Page 4 - Norwegian Special Report

Reshaping Norwegian Defense

In my interview with the Norwegian Deputy Minister of Defense held in his office in Oslo prior to the Airpower
Conference, Mr. Øystein BØ, emphasized the importance of Article III. “Article III is the obligation to have a
strong national defense and to be able to be a net contributor to security. There is no free ride in NATO,
we’ve all got to do our part to be able to defend each other.”

Presentations and meeting surrounding the recent Norwegian Airpower Conference highlighted key elements
of change, which are perceived to be necessary. The conference was focused on the F-35 but perhaps 15%
of the content discussed the asset – everything else was on the reset of national defense and the F-35 as well
as other assets were discussed in that context.

In my interview with Lt. General Jakobsen and the Commander of the Norwegian Joint Headquarter, he
characterized the overall approach as follows:

“We are creating the new national defense capabilities in order to create a threshold so that a violation of
Norwegian territory will not be cost effective.”

“And clearly we cannot do this alone, and hence our NATO membership and engagement with allies is crucial.
And with the nuclear dimension, clearly the American relationship along with Britain and France is crucial as
well.”

FIGURE 1 THE NORWEGIAN DEFENSE MINISTER SPEAKING AT THE NORWEGIAN AIRPOWER CONFERENCE, FEBRUARY 2017. CREDIT: SECOND LINE
OF DEFENSE
Several speakers highlighted the central significance of distributed strike or shaping a kill web to get
maximum effect from the force. Red Flag 17-1 highlighted this capability in terms of working relationships
between Typhoons and F-35s but this was seen by the Chiefs of the Norwegian Navy and Norwegian Army
as requiring a major cultural and technological shift to be able to execute distributed strike.
Second Line of Defense

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