Air raid shelters, army, food self

Under a peaceful park, the St. Hanshaugen air raid shelter, one of the largest in Oslo, will accommodate 1,100 people behind its heavy metal doors. The air is chilly, the light dim, and the toilets basic: the lair is not a three-star hotel, but it is designed to protect against potential NBCR (nuclear, radiological, biological, or chemical) threats.

“Today, we have about 18,600 shelters, covering just under 50% of the country’s population (5.6 million inhabitants),” explains AFP correspondent Stein Knudsen, head of the Norwegian civil defense. “Many need to be modernized: they were built during the Cold War, they are damp, old.”

As a member of NATO, the Scandinavian kingdom wants to reintroduce the requirement to equip new large buildings with air raid shelters, a requirement that was lifted in 1998 as a “peace dividend” following the collapse of the USSR. The idea is not to build costly shelters, but to offer basic protection against threats like drones, which are now ubiquitous on battlefields.

“Colleagues in Ukraine are fighting an existential war on their own territory, and yet they still find time to share their experiences,” emphasizes Knudsen. “Listening to what they are going through, the attacks on civilians, what it means to operate as a civil defense force in wartime, these experiences are invaluable.”

The construction of shelters is one of the 100 proposals made last year in a White Paper. The government also wants to increase the civil defense personnel by 50%, to 12,000 men and women, require all municipalities to establish a “local preparedness council,” and increase food self-sufficiency by 50% by 2030. Households are also encouraged to store supplies to last for seven days.

“For many decades in Norway, we have had the luxury of being able to allocate our resources to other things,” says Kristine Kallset, State Secretary at the Ministry of Justice and Public Security. “But since the security situation has deteriorated, we have understood that there are a number of things to be done to ensure that our preparedness also includes war in worst-case scenarios,” she tells AFP in the government’s new premises. Ironically, these buildings rebuilt after being devastated in 2011 by the extremist Anders Behring Breivik attack do not have air raid shelters.

In his New Year’s address, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre warned his fellow citizens that “war could return to Norway.” The year 2026 has been described as the year of “total defense,” a concept that aims to prepare all elements of society – military, administration, businesses – for a major crisis or war.

“The current landscape of threats, whether the climate crisis, rivalry between great powers, the war in Ukraine, the Middle East, or pandemics, is much more interdisciplinary than it was 20 years ago,” analyzes crisis management specialist Jarle Læwe Sørensen. “We are on the right track in preparations, but there are bureaucratic, legal, and organizational mechanisms that often hinder the system’s smooth operation and prevent everything from fitting together optimally,” he says. The areas of responsibility between police, firefighters, health services, and the National Guard do not always align.

In the streets of Oslo, the level of awareness varies. “I don’t think about it on a daily basis, but I have my emergency kit,” says Øystein Ringen Vatnedalen, a 51-year-old businessman. “I have put some cash aside, I have thought about a few scenarios – where I would go, who I would take care of – and I have a radio, water, everything that the authorities recommend.”