moderator then asks about Kallas’s “three mandates” (defending Europe, securing neighborhood, building partnerships) and what that means for Norway. Kallas emphasizes building up defenses, bringing member states together, and especially shifting defense ministers toward “thinking European” like justice ministers do. She lists nine capability areas developed in collaboration with NATO; 23 EU members are NATO members; question is how European defense industry can contribute to capability targets. On partnerships, she describes Europe’s strength as predictability and stability, partners looking to Europe, and the need to diversify portfolios because dependencies create vulnerability, and vulnerability is weakness. She includes maritime security and the need to develop international rules for undersea infrastructure and weaponization of trade routes.

At this point, the event’s argumentative system acquires a key internal relation: “rules-based order” becomes inseparable from “economic security.” The older liberal vocabulary—rules as constraints—shifts into a security vocabulary—rules as instruments for protecting infrastructures and value chains. The shift is not declared as a philosophical thesis; it occurs through the demands of the conversation. This is one way in which the event transforms itself: the same phrase “rules-based order” drifts from juridical legitimacy toward infrastructural resilience.

The question about a “new European security council” prompts a rejection of institutional proliferation. Kallas says there is already a defense council, European Council, many meetings; the question is implementation. “We don’t need more institutions. We just need to implement the plans we already have.” This becomes another motif: the diagnosis of European weakness is not lack of ideas but lack of execution. The event’s own form mirrors this: many speeches, yet the repeated insistence is that speech must not substitute for implementation. The conference thereby risks becoming an enactment of what it criticizes. It tries to resolve this performative contradiction by making implementation itself a repeated theme.

A related exchange concerns a European army separate from NATO. Kallas clarifies she attributed the “inconceivable” phrasing to the NATO secretary general. She argues practically: one army, one defense budget; if part of NATO, cannot create separate army beside existing; chain of command is crucial; competing command structures create a “ball between chairs,” “extremely dangerous.” Therefore European defense must be strengthened as part of NATO, complementary, “let’s not throw NATO out of the window.” Støre reinforces: EU defense command structure proposals do “damage to the debate” because they ignore UK, Norway, and the reality of NATO’s trained decision-making. He urges wise spending to avoid waste; coordinated spending yields deterrence; standardization is valuable; but EU needs NATO standards information to help member states develop capabilities; obstacles include members like Turkey. The exchange also notes progress: a few years ago EU and NATO could not talk; now they can attend each other’s meetings.

This segment’s analytical interest lies in its theory of institutional rationality. The speakers treat the alliance system as a layered architecture where duplication is not redundancy but danger. They privilege unity of command over conceptual purity. European autonomy is recast as integration without duplication. The implicit normative claim is that in existential security matters, institutional elegance is less valuable than operational clarity.

The conversation then turns to mixed signals from Washington: Trump questions NATO willingness yet sends troops to exercise. Støre repeats mutuality and rejects charity logic, noting Norway’s per capita contributions after 9/11, welcoming troops, and reading Trump’s messages as aimed at MAGA headlines while other US messages differ. He introduces a distinct security domain: global health. He saw the US flag being taken down in front of WHO in Geneva and found it “very bad” for security because pandemics will come; pulling out of cooperation is serious. This expands the concept of security beyond military, integrating health, trade, technologies. This is another instance of definitional drift: “security” is no longer bounded to deterrence; it includes cooperative infrastructures whose erosion harms all.

The Arctic segment continues this drift while also returning to legal framing. Kallas says the EU’s Arctic strategy is outdated; a new one is being developed, not only environmental but also security and economic security. Støre recalls defining the high north as priority in 2005, EU’s first Arctic strategy in 2008, and the importance that the law of the sea applies in the Arctic. He rejects the idea that the Arctic is ruleless (“terra nullius”). He cites a declaration signed in 2008 in Greenland (place name transcribed uncertainly, but the function is clear) affirming law of the sea applies; the US has not ratified but has respected it. He notes Russia out of the Arctic Council, cooperation down, other Arctic states must continue on environment, transport, energy, minerals. He corrects a “completely false assertion” about Russian and Chinese ships circulating Greenland all the time; “it seems not to be the case,” yet NATO must be relevant everywhere. He warns against the mistake of treating Greenland as the biggest security challenge; the major challenge remains concentration of nuclear arms near Norway with link to Baltic.

Here the event’s structure reveals a subtle normative hierarchy: international law is invoked as anchoring principle; yet the ability to invoke it depends on credible monitoring and deterrence. Law is treated as applicable because states enforce it by not treating the Arctic as open loot. The recurring phrase “law of the sea applies” functions as a stabilizing mantra against the reemergence of conquest talk. Yet it coexists with a pragmatic claim about EU moratorium on Arctic energy imports: Støre warns it should be reconsidered because EU LNG from Norway comes from Arctic; a moratorium could redirect gas elsewhere; “that would be a shame.” This is a moment where environmental or normative aspirations collide with security and energy dependence. The event does not resolve this; it simply surfaces the tension, revealing that “values” do not map neatly onto “policy instruments” when infrastructures are interdependent.

A question about Nordic nuclear deterrence triggers a rejection: ambitions after 1945 in defense, currency, market proved needed either European or Euroatlantic; for security it had to be Euroatlantic with NATO; currency became euro for some; only Nordic success was passport-free travel. There should be European discussion on nuclear deterrent, but inside NATO logic. Kallas adds that the very question signals dangerous times: many countries contemplate nuclear weapons; non-proliferation was in everyone’s interest; Russia’s war made nuclear threats appear to “work,” encouraging appetite for territories and fear-driven proliferation. This is one of the event’s clearest causal claims: nuclear coercion, if seen as effective, corrodes the non-proliferation norm by altering perceived incentives. Importantly, Kallas frames this as a world-order problem, not merely a European one. The event thereby recasts Europe’s security debate as a test case for global normative regimes.

The closing dyadic segment addresses Ukraine and peace. The moderator asks whether Europe should take more initiative rather than reacting to Washington; notes pressure on Ukrainians to make difficult concessions, blurring where the problem lies. Kallas offers a historical claim: in the last 100 years Russia attacked at least 19 countries, none attacked Russia. Within the transcript, this functions as a rhetorical anchor for a broader argument: the central problem is Russian aggression; peace must remove the threat through Russian concessions—limits on military budget, army, nuclear, accountability for crimes. She notes there is “no talk about this,” and that Russians see no reason to talk to Europeans if talking to Americans delivers maximalist demands. Europe has a role because agreements require Europe “on board” to work, and because life after war—reconstruction, refugees—is European work. She says pressure on Russia is needed so they move from pretending to negotiate to actually negotiating. Støre adds: Ukrainians will keep fighting; Europe should support militarily, energy, diplomatically; after war ends it will still be Europe managing development plans and refugees (4.5 million, 100,000 in Norway). The event ends this phase by redistributing temporal burdens: war is immediate, but aftermath is long; Europe’s responsibility is not episodic but generational.

At this point, the event shifts strata: from opening keynote and dyadic exchange to an institutional speech by Radmila Shekerinska. This shift matters because it changes the speaker’s epistemic role. The deputy secretary general speaks as a representative of an institution whose legitimacy is operational: NATO is credible insofar as it coordinates capabilities and produces deterrence. Her opening personal anecdote—invited as a young leader from Macedonian social democratic youth to Utøya, transformative experience, politics as noble profession, solidarity—serves to humanize institutional rhetoric and to frame NATO’s mission as tied to democratic political formation. Yet she quickly returns to a triadic structure: transatlantic relations require hard work, shared interests, political will; NATO has provided security for 1 billion people; allies agree on what is needed: more defense investments, more defense production at speed, more support to Ukraine.

Shekerinska then supplies a narrative of recent institutional success: achieving agreement at The Hague summit (transcript says “H summit,” “the H”) on a 5% of GDP defense investment pledge by 2035, which would have seemed infeasible given difficulty achieving 2%. She similarly claims turning the tide on defense production, with a demand signal and regular interaction with defense industry changing course, increased pace, more ammunition; she notes disappointment that production was four times less than Russia, now changed dramatically over one year; adopting latest technologies. She emphasizes a distinction between commitment and implementation; some countries move faster, some slower; leaders and industry know they cannot stick to old normal; deterrence must incorporate defense industry; Ukraine teaches production and innovation are as important as political will, military might, command and control. She credits Norway as exemplary, supporting humanitarian, energy security, military means; and frames support to Ukraine as support to NATO deterrence: Ukraine as a laboratory of tomorrow’s war, lessons learned.

Her second point: strong transatlantic relations demand working through differences; democracies have debates; alliance DNA is discussing and finding solutions matching shared interests. She then offers an “Arctic security U-turn,” with intelligence from allies like Norway revealing more Russian presence; Russia created Arctic command, reopened sites, built new ones, deep water ports, airfields, tested weapons; this calls for attention; security in high north is interest of all allies. NATO will do more, looking at Arctic as a whole; allies procuring specialized capabilities, exercising; Norway as leader; opening a new center in Bodø; exercise in March as signal of Arctic importance and unity.

Third point: bond between Europe and North America remains the “only really winning way” for security in dangerous world; US troops and military might indispensable; but it goes both ways; European contributions relevant from Arctic to Atlantic; Europe and Canada stepping up is necessity; days of convenient US burden are over; more stable arrangement; polls show 81% of allied citizens consider bond crucial; NATO has lessons from 75+ years and believes it can deliver more security and cooperation.

The subsequent moderated conversation with Shekerinska tightens the event’s central tension: “threat or trust” as the basis of alliances. She says it must be both. She acknowledges decades of European underinvestment as frustration across administrations; she recounts meetings where US defense secretaries pressed allies to invest more; quotes JFK in 1963; notes pragmatic approach in The Hague: invest in trust by Europeans and Canada doing more, developing European pillar within NATO; balance shifting strengthens alliance; allows US presence in other theaters; US nuclear deterrent remains important.

The moderator introduces a quote attributed to Donald Tusk about 500 million Europeans asking 300 million Americans to defend them against 140 million Russians, and Shekerinska agrees: step up. The conversation about “burden shifting” versus “burden sharing” clarifies the semantics: burden shifting is about Europeans and Canada taking lead in conventional deterrence, bigger numbers and capabilities, and about predictability for defense industry, which fears commitments may fade after Ukraine war ends. She argues commitment must be sustained because Russia’s threat will not disappear; Russian aggression will continue; production and economy show militarization. The Arctic segment returns: seven of eight Arctic nations are NATO allies; the region is a frontier; NATO needs situational awareness, presence, capabilities; the point is to increase capabilities, not move them; specialized capabilities needed in Arctic; Arctic allies are resource.

Finally, the moderator asks about agenda for Ankara summit: Shekerinska says the secretary general focuses on core business and implementation of three priorities: defense spending pledge follow-up, defense production and industry day with joint procurement to avoid inflationary effects, and support to Ukraine, especially air defenses; she credits Norway again for prioritized requirements list delivering ammo and air defenses quickly, saving lives in battlefield and cities; notes peace process focus but fighting continues, attacks on civilian and energy infrastructure picked up.

This entire NATO speech and Q&A function as a stabilizing institutional counterweight to the earlier political volatility theme. The implicit claim is: even if political messaging is turbulent, NATO’s planning cycles, procurement reforms, and standardized frameworks can produce continuity. Yet the very need to emphasize continuity reveals a vulnerability: continuity has become something that must be rhetorically produced rather than assumed.

After a break, the event shifts to a panel explicitly named around a “MAGA world order” and consequences for the transatlantic partnership. The moderator, Yana Hola Matl, begins with a provocation: “what is to be done,” explicitly referencing Lenin’s pamphlet title. This rhetorical choice performs a self-conscious shift from descriptive diagnosis to prescriptive urgency. It also ironically imports a revolutionary register into a conference centered on defending liberal institutions. The panel’s question is staged as a crisis of agency: Europe’s chronic competence at discussion and incompetence at action.

Hola Matl frames two scenarios: a “transition” scenario where Europe takes conventional defense seriously, perhaps nuclear deterrence, fulfills pledges, guided by a Pentagon national defense strategy published days ago; US stays with NATO, provides critical support but less; Europe must deter Russia, described in the document as “no problem at all” because Europe is richer, Russia has GDP of Spain (with a joking aside). Then a “rupture” scenario: the commander-in-chief decides on another round of Greenland expansionism or other ventures, forcing Europeans to refuse complicity. The key addition is the “commander-in-chief’s whims,” likened to “political Tourette syndrome,” something unexpected erupting. This language is itself a rhetorical escalation compared to the earlier sessions’ careful diplomacy. The panel thereby shifts the acceptable tone: it makes bluntness permissible and treats political unpredictability as a structural variable to be managed, not merely endured.

Hola Matl’s critique is sharp: Europe has not assumed responsibility for Ukraine though the war is five years in; leadership is not visible; despite coalition of the willing, northern European model. Europe deters neither Russia nor anyone by conferences; deterrence requires being feared. This is an explicit attack on the conference form within the conference itself: the event becomes reflexive, accusing its own medium of insufficiency. Yet it does so in a controlled way—through a panel segment—thus preserving the event’s unity while allowing self-critique.

The panel composition is introduced: Barbara Kunz, Kosh Araha, Ben Hodges, and an absent Andrew (surname transcribed as “MTA”) whose comments are read. The absent panelist’s comments are crucial because they introduce a distinct evidentiary stratum: not live speech but quoted published remarks, mediated by the moderator. The event openly marks this mediation (“I have taken the liberty of finding some comments that he has just published”), thereby making editorial insertion explicit. The quoted content frames Greenland row as US mistake with penalty: partial loss of trust; trust as precious commodity of alliance. It urges frank talk in geostrategic terms, says alliances are about shared threats and interests with values as functional reinforcers, not defining. It says big European countries enjoyed a vacation from history; Greenland row should wake them; Europe’s security connected to US. He urges Europeans to set aside bruised egos, stop overreacting to Trump’s tactics, remember relationship is with US as a nation, not one president.

This inserted voice intensifies a theme already present: values versus interests. But its distinctiveness lies in ranking: values are not denied; they are subordinated to threats and interests. The moderator frames it as “food for thought” to realize transition scenario depends on Europeans, not only Trump.

Hodges’s response is direct and performative. He says Europe must acknowledge threat and enemy; Russia is “absolutely at war with Europe.” He rejects “hybrid warfare” as a “terrible name” because “hybrid” sounds cute like a car; “Grayzone” is better; governments are reluctant to attribute sabotage—cables torn, drones shutting airports—to Russia, but naïve if they think it is not Russian influence designed to cause distrust and distract from supporting Ukraine. He dramatizes the psychological aim: make Europeans and North Americans say stop supporting Ukraine because Russia will shut down airports. He argues consequences must be inflicted on Russians or it will continue; shadow fleet ships loaded with oil and gas pass EU and NATO countries “almost never stopped”; what are we scared of; fear should be environmental disaster; oil money funds war; refugees increase if Ukraine fails. He says best way to protect Europe is help Ukraine defeat Russia. He then says Europe can defend itself, tells Europeans to stop whining, invokes Vikings, claims Ukraine has stopped Russia for 12 years (a correction of the moderator’s time framing), and tells Europe to stand up to Trump, hold US accountable, make US live up to talking points.

The rhetorical character here is crucial: Hodges shifts from diplomatic register to moralized scolding, using humor and insult (“stop whining,” “Vikings”) as a means of producing agency. This is a different modality of persuasion: it aims to convert shame into action. The conference thus contains multiple rhetorical technologies: Støre’s measured pragmatism, Kallas’s institutional legalism, Shekerinska’s managerial optimism, and Hodges’s abrasive mobilization.

The moderator responds with an empirical detail: 450 shadow fleet ships passed Norwegian coast, none boarded; policy of boarding developing in UK and US; reinterpretation of law; if passage not innocent, there are things you can do. The moderator frames Europe as attacked in “political warfare” and reactive, not engaging in denial deterrence. This again shows a definitional drift: deterrence is no longer only conventional; it includes legal enforcement against covert economic warfare.

Araha then speaks in a mediated stance: he will not advise Europeans; he will tell what Americans think and Europeans can figure it out. He begins by affirming NATO allies fought well in Afghanistan; anyone saying otherwise is wrong. He then treats the panel title “MAGA world order” as a term; he is often asked to explain “woke European world order,” both ludicrous; important to understand caricatures; Americans long-winded, Europeans more brief and crude, or vice versa. He reiterates: interests rule, geography matters, NATO issues need work, consistent with earlier. He rejects “rupture” as not an American term, says Americans do not see it that way; but there is a cusp, a transition where old transatlantic language is dead and new language needed. Transatlantic interests are inextricable; cannot rip apart. He says Europe has trouble calling Russia enemy, unifying against Russia, even more against China; so do Americans due to business and energy ties; but the business interdependence with China among “us” is $7 trillion versus Europe’s $1–2 trillion. He calls the “rupture” talk irresponsible, singles out Carney’s Davos speech as “most irresponsible,” though it got accolades.

He insists the US is not isolationist; Trump is most active foreign affairs president in first year compared to last seven combined. He then offers two personal concerns: waning American exceptionalism—higher standard—bothers him; and tariff unpredictability harms American economic predictability. He frames current crisis as style and substance; quotes a “good Danish foreign minister” saying this is how friends talk to friends; says Trump got elected because of this talk; it is what it is; Europeans must figure out core interests and how hurt they are by language. He predicts more likely than not Trump pushes allies toward 5% defense budgets, leaving alliances stronger; bitter medicine but polite way did not work from Eisenhower onwards. He says national defense and security strategies remain consistent: Europe should deter Russia conventionally; US remains critical ally; Israel is mortal ally; wants others like Israel to carry hammer. He ends with high north: NSS and NDS do not talk enough; Arctic intersects all three priority theaters; proposes extending “free and open Indo-Pacific” to “free and open north,” with Finland and Sweden joining NATO creating a NATO blanket across Arctic-Baltic; opportunities immense; interest rules, geography matters, hard work.

What is analytically striking here is that Araha attempts to neutralize moral panic about Trump by embedding it in an instrumental narrative: Trump’s unpleasantness is a technique to achieve a long-desired redistribution of burdens. This is an argument about means and ends. It implies that a morally distasteful style can produce substantively beneficial outcomes. The event does not accept this claim uncritically; Hodges later explicitly resists it. The panel thus becomes a site where instrumental rationality and normative cohesion conflict.

The moderator then transitions to Barbara Kunz and frames a European strategic culture discussion: only French and British with nuclear weapons have global reach, German money; coalition of willing in Northern Europe; EU unanimity constraints with Hungary and Slovakia; leadership must be in capitals, not consensus organizations; asks about strategic enablers US has. Here the transcript reveals a meta-level: the moderator imports a reference to an Financial Times article listing enablers, but does not provide the article. As per the ground-truth constraint, the event’s reasoning here can only treat that as a rhetorical pointer, not as evidence of determinate enablers. Still, its function is clear: it marks a recognized gap between Europe’s aspirations and its enabling capabilities.

At this moment, Hodges interrupts with a sharp disagreement cue: in America, saying “my good friend” means disagreement; he says he disagrees with Araha on almost everything. He worries alliance will not be stronger if the US president and secretary of defense “smash” allies daily, denigrate sacrifices, say they did not need allies. He references Afghanistan casualties, Article 5 invocation. He describes being sickened, having served among allied soldiers. He argues NATO success is not equipment spending but cohesion: Russians never attacked conventionally because they knew “we would all show up.” Cohesion is secret sauce, not percent of GDP. He then tells an anecdote about a Norwegian army chief drawing a map circling top 10% of Norway, saying that if Russians captured that, it would disrupt North Atlantic calculations, reduce monitoring of subs, disrupt reinforcement, showing strategic thinking for alliance. He then describes a tanker seizure operation: helicopters landing on Russian tanker; points out the US Air Force transport, UK bases, British Navy refueling, ships based in Spain; plus intelligence from allies; 50% of intelligence does not come from US satellites. He calls the national security strategy a “bird cage liner” and says it is doing damage to the most important thing: allies. He acknowledges past conflicts in NATO (France de Gaulle, Greece-Turkey, Suez, Iraq), but says they got through because they had shared interests and shared values. That is what he worries about.

This exchange crystallizes the deepest conceptual fracture in the event: whether alliance cohesion is grounded primarily in convergent interests (thus resilient to moral insult), or in shared values (thus vulnerable to value-denigrating rhetoric). The event stages this as a conflict between two Americans: one emphasizing structural interdependence and instrumental outcomes, the other emphasizing normative cohesion as the causal mechanism of deterrence. The disagreement is not merely rhetorical; it is a dispute about what makes deterrence credible. If deterrence is credible because of material capability and interdependence, then insults are noise. If deterrence is credible because adversaries believe in alliance will, and alliance will is sustained by mutual recognition and respect, then insults are corrosive.

Kunz’s earlier remarks, before Hodges’s extended rebuttal, provide an alternative European diagnosis: Europe is bad at reading US developments; uncertainty is new normal; hoping is not strategy; Europe will matter less to US public; emotional investment in transatlantic relationship has been higher in Europe; reasons for Trump vote are structural and will persist; Europe’s reduced salience is good because narrative of EU as main enemy unlikely to fly with average voter, but dangerous because European populists could use US tech money; dependence is not strategy; strategic autonomy debates lacked answer to what keeps Americans in; US messages contradictory; current situation might force mindset shift: find interests, go beyond 5%, shift strategic culture; she ends with a relationship analogy: best relationships are those both sides want, not those one side stays in because no choice. This analogy is rhetorically playful, but philosophically serious: it recasts alliance from dependency to mutual desire, thus redefining legitimacy.

What emerges across these segments is an event that tries to solve, by public reasoning, a set of coupled problems that do not admit a single stable vocabulary. The conference repeatedly oscillates between juridical and realist registers: “might before right” is invoked early, yet the law of the sea is invoked as anchor; UN charter principles are praised, but accountability is missing; institutions are too slow, yet institutions are the only legitimate frameworks for coordination. The event’s actors repeatedly attempt to translate between these registers through mediating concepts: “value-based pragmatism,” “economic security,” “implementation,” “standardization,” “burden shifting,” “trust,” “cohesion,” “predictability.”

A key internal transformation concerns “the new normal.” In Støre’s speech, the new normal is a conceptual posture: neither fixed order nor chaos. In Kallas’s exchange, the new normal becomes an institutional deficit: accountability lacking, representation outdated, speed necessary. In Shekerinska’s speech, the new normal becomes an industrial tempo: production and innovation are deterrence. In the panel, the new normal becomes political volatility at the top of the US system, requiring Europeans to plan for whims. Thus, the same phrase moves from epistemology (how to grasp the landscape) to institutional design (how to enforce rules) to political economy (how to produce munitions) to contingency management (how to buffer leadership unpredictability). The event thereby shows definitional drift under pressure; yet it also shows an effort to maintain continuity by returning to “geography matters,” which functions as a stable anchor across segments.

Another transformation concerns “rules-based order.” Initially it appears as the normative horizon threatened by great-power rivalry. Then it becomes a contested claim—perhaps an illusion—yet defended as desired by most small and medium states. Then it becomes a problem of enforcement and accountability. Then it becomes an infrastructural problem—undersea cables, trade routes, maritime security. Finally it becomes a question of legal justification for boarding shadow fleets and enforcing sanctions regimes. The order is no longer simply “international law” as abstract; it is a mesh of material infrastructures that require active protection. The event’s internal logic thus redefines law as operationalized normativity: rules exist insofar as they can be enacted quickly enough to matter.

A further transformation concerns “Europe.” In Støre’s speech, Europe is a fragile diversity that must integrate and defend its independence. In Kallas’s mandate talk, Europe is a set of member states that must learn to think European in defense as they already do in justice. In Shekerinska’s account, Europe is a pillar within NATO that must take conventional leadership. In the panel, Europe is a subject that must stop hoping, abandon dependence, assume responsibility, and perhaps accept that it matters less to the US public. The concept of Europe thus shifts from geographic-cultural entity to institutional assemblage to military-industrial actor to psychological-political subject.

The event also repeatedly stages an internal tension between diagnosis and prescription. Diagnosis is often richer than prescription. Speakers are precise about what is changing: tariffs against allies, Greenland coercion, UN accountability deficits, Arctic militarization, defense production gaps, political volatility. Prescriptions tend to collapse into a few recurring imperatives: invest more, coordinate better, implement existing plans, support Ukraine, deepen European pillar within NATO, diversify partnerships, maintain law of the sea, develop new strategies. The recurrence suggests both consensus and limitation: the event knows what must be said in this forum, and it also knows that these imperatives are underdetermined. “Implement” is a powerful word precisely because it avoids specifying whose political capital will be spent, which trade-offs will be forced, which domestic coalitions will break.

This underdetermination is not merely a weakness; it may be an intentional feature of the event’s institutional function. A conference of this kind—convened by a committee, populated by officials, constrained by diplomacy—may be able to generate shared vocabularies and to normalize certain framings, but it cannot legislate. Its action is discursive: it tries to shape what counts as feasible and legitimate. In that sense, the repeated emphasis on “implementation” can be read as a normative pressure exerted on absent decision-makers: a way of narrowing the space of acceptable excuses.

The event’s rhetorical-argumentative forms further reveal how legitimacy is managed. Støre uses lists of geographic facts to legitimize Norway’s stance. Kallas uses institutional diagnoses and analogies to legitimate reform talk. Shekerinska uses progress narratives, percentages, and polls to legitimate optimism and continuity. Hodges uses moral shock and alliance sacrifice to legitimate a demand for respect and cohesion. Araha uses structural interdependence and historical continuity of US complaints to legitimate tolerating bitter medicine. Kunz uses uncertainty and strategic culture to legitimate autonomy without romance. Each uses a different warrant: geography, institution, performance metrics, sacrifice, structure, uncertainty. The event thus becomes a laboratory of justificatory economies, each competing to define what counts as “real” security thinking.

The role of the moderator(s) is not neutral. Moderation repeatedly reorganizes relevance. The early moderator uses questions about rupture versus transition, personalities versus structure, texting versus institutions, to force officials to articulate their implicit theories of change. Hola Matl’s moderation on the panel uses scenario framing (transition vs rupture) to force panelists to specify action under uncertainty, and uses provocative language (“political Tourette syndrome”) to license bluntness. Moderation thus functions as a meta-actor shaping the event’s conceptual trajectory. It is the device through which the event claims to be deliberative while still steering toward certain problem-forms.

The transcript also indicates moments where prepared remarks and improvised responses differ. Støre’s speech reads as prepared, with structured “two points,” enumerations, and timekeeping. His conversational exchanges contain more humor and ad hoc analogies (Queen Victoria dinner table). Kallas’s responses have a practiced institutional cadence but include spontaneous asides about officials being concerned about texting. Shekerinska’s speech is structured with “three observations,” characteristic of prepared institutional rhetoric, but the Q&A produces more reflective historical recollections and semantic clarifications. The panel is most improvisational, with interruptions, jokes, and direct disagreements, revealing a different epistemic culture: less diplomatic risk-management, more argumentative contest.

Editorial mediation is present too. The transcript includes a long break and then resumes, marking a segmentation that likely corresponds to livestream structure. The absence of one panelist and the reading of his published comments is a clear editorial insertion into live format. The event makes this explicit, which strengthens its credibility: it does not pretend the voice is present. At the same time, it demonstrates how conferences manage contingency: missing bodies are replaced by text, preserving agenda continuity.

If one tracks the event’s central tensions, a few stabilize by the time the materials end, while others remain deliberately unresolved. The tension between rules and power is partially stabilized by the repeated insistence that rules must be updated and enforced, not merely invoked, and by the anchor of maritime law in the Arctic. Yet the tension remains because enforcement mechanisms at the global level are acknowledged as blocked. The tension between European autonomy and NATO unity is stabilized by the shared rejection of a separate European army and by the embrace of a European pillar within NATO. Yet the tension persists in the background because political unity within Europe is fragile, and EU unanimity constraints are named. The tension between US indispensability and US political volatility is the least stabilized: the event oscillates between separating operational military continuity from political rhetoric (Støre, Shekerinska) and treating rhetorical denigration as corrosive to the alliance’s causal foundation (Hodges). The event does not resolve this; rather, it reveals that the alliance must now be thought under conditions where its political-symbolic cohesion cannot be taken for granted.

What interpretive competence does the event demand, as an object of study? The transcript rewards an ability to track definitional drift without treating it as mere inconsistency: the same terms are redeployed across formats, and their shifts index changes in the evidential demands of each segment. It demands sensitivity to institutional procedure: the difference between keynote speech, moderated interview, and panel dispute is not merely stylistic; it changes what kinds of claims can be made and how they are warranted. It also demands tolerance for strategic ambiguity: speakers often gesture toward concrete events (tariffs, Greenland, WHO flag, shadow fleet, “board of peace”) while leaving details under-specified, either because of diplomatic constraints or because the event’s function is not forensic detail but category-setting. Finally, it demands attention to the event’s self-referential pressure: the conference both performs deliberation and criticizes deliberation’s insufficiency, which means the event must be read as simultaneously a practice of thought and a symptom of the very gap between thought and action that it thematizes.