Russia planned coup in Moldova, its pro-West president says

Barton Gellman, a staff writer for the Washington Post, writing
soon after the 1991 conflict, observed that: “Some targets, especially
later in the war, were bombed primarily to create postwar leverage over
Iraq, not to influence the course of the conflict itself.” Gellman
quoted Colonel John A Warden, deputy director of Air Force strategy,
doctrine and plans: “One purpose of destroying Iraq’s electrical grid
was that you have imposed a long-term problem on the leadership that it
has to deal with sometime.” Gellman added: “It gives us long-term
leverage.”

For a history of US Air Force (USAF) strategy in attacking electric
generation and distribution grids, read this USAF University thesis,
entitled “Strategic Attack of National Electrical Systems”, dated 1994:
“The USAF has long favoured attacking electrical power systems.
Electric power has been considered a critical target in every war since
World War II, and will likely be nominated in the future… The evidence
shows that the only sound reason for attacking electrical power is to
affect the production of war materiel in a war of attrition against a
self-supporting nation-state without outside assistance.”

Norway was the perfect place to base the mission.

In the past few years of East-West crisis, the U.S. military has vastly expanded its presence inside Norway, whose western border runs 1,400 miles along the north Atlantic Ocean and merges above the Arctic Circle with Russia. The Pentagon has created high paying jobs and contracts, amid some local controversy, by investing hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade and expand American Navy and Air Force facilities in Norway. The new works included, most importantly, an advanced synthetic aperture radar far up north that was capable of penetrating deep into Russia and came online just as the American intelligence community lost access to a series of long-range listening sites inside China.

A newly refurbished American submarine base, which had been under construction for years, had become operational and more American submarines were now able to work closely with their Norwegian colleagues to monitor and spy on a major Russian nuclear redoubt 250 miles to the east, on the Kola Peninsula. America also has vastly expanded a Norwegian air base in the north and delivered to the Norwegian air force a fleet of Boeing-built P8 Poseidon patrol planes to bolster its long-range spying on all things Russia.

In return, the Norwegian government angered liberals and some moderates in its parliament last November by passing the Supplementary Defense Cooperation Agreement (SDCA). Under the new deal, the U.S. legal system would have jurisdiction in certain “agreed areas” in the North over American soldiers accused of crimes off base, as well as over those Norwegian citizens accused or suspected of interfering with the work at the base.

Norway was one of the original signatories of the NATO Treaty in 1949, in the early days of the Cold War. Today, the supreme commander of NATO is Jens Stoltenberg, a committed anti-communist, who served as Norway’s prime minister for eight years before moving to his high NATO post, with American backing, in 2014. He was a hardliner on all things Putin and Russia who had cooperated with the American intelligence community since the Vietnam War. He has been trusted completely since. “He is the glove that fits the American hand,” the source said.

Back in Washington, planners knew they had to go to Norway. “They hated the Russians, and the Norwegian navy was full of superb sailors and divers who had generations of experience in highly profitable deep-sea oil and gas exploration,” the source said. They also could be trusted to keep the mission secret. (The Norwegians may have had other interests as well. The destruction of Nord Stream—if the Americans could pull it off—would allow Norway to sell vastly more of its own natural gas to Europe.)