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Title: Built fjord tough: Why one American ally is surging defense spending
Summary: Oslo's $152B military spending plan ranks as the most ambitious long-term commitment to security in the country's history.

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The Ukraine war and Vladimir Putin’s aggression has transformed Western security policy in countless ways. In Norway, that transformation has a new price tag: $152 billion.



Norway on Friday unveiled a 12-year, $56 billion defense boost that ranks as the country’s most ambitious long-term commitment to its security in its history. The news comes as the NATO alliance faces unprecedented tests from both Russia’s war in Ukraine and a U.S. election that could bring new strains to the 75-year-old group.



“We need a defense that is fit for purpose in the emerging security environment,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said in a speech Friday. “As our security environment is deteriorating, we need to spend more on and pay more attention to defense and preparedness.”



The two-party government that runs the country is looking to spend a total of $152 billion between now and 2036 on defense.



The move comes as European countries continue their yearslong hikes in defense budgets, which started slowly after Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine and seizure of Crimea, and sped up after Moscow launched its February 2022 full-scale invasion of the country.



Norway has had a robust defense industry for decades, producing air defense systems and missiles and rockets for itself and international customers. That includes the U.S., which co-produces and buys air defenses and munitions from the Nordic nation of 5.4 million people.



A day before the announcement, Norway’s deputy defense minister, Anne Marie Aanerud, previewed some of the details of the plan in an interview in Washington on Thursday with POLITICO.



Can you give some detail on why Norway is proposing this huge spending increase, and what areas you are targeting for more funding?



The context is that we see that we need major investments in our forces, and 12 years will allow for a longer planning cycle and more predictability.



Of course, what it also does is it commits the political parties in parliament over several election cycles to invest. So, while we have been working on this plan we have been working with all the political parties in parliament in order to secure broad support for it, and our goal is to have a broad majority of political parties represented in parliament voting for this plan in order for the funding to be stable over the entire duration of the plan.



Do you think that there is broad support in parliament to put the plan into action?



It might not sound like something extraordinary, but it’s very, very unusual that a government goes to the opposition parties in parliament and talks to them about how to make a plan before they even have designed the plan [internally]. Usually, you just make the plan and then you hand it over and they work on it. But we have a very good tradition in Norway of coming together when the stakes are high and this is definitely one of those times. We think it’s very, very important that we start building our armed forces back up.



My prediction is that there will be broad support in parliament for increasing [weapons] production because we see very broad parliamentary and public support for Ukraine in Norway. And we also see that more and more parties see that we need to invest more in our defense industrial base and in our armed forces, so we don’t expect this to be very controversial.



What are the top areas you most want to invest in?



We have prioritized four different things which are critical to Ukraine, but also to the NATO alliance. Those are high explosives — which Norway has been a key producer of — rocket engines, missiles and artillery ammunition. So those are the four areas of focus for products that we are ramping up production of, and those are all also areas where Norway plays a key role in the alliance. We are a niche producer of certain items, and these are the most important ones to the alliance right now.



Looking toward Ukraine, obviously they need artillery ammunition. So how do these investments aid not only Norway and NATO, but in helping Ukraine fight and rebuild its own defense industrial base? 



The first phase of what we are doing is we are increasing our net national production, and that will enable us to donate more. But we are at the same time giving money to the Czech initiative to buy more artillery shells for Ukraine from third party states. We’re trying to just help Ukraine in any way we can.



We have a five-year, $7 billion Ukraine fund set up, and the good thing about that fund is that it’s very flexible. It’s 50/50 for civil and military components in that fund. But the most important thing about the fund is that it’s supposed to answer Ukraine’s needs. So it’s very flexible.



How is Norway contributing to the wider Ukraine Defense Contact Group effort to support Ukraine militarily?



One of our biggest efforts is investing in artillery ammunition production [at home], but we have recently announced that we will contribute $160 million to the Czech initiative to buy more artillery from third countries to send to Ukraine.



We co-lead the maritime capability coalition together with the U.K., and we have announced that we will donate F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. We contribute to fighter pilot training [for Ukrainian pilots] in Denmark and we are contributing as much air defense as we can.



So those are our main efforts. And of course, we contribute to training Ukrainian soldiers throughout Europe as well. So there are many lines of effort and artillery ammunition is just one of them. But ammunition is an important line of effort because Nammo is one of four European producers of artillery ammunition and Nammo ramping up production will obviously be important for Ukraine.



Given these new investments in your industrial base, when do you expect to see more material actually being available?



When it comes to artillery ammunition, it will take somewhere from two to three years to get the newer equipment running, and they also have to build buildings to house them and all that. So two to three years, around the same when it comes to missiles. As for the high explosives, I think the timeline might be shorter — the companies have the production facilities they need for it now so they don’t really have to build it. They just have to expand production and hiring, that kind of thing.



It will take some time, and that’s why 2024 is going to be a difficult year for Ukraine. And that’s why the Czech initiative is so good because it’s sourcing ammunition from third-party countries. Allies have already donated a lot and some smaller countries don’t really have much more they can donate before their own stockpiles reach a critical level.



The last several NATO gatherings have featured a lot of talk about trying to get defense companies from multiple countries to pool their efforts. Is that a way forward to speed up production? 



I think part of what we need to look at going forward is to have more of an open dialogue between countries about the situation where, at least in Europe, different countries have different industries that produce different components.



It’s the same value chain, and sometimes, even though one country is ramping up production, you don’t really get the effect that you’re looking for because there is a bottleneck in a company in a different country. We need international cooperation in order to solve those problems, between industry and governments.



What is your hope or your expectation for the NATO summit in Washington in July? Where do you hope the Ukraine will be by then?



First and foremost, I think it’s important that the alliance celebrates and shows how united and strong it is, and that we come out of that anniversary unified and that we have a really good discussion about how we can increase our industrial base production, but also move forward on other important issues.



So the way I see it, celebrating the strength of the organization is the most important part, showing that strength to the rest of the world.
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Author: Paul McLeary
PublishedDate: 2024-04-06
Category: Europe
NewsPaper: Politico EU
Tags: Air defense, Artillery, Buildings, Companies, Cooperation, Defense, Defense budgets, Elections, Environment, History, Industry, Maritime, Military, Missiles, Munitions, NATO Summit, Parliament, Policy, Produce, Remedies and commitments, Rights, Security, U.S. elections, War, War in Ukraine