BODO, Norway — From his command post burrowed deep into a mountain of quartz and slate north of the Arctic Circle, the 54-year-old commander of the Norwegian military’s operations headquarters watches time flowing backward, pushed into reverse by surging Russian military activity redolent of East-West sparring during the Cold War.

“I am what you could call a seasoned Cold Warrior,” the commander, Lt. Gen. Morten Haga Lunde, said, speaking in an underground complex built to withstand a nuclear blast. As a result, he added, he is not too alarmed by increased Russian military activity along NATO’s northern flank.

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The Norwegian parliament has voted in a strong majority on a bill aimed at extending mandatory military service to females. If the legislation is approved, all women in the country will be subject to the same conscription conditions as men.

The proposition, which was first announced in June 2013, was passed in Oslo this week, with 96 parliamentarians voting in favor of gender equality in the army. Only six voted against it.

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Given the number of visiting delegations that troop into the Australian parliament to watch the occasionally bruising debate, it’s perhaps fortunate that there were a distinct lack of Norwegians present when Joe Hockey announced the demise of the mining tax on Tuesday.

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In the heart of Norway’s countryside, the U.S. military is bolstering its arsenal of weapons with tanks, gun trucks and other armored vehicles along with hundreds of containers of equipment.

The Marine Corps is overseeing the effort, which expands the existing Marine Corps Prepositioning Program. It stashes weapons, vehicle and armor in several locations across the world, including Norway, which first signed an agreement with the United States to do so in 1981, Marine officials said.

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