Should the war in Ukraine affect our view of nuclear weapons?

Four months before Russia's attack on Ukraine, Internasjonal Politikk published my article "Norwegian Support of the UN Ban of Nuclear Weapons?" I argued that Norway should endorse the UN ban and, with Sweden, initiate a European political dialogue with Russia independent of the United States. This article will discuss whether the war in Ukraine alters the previous article's conclusions. Nuclear deterrence works in Ukraine by confining the scale of war on both sides, but precisely that raises the concomitant risk. The new US bases in Norway entail risk in a confrontation between the US and Russia. Norway now needs to join other European states in a common defense without nuclear arms. The EU should coordinate an independent European pillar in NATO within established procedures for consultation. Europe needs a necessary contact with Russia that through successive stages of diplomacy may evolve from crisis management to agreement on arms control and a new political order. To cope with the new security agenda, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs needs to upgrade analyses of actors and improve interaction skills. Internal procedures should apply the guidelines for quality control set out in the standard manual ISO 9000.