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Abstract
The Norwegian Armed Forces has seen extensive reforms since the early 1990s. It has been changed from a large, conscription-based, reservist-dominated territorial Defense force to a smaller, more proficient, and flexible force. However, this process has been far from linear, and to this day the Norwegian Armed Forces retains significant elements of its organizational and cultural cold war heritage. We argue that national security concerns, domestic politics and financial constraints have played the main role in shaping the reform of the Armed Forces. This argument gives an alternative to explanations offered by previous research, which has tended to emphasize the role played by international influences, such as the NATO operations in the Balkans and Afghanistan, as well as NATO and US reform initiatives. While external factors undoubtedly have shaped the direction and tempo of the reforms, our findings point to long-standing structural and financial imbalances as the key explanation of the current structure of the Norwegian Armed Forces.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, Elin Gustavsen, Torun Laugen Haaland, Lars Haugom Per Martin Norheim-Martinsen, and Ida Oma for their support and insightful comments. Any errors or omissions in this article are entirely our own.
Notes
1. Of this number, only around 30,000 troops were standing peacetime forces. The overwhelming majority were civilian reservists who had undergone 12 months military service. See Bogen and Håkenstad Citation2015, pp. 31, 32.
2. While this acquisition has been controversial not least due to the high costs, both the current conservative government and the main opposition parties have remained committed to purchasing 52 planes.
3. As of 2014, The Armed Forces’ requirement is about 13% of each age cohort. See Vernepliktsutvalget Citation2015, the number of employees has been reduced from 11,952 military and 9446 civilians in 1995 to 11,850 and 5476, respectively, in 2014, See Bogen and Håkenstad Citation2015, p. 161, NAF Citation2014.
4. Today, the Norwegian Armed Forces consists of 17,000 employees and 8000 conscripts. In addition, mobilization can bring the total wartime strength up to a total of about 70,000. See NAF (Citation2015).
5. In this article, we use the term “civil-military relations” to denote the relationship between the top military and political leadership.
6. General Diesen has later further developed this view, see Diesen Citation2011, Diesen and Narum Citation2013, 2014.
7. When presented with the four-month deployment schedule of the Norwegian Army’s Rapid reaction battalion, the British General Michael Jackson allegedly quipped: “Are they going to walk down?” See Bogen and Håkenstad Citation2015, p. 98.
8. See also Petersson Citation2011.