Daniel Myhren Hovind

I believe that the call to President Putin by the leaders of Norway and Finland was an important and positive development. Even though nothing was achieved to end the war, it is important for our survival to normalise diplomacy again. I know there are many politicians in places like Germany who recognise that we are heading towards a cliff and want to return to negotiations about the European security architecture, but diplomacy itself has become criminalised. Hopefully, this opens the door to bringing back common sense. A key problem is that we confuse moralism with morality. Presenting all security competition as moral issues is great for moral posturing, but by presenting conflicts as a struggle between good and evil, we end up concluding that diplomacy is appeasement and that peace can only be achieved by defeating the 'evil' opponent. Moralism also stifles debate within our own societies, as opposition to policies framed as morally virtuous is automatically deemed illegitimate. Maybe someday we will look back at this era of war hysteria and flirting with nuclear war as we now do with the Covid hysteria.

I know several former Soviet dissidents, such as Edward Lozansky, who moved to the United States, where he worked with former American presidents. Lozansky asked me if I could produce some recorded online lectures on geoeconomics. I asked my university here in Norway, but they were opposed to the idea because it could cause a lot of problems. I told Lozansky that I could not contribute, as recording online lectures for an American-Russian university established to improve relations between Russia and the West would give Norwegian journalists too much ammunition for smears and to threaten the reputation of my university. What is the purpose of articles like this? What exactly have they managed to catch me out on? This is a continuation of six years of intimidation since I returned to Norway. Always go after the person, never the argument. Make life as difficult as possible for your opponent, and do it publicly, so that everyone stays in line. My great crime is arguing that Russia considers NATO expansion an existential threat, something that should be entirely uncontroversial given the extensive documentation supporting this position. Why do I believe it is important to acknowledge this? Russia will use force to push NATO back, and for Ukraine, this means that without a diplomatic solution that takes Russian security concerns into account, Russia will seize strategically important territory and destroy the remaining infrastructure so that Ukraine cannot be used by NATO as a front line. If I am right, NATO's policies will lead to the destruction of Ukraine and potentially to a nuclear war between NATO and Russia. It is not easy to determine whether I am right, because debate in Norway has been criminalized by labelling dissenting voices as “Russian propaganda.” Unfortunately, arguments and evidence no longer matter in Norway today, where we are only allowed to discuss the supposed evil intentions of those who disagree with us. The freedom of academic discourse must be restricted because all dissent is dismissed as an attempt to “legitimize” the enemy. In the past, we had journalists who discussed the security concerns of the opposing side. Today, we have journalists who investigate those who discuss the security concerns of the opposing side. How can we improve our own security in Norway when we are not even allowed to discuss the security concerns of Russia, China, Iran, and other countries of that kind? When acceptable debate is reduced to a narrative of a struggle between good and evil, weapons become the path to peace, while diplomacy and mutual understanding are portrayed as weakness and betrayal. The punishment for academic dissent in Norway is endless personal attacks and derogatory name-calling. Journalists and NGOs affiliated with the state repeatedly contact my employer. Every time I am invited to give a talk, the event is cancelled. Journalists only email me to demand that I respond to accusations without providing any serious justification for them. Journalists investigating me in search of something they can use against me recently gained access to my university records. The only thing they had to use against me was that I had asked about producing some online lectures for Lozansky on political economy. Other recent articles about me have focused on my request to reduce my position at the university to 80% after journalists complained about my outside activities, as well as fake news claiming that I congratulated Putin on the election victory. I do not believe it is a coincidence that "An Enemy of the People" was written by one of our own, Henrik Ibsen. Outside Norway, there are academic debates in which opposing arguments are presented without vicious personal attacks. Outside Norway, there is political opposition in which every member of parliament is not required to support arms shipments to a war and boycott diplomacy. Outside Norway, there are diplomats who believe in diplomacy and journalists who believe in journalism. My advice to young Norwegian academics in security studies or political economy who argue for positions that are not supported by the political and media bubble is this: Get out of the country.