The Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI) convened a public discussion focused on evolving European security dynamics and the strategic rise of the Nordic region, featuring Ms. Hedda Langemyr, founder of UTSYN – Centre for Security and Resilience, Norway, as guest speaker.
Dr. Neelum Nigar, Director of the Centre for Strategic Perspectives at ISSI, welcomed the speaker and participants and stressed the growing importance of European security thinking for policy circles in Pakistan. She noted that exchanges of this kind strengthen informed debate and broaden understanding of emerging geopolitical realities.
Ambassador Khalid Mahmood, Chairman of ISSI’s Board of Governors, framed the discussion within a wider return to power-based competition and strategic uncertainty. He observed that long-held assumptions about European stability have been tested in recent years, prompting states to revisit deterrence, sovereignty, and strategic autonomy. Ambassador Mahmood underlined that developments across Europe, the Arctic, the Baltic and the North Atlantic carry implications that reach beyond Europe to regions such as South Asia.
Ms. Hedda Langemyr delivered the keynote by arguing that contemporary international politics is shifting away from institutional reassurance toward outcomes determined more directly by leverage and hard power. She explained how geography and history shape Norway’s security posture, combining deterrence with calibrated reassurance during the Cold War, and how those legacies inform current policy choices.
Langemyr highlighted the Arctic’s growing geopolitical salience driven by climate change, economic competition and renewed great power interest. She drew attention to new vulnerabilities affecting critical infrastructure, especially undersea cables, alongside hybrid pressure, cyber operations and sustained disinformation campaigns. Such risks, she said, require a reorientation toward robust whole-of-society preparedness and coordination — an approach described across the Nordics as total defence and central to modern Nordic security planning.
While acknowledging Europe’s material strengths, Langemyr warned that the central challenge remains cohesion and strategic coordination. She called for closer cooperation among small and medium-sized states, enhanced research partnerships and sustained dialogue between Europe and regions including South Asia, stressing that such ties can help manage shared risks and strengthen collective resilience.
The session concluded with a lively question-and-answer segment reflecting strong audience interest in the subject and regional implications. Ms. Hedda Langemyr was presented with an ISSI memento by Ambassador Khalid Mahmood at the end of the event.
