It’s time once again to feature some of the smart conversations that occur around the country through the Eisenhower Series College Program. For over 50 years, the Eisenhower Program has reached out to colleges and town halls across the nation to introduce War College students to audiences that are often unfamiliar with members of the U.S. military. This time we have two officers of NATO’s northern front in the studio, Norwegian Steinar Dahl and Canadian Eric Landry. They join podcast editor Ron Granieri to present their thoughts on the NATO alliance and their country’s contributions to the organization. The conversation focuses on interoperability, what the war in Ukraine has revealed about NATO and what the organization’s world role might be after that war has ended.
We’ve titled this “Revisited” because regular listeners might remember that in 2020 A BETTER PEACE sat down with Major General Torgeir Gråtrud, commander of the Norwegian Special Operations Command, to discuss his perspectives on strategic leadership and Norway’s role in NATO.
Because the U.S. invests so much in modernization and technology, if you outpace your allies, then you make some minor allies become irrelevant…If the U.S. comm[unication] suite is so advanced that we can’t keep up, then we can’t talk to each other. It’s not like back in the 80’s, when everybody was just on VHF.
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Col Steinar Dahl has 30 years of service in the Norwegian Armed Forces. He has served at every level from riflemen to joint staff. He has multiple deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq and served as the Deputy Chief of Staff of Strategy Plans and Policy for the Norwegian Army before coming to the U.S. Army War College. He is a graduate of the AY23 Resident Course at the U.S. Army War College.
Col Eric Landry joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1994 as an officer in the Armor branch. He led army personnel from a reconnaissance troop of 20 soldiers to a mechanized brigade of 4200 soldiers. He deployed on international missions to Bosnia, twice to Afghanistan, and in the Middle East. He has also conducted domestic operations from sovereignty patrols in the Arctic to flood relief in southern Quebec. He is a graduate of the AY23 Resident Course at the U.S. Army War College.
Ron Granieri is Professor of History at the U.S. Army War College and the Editor of A BETTER PEACE.
The views expressed in this presentation are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect those of the Norwegian Ministry of Defence, Canadian Department of National Defence, U.S. Army War College, U.S. Army, or Department of Defense.
Photo Description: Ships from Standing NATO Maritime Group One (SNMG1) and Two (SNMG2) sail in formation during a NATO capabilities demonstration on 29 October 2018 in the Trondheim Fjord in Norway as part of NATO exercise Trident Juncture. Norwegian frigate HNoMS Helge Ingstad (front) is part of SNMG1 and following close behind is Canadian frigate HMCS Ville de Quebec of SNMG2.
Photo Credit: LCDR Pedro Miguel Ribeiro Pinhei