Norway has ordered 52 of the U.S.-made advanced F-35 fighters and is scheduled to receive them all by 2025. NORWEGIAN ARMED FORCES
THE WATCH
The Royal Norwegian Air Force has integrated its command-and-control units into a Joint Air Operations Center (JAOC) with the goal of greater efficiency as well as interoperability with allies. The JAOC, which will be based in Sørreisa, merges the National Air Operations Center, Special Operations Air Task Group (SOATG) and 131 Air Wing, according to a January 5, 2024, story in the Norwegian newspaper High North News.
The 131 Air Wing, which is responsible for the Norwegian control and warning system, has been called “NATO’s eyes in the North” and already is headquartered in Sørreisa. “This [restructuring] is necessary for us to utilize modern weapon[s] systems efficiently, as well as lead air operations that support all domains,” Brig. Gen. Tron Strand, head of the JAOC, told High North News.
Those modern systems include the U.S.-built P-8 Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft and the F-35 Lightning II multi-role fighter. The Royal Norwegian Air Force (RNoAF) has been undergoing a decades-long evolution through the development of new bases and the acquisition of advanced warplanes, according to High North News and an August 19, 2022, news release from the Norwegian Armed Forces.
These changes will also help the RNoAF increase its cooperation with the air forces of other Nordic nations. Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden already have agreed to create a unified Nordic air defense based on NATO operational methods, according to a March 24, 2023, story by Reuters. “The realization of this endeavor would herald a paradigm shift. … Instead of acting relatively independently within their own air spaces, they will act as one cohesive military force responsible for the security of an area the size of Brazil,” wrote the Georgetown Security Studies Review on January 18, 2024.
This shift in Norwegian defense thinking is being driven by neighbor Russia and its expansionist goals. “If [Russian President Vladimir] Putin wins in Ukraine, there is no reason to believe that he will stop there. The international legal order is under attack, and it is serious for a country like Norway,” Defence Minister Bjørn Arild Gram said in a speech to the Oslo Military Society, according to a February 5 transcript by the Military of Defense. “We must be ready for the possibility that Russia will reassess its plans and where it positions its forces in response to Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership,” Gram said.
Finland joined the alliance in April 2023. Sweden recently acceded to the military alliance, but it was already starting to “operate actively within NATO’s frameworks” prior to its membership, according to a February 10, 2024, online report by the network Euronews. Norway is in the process of increasing its interoperability with NATO by integrating its Norwegian Joint Headquarters (NJHQ) operations into NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command in Norfolk, Virginia, in the U.S. The command is tasked with multi-domain protection of the transatlantic alliance and the Arctic.
Oslo also recently expanded a 2021 defense agreement with the United States that would open eight areas for the U.S. military to build infrastructure with the goal of strengthening cooperation with the Nordic nations, according to a February 2, 2024, story in The Barents Observer newspaper. The amendment, called the Supplementary Defense Cooperation Agreement (SDCA), is awaiting approval of the Norwegian Parliament.
Before the SDCA between the Nordic air forces was signed, its prospect was called the “most serious attempt” by those nations to “shore up defenses against Russian aggression” since the invasion of Ukraine, according to a June 21, 2023, story in Foreign Policy magazine. “Centralizing command … will likely give the alliance more flexibility in dealing with threats on the fly,” the magazine said.
A large-scale preparation for dealing with those threats occurred in March when participants from more than a dozen countries participate in NATO’s Nordic Response 2024, an all-domain exercise across Finland, Norway and Sweden that will be the biggest undertaking for the alliance inside the Arctic Circle, according to The Barents Observer.
“In today’s security environment, we must continue to strengthen the relationship with our allies,” Defense Minister Gram said after signing the SDCA, according to Reuters. “It is important for our security and for the entire Nordic region.”