Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  1062

  NORTH

  ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION

  When NATO was established, the first secretary general, Lord Ismay, allegedly quipped that its mission in Europe was “to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down.” During the Cold War, the principal function of NATO was to provide common defense against the Soviet bloc. NATO also ensured that American and European security remained interconnected, and provided a formula for the reintegration of postwar Germany into the Western security system. Finally, NATO provided a platform for consultations on issues outside the alliance, both formal and informal.

  After the collapse of the Soviet Union, some argued that NATO had completed its mission and ought to be dissolved. However, the alliance has endured and undergone considerable transformation. It assumed “out-of-area” responsibilities by intervening in the Balkans, providing stabilization forces in Bosnia (IFOR/SFOR), and intervening and providing stabilization forces there (KFOR) in Kosovo. It also offered assistance to the United States during the 2001 campaign in Afghanistan and contributed to peacekeeping afterwards.

  The new 1999 Strategic Concept, which outlines NATO’s broad goals and means, has made conflict prevention and crisis management the fundamental security tasks of the alliance. Another NATO task since 1990 has been to stabilize post-communist central and eastern Europe. Through the Partnership for Peace program (PfP), which allows NATO to cooperate with nonmembers; the Membership Action Plan (MAP), which assisted applicants preparing for the 2002 round of enlargement; and greater cooperation with Russia in the new institutional setting of the NATO-Russia Council, the alliance has contributed to the post-communist transition. The landmark in this process was the 1999 enlargement that brought Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic into the alliance. Three years later, at a summit in Prague, NATO invited an additional seven members to join in 2004.

  The future of NATO is unclear. Critics argue that NATO has outlived its usefulness as a defense organization and has become merely a political forum with residual military structures. They point to the fact that in the fifty-plus years of NATO’s history, the core Article 5 has been invoked only once, in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the United States; yet U.S. military operations against Islamic terrorists have not been conducted as NATO operations. A contributing factor in the progressive downgrading of NATO’s military value has been the widening capability gap between the United States and its European allies. In addition, the allies have found it difficult at times to reach consensus on the area of operations, with the Americans arguing for a global role, while the Europeans take a more traditional regional view. Fissures within NATO surfaced publicly during the 2003 war with Iraq, with France and Germany openly opposing the U.S. position. The American decision to rely on the “coalition of the willing” raised questions about the long-term viability of the alliance.

  The proponents of NATO argue that it is too early to proclaim its end as the premier Euro-Atlantic security organization. They point out that NATO has responded to change by undertaking fundamental reforms, seeking to adjust its structures and its military capabilities. At the Prague summit on November 21 and 22, 2002, the alliance established the NATO Response Force (NRF) of twenty thousand for deployment into crisis areas, becoming fully operational in 2006. The nations at the summit set goals for reorganizing their armed forces in order to increase their mobility and allow sustained operations outside their territory. The next important step in reforming NATO was taken at the defense ministers’ meeting in Brussels on June 12 and 13, 2003: NATO approved a new military command structure to reflect its new missions and its transition to smaller forces. The new command structure envisions the creation of a new Allied Command Operations, based at SHAPE in Mons. SACLANT will cease to exist, replaced by the Allied Command Transformation to oversee the restructuring of NATO’s military. The number of commands will be reduced from twenty to eleven, and their responsibilities redefined.

  These structural changes, combined with the development of “niche capabilities” by the member-states, suggest that, given political consensus, NATO may yet reinvent itself with a new division of tasks and specializations in place. The long-term viability of the alliance will also be affected by whether the emerging defense capabilities of the European Union complement or duplicate NATO’s. Most important, the future of NATO will be determined by the future state of transatlantic relations. See also: COLD WAR; WARSAW TREATY ORGANIZATION

  1063

  NORTHERN CONVOYS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Goldgeier, James M. (1999). Not Whether But When: The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Kaplan, Lawrence S. (1999). The Long Entanglement: NATO’s First Fifty Years. Westport, CT: Praeger. Kay, Sean. (1998). NATO and the Future of European Security. Lanham, MD: Rowman amp; Littlefield. Michta, Andrew A., ed. (1999). America’s New Allies: Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in NATO. Seattle: University of Washington Press. NATO Handbook. (2001). Brussels: NATO Office of Information and Press. North Atlantic Organization. Available from «http:// www.nato.int». Osgood, Robert E. (1962). NATO: The Entangling Alliance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Szayna, Thomas S. (2001). NATO Enlargement, 2000-2015: Determinants and Implications for Defense Planning and Shaping. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp.

  ANDREW A. MICHTA

  NORTHERN CONVOYS

  “Northern Convoys” is the widely used name of one of the shortest and most dangerous routes of transportation of lend-lease cargoes to the USSR by its allies in the anti-Hitler coalition from 1941 to 1945. Running from Scottish and Icelandic ports to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, they extended for 2,000 miles (3,219 kilometers) and took ten to twelve days to cross. Until the end of 1942, Northern Convoys that went to the USSR had “PO” index; those returning from the USSR, “OP”; the subsequent Northern Convoys carried indices “JW” and “RA.” The defense of cargo transports was carried out by the Allied, mainly British, Navy. In 1941 the route was passed by seven convoys to the USSR (from trial “P” or “Derwish” in August 1941 up to PO-6), and four convoys to Great Britain.

  During the spring of 1942, in order to cut the Allies’ northern sea route, the Nazi German headquarters sent large fleets and aircraft forces to occupied Norway. As a result, in July 1942, almost the entire convoy PO-17 was defeated (twenty-three of thirty-six transports were sunk). Thirteen of forty cargo ships were lost in September 1942 in PO-18. In total, from 1941 to 1945, forty-one Northern Convoys, which consisted of 839 transports, were sent to the northern Soviet ports, of which 741 arrived safely. Sixty-one were lost, and thirty-seven returned to their own ports. Thirty-six Northern Convoys of 738 transports were sent from Soviet ports; of these, 699 reached their ports of destination, thirty were lost, and eight turned back. In addition, thirteen transports were lost during single passages and on berths in ports. While covering Northern Convoy 22, Allied fighting ships, including two cruisers and seven destroyers, were sunk.

  In total, four million tons of cargo were delivered to the Soviet northern ports of the USSR, including 4,909 aircraft, 7,764 tanks, and 1,357 guns. Northern Convoys have added one more heroic page to a history of World War II and fighting cooperation of the USSR with the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. See also: NORTHERN FLEET; WORLD WAR II

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Ruegg, Bob, and Hague, Arnold. (1992). Convoys to Russia: Allied Convoys and Naval Surface Operations in Arctic Waters, 1941-1945. Kendal, UK: World Ship Society. Woodman, R. (1994). The Arctic Convoys, 1941-1945. London: John Murray.

  MIKHAIL SUPRUN

  NORTHERN FLEET

  The Northern Fleet is the largest of the four Russian naval fleets. It differs from the Baltic and Black Sea Fleets in that it (like the Pacific Fleet) has operated nuclear-powered vessels for more than forty years. In fact, two-thirds of Russia’s nuclear-powered vessels are assigned to the Northern Fleet at the Kola Peninsula. The others are based at Pacifi
c Fleet bases near Vladivostok. The Northern Fleet is organized into departments with separate spheres of responsibility. Other duties are divided among government committees and ministries. While the navy is responsible for the nuclear submarines and the three shipyards that service and maintain them, the State Committee for the Defense Industry (Goskomoboronprom) maintains the other shipyards. The Ministry for Atomic Energy (Minatom) is responsible for the nuclear fuel used in naval reactors, and the Ministry of Transport is in charge of shipments of new and spent nuclear fuel by railroad.

  1064

  NORTHERN PEOPLES

  Before the Soviet collapse in 1991, nuclear submarines from the Northern and Pacific Fleets regularly patrolled the east and west coasts of the United States, the South China Sea, and outside the Persian Gulf. During the early twenty-first century, however, Russian nuclear submarines are rarely seen in these waters. The number of nuclear-powered submarines in operation in the Northern Fleet decreased from 120 during the late 1980s to less than forty in 2001. The Northern Fleet has six naval bases and shipyards on the Kola Peninsula to serve its nuclear vessels: Severomorsk, Gadzhievo, Gremikha, Vidyaevo, Sayda Bay, and Zapadnaya Litsa. Its main base and administrative center is Severomorsk, a city with a population of 70,000 situated 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) north of Murmansk on the eastern side of the Murmansk Fjord. Three nuclear-powered Kirov-class battle cruisers are based in Severomorsk: Admiral Ushakov, Admiral Nakhimov, and Peter the Great. However, no nuclear submarines are permanently stationed there. Safonovo, a rural town in the Severomorsk area, is the repair center for nuclear submarines and surface vessels, including the largest Northern Fleet submarines, such as the Typhoon class.

  The strategic importance of the Kola Peninsula became apparent to Russian military planners with the rise of German naval power in the Baltic Sea and the outbreak of World War I. Recognizing the need for access to ice-free harbors in the north, Russia built a modern port in Alexandrovsk (today called Polyarny) at the mouth of the Murmansk Fjord in 1899. A naval force dedicated to the northern region was established shortly after the outbreak of World War I. In 1917, a railroad line was built to Murmansk, connecting the rest of Russia to an ice-free port open year round. Not until Josef Stalin’s visit to Polyarny during the summer of 1933 was the Soviet Fleet of the Northern Seas actually established, however. Renamed the Northern Fleet in 1937, it consisted (before World War II) of just eight destroyers, fifteen diesel-powered submarines, patrol boats, minesweepers, and some smaller vessels. During World War II, supplies from the Western Allies were transported by convoy to Murmansk and then taken by railroad to military fronts in the south. A major naval buildup began after World War II in an effort to catch up with the United States. The first Soviet nuclear submarine (the K-3 Leninsky Komsomol) was commissioned to the Northern Fleet on July 1, 1958, just four years after the commissioning of the first American nuclear submarine, the Nautilus. During the period from 1950 to 1970, the Northern Fleet grew from the smallest to the largest and most important of the four Soviet fleets. See also: BALTIC FLEET; BLACK SEA FLEET; PACIFIC FLEET

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Burns, Thomas S. (1978). The Secret War for the Ocean Depths: Soviet-American Rivalry for Mastery of the Seas. New York: Rawson Associates. Jordan, John. (1982). An Illustrated Guide to the Modern Soviet Navy. New York: Arco. Nilsen, Thomas; Kudrik, Igor; and Nikitin, Alexandr. (1996). The Russian Northern Fleet: Sources of Radioactive Contamination. Oslo: Bellona Foundation. Nitze, Paul H., and Sullivan, Leonard. (1979). Securing the Seas: The Soviet Naval Challenge and Western Alliance Options: An Atlantic Council Policy Study. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

  JOHANNA GRANVILLE

  NORTHERN PEOPLES

  Russia’s Northern Peoples (Malochislennye narody severa, literally, “numerically small peoples of the north”) constitute a distinct legal category of native peoples who live in the north, number less than fifty thousand each, and pursue traditional ways of life. During the early Soviet period, such a category was created as the focus for a special set of policies, informed by the state’s belief that, due to the “backwardness” of these peoples, they needed special protection and help to reach the stage of communism. The number of peoples belonging to this group varied over time, but at the end of the Soviet period it included twenty-six peoples: Sami, Khanty, Mansi, Nenets, Enets, Nganasan, Selkup, Tofalar, Evenki, Even, Yukagir, Chukchi, Chuvans, Eskimos, Aleut, Koryak, Itelmen, Dolgan, Ket, Negidal, Nanai, Ulchi, Oroki, Orochi, Udege, and Nivkhi. Together, these peoples numbered slightly under 182,000 in 1989.

  The Northern Peoples inhabit an immense swath of Russia, from the Kola Peninsula to the Bering Sea, the Chinese border, and Sakhalin Island. They belong to numerous language groups, and have distinctive cultures, traditions, and adaptations to diverse ecosystems. At the outset of the Soviet era, most pursued traditional activities that included reindeer herding, hunting, fishing, and marine mammal hunting. Most were nomadic and

  1065

  NORTHERN PEOPLES

  A group of Dolgans stand together at their camp near the village of Syndassko, Russia, in 1993. © JACQUES LANGEVIN/CORBIS SYGMA lived in small kin-based groups. Most were organized into clans, although these had been disrupted by the twentieth century. During the tsarist period, most had been subjugated, and were required to pay a tribute of furs (yasak) to the state. Some missionary activity had occurred, but most groups remained largely animistic.

  The Soviets brought sweeping changes to the Northern Peoples, introducing compulsory schooling (first in their own languages, but soon afterward in Russian) and health care; imposing collective farms, confiscating reindeer and hunting equipment; and repressing leaders, wealthier individuals, and shamans. The Soviets also settled as much of the population as possible in newly created villages. These policies radically disturbed the local family structures and the transmission of knowledge from elder to younger generations. Alcohol abuse and violent death became rampant, and by the end of the Soviet period, life expectancy of the Northern Peoples averaged a generation less than the (already low) Russian level. At the same time, the state nurtured a small indigenous intelligentsia, including doctors, teachers, writers, artists, and political leaders. Within these leaders the state engendered the larger, composite identity of “Northern Peoples,” laying the foundation of a common, pan-native response, once the political climate allowed for such.

  The late Soviet policy of glasnost enabled the Northern Peoples to publicly address their horrific situation for the first time. A strong nativist movement ensued, with the organization of the Russian Association of the Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON) in 1990. Native leaders lobbied for laws that would protect native rights, with special focus on the issue of native lands, which had been subject to extensive resource extraction and environmental degradation. Key federal legislation outlining native rights and mechanisms for land claims was finally adopted in 1999-2001. One outcome of the legislation has been the increase in the number of peoples included in the designation; several groups who were not considered distinct peoples during the Soviet period, among them the Shors, Teluets, and Kereks, have achieved recognition as Northern Peoples since 1991. The number of native persons claiming membership in the overall

  1066

  NORWAY, RELATIONS WITH

  group has also increased, largely due to revitalized pride in native identity. While political reforms have encouraged native political development, economic reforms, including reduced northern subsidies, have severely challenged Northern Peoples’ livelihoods. See also: EVENKI; CHUKCHI; DOLGANS; KHANTY; KORYAKS; MANSI; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST; NENETS; SAMI

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Fondahl, Gail; Lazebnik, Olga; Poelzer, Greg; and Robbek, Vassily. (2001). “Native ‘land claims,’ Russian style.” The Canadian Geographer 45(4):545-561. Pika, Aleksandr, ed. (1999). Neotraditionalism in the Russian North: Indigenous Peoples and the Legacy of Pere-stroika. Edmonton: Canadian Circumpolar Inst
itute Press. Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North website. Available at «http://www.raipon.org/». Slezkine, Yuri (1994). Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Wessendorf, Kathrin, and K?hler, Thomas, trs. (2002). Towards a New Millenium. Ten Years of the Indigenous Movement in Russia. IWGIA Document No. 107. Copenhagen: International Working Group on Indigenous Affairs.

  GAIL A. FONDAHL

  NORWAY, RELATIONS WITH

  Geographically driven relations between northern Norway and the Russian Arctic coast predate the Slavic and Scandinavian colonization of the northern periphery of Europe starting in the twelfth century. Norwegian Vikings referred to the White Sea region as Bjarmeland, and had at least sporadic contacts with the local inhabitants by 900 C.E. Norwegian trading expeditions to the northern Dvina estuary took place regularly until the early thirteenth century, and there were at least occasional journeys into the Russian interior. A 1276 law code refers to Norwegian commercial expeditions via the Baltic to Novgorod.

  Interest in the northern fisheries attracted a growing number of settlers to the Arctic coast in the Middle Ages. Commercial and military interaction in the area included raids that sometimes escalated to open warfare. The Norwegian-Novgorodian peace treaty of 1326 reaffirmed the status quo and ensured free shipping and trade. No formal border was demarcated and many regions were de jure placed under joint administration in the fourteenth century. Some Norwegian settlers may have lived on the Kola Peninsula early on, and the Norwegians claimed control over the peninsula for centuries, notwithstanding its steady Russification. The Russian word murmasky, referring to the northern Kola coast, is derived from nordmann (“Norwegian”).

  The Norwegian fortress of Vard?hus near the present-day border was built around 1300, whereas the main economic center on the Russian side came to be the Orthodox Solovki Island monastery in the White Sea. The first Russian town in the region, Kola (near the present-day Murmansk), was not founded until 1583, but soon had a Norwegian guesthouse. Perhaps during the fifteenth century, but definitely by the 1550s, another Orthodox monastery was founded in the ill-defined border region of the Pechenga Valley. The monks regularly traded with Vard?hus. Norwegian merchants, often from the ports of Bergen (with historic monopoly rights over the northern waters) and Trond-heim, regularly attended the Russian border market of Kegor, as well as Kola. However, trade with the Murman coast appears to have stagnated during the seventeenth century and been limited to local products. Merchants from Bergen and Trondheim periodically also visited the Russian port of Arkhangelsk, especially to ship sporadic Russian grain subsidies to Denmark-Norway. Conflicting territorial claims made border disputes quite common during the sixteenth century and the early seventeenth century, and the Norwegian castellan of eastern Finnmark made symbolic visits to Kola to demand tribute from the local population until 1813.