第二次世界大戦下のノルウェー亡命政権の外交-戦後構想との連関で-

第二次大戦終結の諸相

抄録

The purpose of this paper is to examine the foreign policies of the Norwegian government-in-exile, paying attention to its post-war planning.
Studies on the Second World War tend to emphasize only one of its aspects, that is to say, the war of Democracy versus Fascism. It is true that the Allied countries cooperated to defeat the Axis, but at the same time they had conflicts, and different needs and plans. The three Big Powers often had talks on their war tactics and post-war problems from the global point of view and determined the main issues. While the Small Powers, whose main concern was the liberation and reconstruction of their own lands, sometimes found their requests rejected. Here power politics manifested itself.
In that sense the Norwegian government-in-exile had distinctive features. In the early days of the Second World War, the Norwegian government suddenly committed itself to Great Britain and the United States, and announced the ‘Atlantic Policy’, which was a post-war plan to renounce their traditional neutrality and suggest North Atlantic defence cooperation.
That became the leading idea in the post-war plans of the other London-Governments, such as the Netherlands, Belgium, and Poland, and was favoured by the British Foreign Ministry. The direct motivation behind this policy was to prevent a future repetition of the catastrophe of the Second World War, but in addition to it the Norwegian government in London sought protection and support from Great Britain so strongly that she needed to prove her loyalty.
However throughout the war, and particularly during the last eight months Norway had to subordinate her regional interests to the global considerations of the Great Powers. In spite of her efforts, neither Great Britain nor the United States gave any effective military support to Norway, and Norway exposed herself alone to the Russian demand for the session of Bear Island and the establishiment of a Soviet-Norwegian condominium for the rest of the Svalbard archipelago. It led the Norwegian government to the conclusion that Norway, being situated in the periphery, could expect no all-out political support from any of the Allied Great Powers. Subsequently the Norwegian government-in-exile re-oriented her foreign policies toward Sweden and the Soviet Union. Military cooperation with Sweden was not realized because of the delay of the Great Powers' approval, but it was the Soviet forces that did a major service to the liberation of North Norway.
Here one can find the origin of the ‘bridgebuilding policy’, which means to balance between ‘East’ and ‘West’ by conducting a wise and unprovocative foreign policy in order to ward off dangers to her security primarily, and hopefully to lead to world peace. The hard experiences of the Second World War taught the Norwegian government-in-exile to come in practical contacts with both Powers and seek friendly relationships with them. This policy is not traditional neutrality, but something which we could call ‘practical neutrality’.