Home Sea Old America is not coming back, Norway warns allies

NATO Ship Formation for PHOTEX As seen from on board HMS Defender, NATO ships form up in order to conduct a PHOTEX including a fly-over by the French Air Force during Formidable Shield 23 in the North Atlantic. Formidable Shield is a NATO joint exercise with 2023 seeing allied fleets working together in the North Atlantic from the United States, Canada, France, Netherlands, Italy and the UK. HMS Defender is a type 45 destroyer air defence ship. Defender and her crew have been engaged on operations over the past 3 years, covering 4 major Oceans and most of the world's seas. Assisted by her Wildcat helicopter from 815 Naval Air Squadron, the Portsmouth based destroyer will shortly be conducting NATO's major Formidable Shield 23 exercise in the North Atlantic, where the ship ship will work with the UK's allies showcasing the Type 45 destroyer as one of the world's best air defence ships.

Old America is not coming back, Norway warns allies

November 11, 2026

Espen Barth Eide, Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, has said the era of Pax Americana is over and that Europe, Britain and Norway must take charge of things they once left to the United States, according to remarks made at the Atlantic Future Forum in Oslo.

Asked on board HMS Prince of Wales how the US midterm elections might affect the Ukraine negotiations in Abu Dhabi and allied focus on the High North, Eide said the next Congress would probably be more supportive of Ukraine and NATO, but that Europe should not expect a return to the old America.

He said: “You will have most likely a friendly large country, which will be cooperate closely. But this sort of ultimate guarantor of everything, you know, be it NATO or free trade or international order, I don’t see the appetite anywhere in the U.S. to go back to that old. So you know, those who might think that everything will be normal again, no, normal is not coming back. There will be a new normal, and we have to prepare, and we will have to take responsibility.” He said Norway’s bilateral relationship with the current US administration is “actually quite good”.

In his keynote earlier in the day, Eide said Norway has been arguing to the US administration that defending the waters off northern Norway, where Russia’s strategic forces would sail from the Kola Peninsula in a major conflict, is homeland defence for America too. He said: “If you really want to protect your own continent, you need to start here.” He also said: “It’s not that we always agree with America, but occasionally they’re right, and they were right for many years in saying that Europe should do more. Well, we heard you. We are doing more, and we understand why we need to do more.”

Eide, a former Norwegian defence minister, said the burden shift from the United States to Europe was appropriate but must happen in an organised way, and urged allies spending more to spend together, citing Norway’s purchase of Type 26 frigates with Britain and submarines with Germany so the platforms can “literally be interchangeable”.

He noted that Russia’s neighbouring command is “interestingly now called again the Leningrad military district”, and warned: “I foresee that in the coming months there will be even more dramatic choices that has to be made. Maybe I hope I’m wrong, but I’m afraid I’m right.”

Norway signed the Lunna House agreement with Britain last December, and joined its Joint Expeditionary Force partners in signing a Northern Navies Initiative agreement on board Prince of Wales on Tuesday.