The Norwegian government has proposed increasing its defence budget for 2025 by NOK 19.2 billion, bringing the total budget to NOK 110.1 billion, just under £8 billion.
The Norwegian government says this increase not only reflects Norway’s commitment to national security but also exceeds NATO’s target of 2.16 per cent of the gross national product (GDP) allocated to defence spending.
This proposal was announced on October 7, 2024.
Defence Minister Bjørn Arild Gram spoke of the necessity of this budgetary adjustment, stating, “The government prioritizes security because the world has become less safe. With this budget proposal, we are taking greater responsibility both for our own security and for allied security.”
The proposal marks the first major step in fulfilling Norway’s long-term defence plan, which was approved by a united Parliament earlier this year.
Among the key parts of the budget increase, approximately NOK 5 billion is allocated to enhance the capabilities of the Norwegian Armed Forces. This funding will primarily focus on acquiring additional ammunition, improving preparedness, and increasing personnel numbers.
Furthermore, over NOK 7 billion will be directed toward material investments, which include projects already underway, such as the procurement of new F-35 combat aircraft, submarines, and maritime surveillance capabilities.
In addition to the procurement of advanced military equipment, the proposal includes NOK 1 billion for property and construction to preserve and renew military facilities.
An additional NOK 600 million will be invested to improve living conditions for armed forces personnel and boost operational capabilities. The Home Guard will also receive a boost of NOK 277 million.
The government has outlined plans to increase the number of military personnel, with an aim to add around 300 employees, 400 conscripts, and 600 reservists by the end of 2025.
With the proposed budget, Norway is expected to maintain its commitment to NATO standards, as it met the two percent GDP target in 2024. For 2025, the estimated GDP share of the defence budget will be around 2.15 percent, with the share reaching 2.16 percent when excluding the Nansen funds, which involve re-acquisitions.
The overall increase in the defence budget, excluding technical adjustments for price and wage growth, stands at NOK 16.5 billion.
you see a bit more ambition and the numbers can be done, take note two tier kier
Little chance of that marxist TTK thinking about increasing defence spending. Even less next month when President Trump wins his second term. We can expect more cuts every year just to spite Pres Trump. Until the country kick Two Tier him out of number 10. Sadly things are going to become far worse before they start to improve. Let’s hope the CCP led alliance are kind enough to wait while we catch up. It seems they intend to start wars on five fronts to keep the US and NATO fully occupied. While they go about their long planned regional land… Read more »
What are you on about? It would make sense if the various prime ministers of the last 15 years had been chucking money at defence, but I don’t think they did. No PM of any party has spent well on defence in decades. I honestly cannot see that the flavour of government makes an awful lot of difference to defence. None of them ever see it as a priority.
👍
Sorry to burst your bubble, Boris actually put some money into defence. Ok it was a one off and but he still did. But he was awas always onto a hiding to nothing with COVID
Have to agree, personally I think we’re getting the piss taken out of us.
They can raise the money because traditionally their defence spending has been profoundly low..this is a nation with a full time army of 4000 personnel. For most of the last Decade its defence spending has been under 1.5% of its GDP..that whooping 21% increase is infact only 1.3 billion pounds or about the same increase as the UK defence budget every year. So really let’s not pretend it’s something it’s not.
Well said 👏
I’m quite shocked that Norway spent so little given reinforcing Norway is major uk commitment in times of crisis.
Reinforcing Norway was a major commitment during the cold war.
The lack of threat to Norway is a big part of the reason the UK’s own Amphibious Capability has atrophied and why the RM shifted their focus away from working as a formed brigade.
Even during the height of the Cold War, the total NATO commitment to Norway was 4 brigades (1 British, 1 American, 1 Canadian and potentially Allied Command Europe’s Mobile Force (North)).
🤣🤣🤣
Got an actual point to make?
What does Google say ?
So no.
What “lack of threat”?
They share a border with Russia!
Frank, do you really need me to go through a history of NATO-Russian relations since the Cold War?
Suffice to say, Norway has been under exactly zero threat of a defensive War with Russia until the 2010’s, and even after that, only by virtue of a NATO article 5 situation.
Quite probably the case in the past, but the Norwegians have recently comprehended the threat signal–five by five. Further, have a $1+T sovereign wealth fund to implement increased defence spending. Pleased that the descendants of some of the Vikings have chosen to remain on side.
To be honest they still don’t have the same capabilities as Finland to actually defend themselves, they don’t have the same mass mobilisation structures in place..they are very dependent on geography and climate doing the job for them..which actually may not be entirely wrong…but Germany provided it’s doable..and a lot of their undersea infrastructure is even more at risk than the Uks….effectively at best deployment/full mobilisation Norway is planning for 2 brigades. When you consider Finlands full mobilisation plan is for 11 brigades, backed by 2 independent mechanised battle groups, 14 independent infantry battalions and a further 28 territorial independent… Read more »
Granted, manpower is a definite constraint for the Norwegians, but $1+T should still underwrite the purchase of a reasonable amount of cutting edge weaponry. 😉 Would guesstimate that the Norwegian homeland defence plan consists of blocking/delaying actions to impede the Orcs until NATO reinforcements arrive. 🤔😳
But the UK spends 2.3% of GDP on defence and has pledged to raise it to 2.5% while Norway is rising to 2.16%.
Nah nah nah , U.K. spends 2 percent of gdp on defence , the rest of funding for Ukraine . 4 percent should be the minimum to deter any aggressor . Also , spending should match the threat and not gdp share .
so does everyone else in NATO including Norway and the USA. Foreign defence aid is counted as defence spending under NATO rules.
If sending matched the threat to the UK it would be significantly lower. The threat to the UK is close to zero.
Pre 1939 the UK has always spent around 2% of GDP on defence.
Not over spending on defence during peace time is the main reason we haven’t lost a major war in 300 years.
General Patrick sanders and many others would disagree with you buddy
Pre-1939 the UK did NOT always spend around 2% of GDP. You can look at multiple datasets and none of them show that. Around 1930/31, the UK spent around 1.5% to 2.5%, the low point of 20th century spending. By 1934 it had risen to between 2.7% to 3.5%. By 1938 it was around 4.5% to 8%. Even by the most pessimistic datasets, in only 8 years of the 20th century did the spending drop as low as 2% or lower, in the late 1900s and early 1930s. For a significant proportion of the latter half of the 19th century… Read more »
You’re making it up.
Why is he two tier starmer?
Also, who was in charge of defence for the last 14 years? Who got rid of the fixed wing carrier aviation and the harriers?
the u.k will be shooting itself in the foot if it overly spoils relations with the nation whose trade amounts to a high percentage of the U.K national trade numbers. we may have reservations about the Chinese, but to be frank there’s very little real information about the longer term ambitions they have .
I quite agree; with a sufficiently strong deterrent (very absent at the moment), there’s less need to be so outwardly adversarial with China
The issue is china fights its wars in a very different way to the west and all evidence is, including chinas own statements is that it is now and has been for a while fighting that war. The west can try and play nice but until china gets what it wants it will continue to fight that war.
Yes. Its a sign of either Chinese brilliance, or western ignorance, that so many people do not realize that China is essentially operating on a war footing, which covers all bases (including economy). Its a miracle that they can significantly ramp up the size of their armed forces, increase nuclear capacity, increase efforts to sanction proof their economy and detach it from the dollar, try to build a network of non western aligned allies, act in other western aligned countries to try to remove that western alliance, bend over backwards to try to be food self-sufficient and where not possible… Read more »
Except its known they have been building up stocks of essential war materials for 5 years to withstand a blockade; sort of thing we should be doing.
Yes, the main point was the “so many people do not realize that China is essentially operating on a war footing.” For the people that are aware, our governments (and much of the other western worlds) response to them is absolutely bemusing. It seems to be, put you head in the sand and not complain as long as we are making money. Even if the window to make money is getting smaller and smaller due to China essentially not “needing us” anymore.
I see our comments regarding the dubious nature of scientific research have disappeared. Speaking of funding bias etc
yes, during covid a certain person on this site was heavily pro v, but in a disingeneous way. Their stance was a “trust the science and the msm” which sounded reasonable, until it was combined with removing any and all comments that were questioning or not supportive of the v roll out.
You’ll also note that there is no recent article on the chagos.
But what information there is, is very alarming! Add that to the accelerated growth of their armed forces and clearly the threat they pose is very real. We need to remove the CCP from as many supply chains as humanly possible , as a prelude to any military confrontation.
There is actually a huge amount, the way the communist party works is that they actually publish what they are planning…pretty much everyone knows chinas goals… 1) the unification of china ( taking Taiwan ) using any and all means possible. 2) China achieving it’s potential as the dominant hegemonic power in the world 3) china directly controlling all the china seas as per the 9 dash line policy 4) the continued political supremacy of the CCP in china thats their goals in a nut shell…they are published and they have published plans about how they will achieve this…being a… Read more »
Hi Mate -good post and analysis on the CCCP dragon.
And we surrender the Chagos Archipelago after over 200 years because we believe in justice from the ICJ and WEF etc. Unbelievably foolhardy. I can see the plan. Its happening in Gibraltar but nobody notices what is about to happen. Surrender control of the airfield yet retain the remainder. With the Chagos we only retain with the USA the actual base island Diego Garcia all of the remainder goes to Mauritius who never owned it and are friends with China. Next we will surrender South Georgia and the other Islands to Argentina probably West Falkland too. I reckon everything that… Read more »
To be honest I think the core reason HMG go ride of the the Chagos islands was related to a possible back door migration route and the fact we only kept them for the US so it can have its air base..and the fact that it was being used in a political warfare campaign, we could not used the defence that a population wanted to stay British..really the only important bit of the islands is the US airbase and that protected…and let’s be clear if Mauritius then play games it’s a Mauritius vs US issue. Remember this negotiation around the… Read more »
They are the number one threat with islamisation is a close second. The world has become a very dangerous place.
It’s hard to fully judge the threats in order as they sort of cross over and some are more of a threat in some areas than others. From a world war that does not go nuclear but over years shatters the world’s economy and kills possibly millions I would put china at first place. For triggering a back swan nuclear event and possible Armageddon I would still put that nutter in Russia as first place ( I don’t think china would initiate a nuclear exchange..but I think Russia could) and second place for a possibly of a European war that… Read more »
Delving deeper, assessing each “axis of evil” threat. I still place Iran and islamisation in general, second for sound reasons. But this forum frowns upon contributors expressing opinions that go against the woke agenda. So what more can I say?
How about Iranian nuclear weapons, huge investments destroying Israel and ushering in the 13th imam. Centre for the Study of Political Islam/International
To be honest George as I said each is different and offers a different level of risk balances of harm vs likelihood…for pure potential harm in reality Russia still tops the field simply because Russia can potentially end humanity, it has enough nuclear warheads to essentially stop food production for well over a decade..but the likelihood of that happening is lower..where as Iran and its sponsored extremists are a lot more likely occurrence ( infact we know they are a constantly actualised risk ) but the level of harm they do is far far less the the total destruction of… Read more »
Thank you for your very well presented arguments Jonathan. Assessing potential harm vs likelihood is a clear method of risk assessment. Indeed, I further agree that it is difficult to predict the actions of others. Especially those who do not share our western Judaeo-Christian morality and ethics. That in a nutshell is my primary point and main concern when it comes to guessing likelihood. In my humble opinion our Russian european cousins share considerably more in common with us than either the CCP Chinese or theocratic Iranians and islamists ever can. Moreover, I firmly believe that our shared values with… Read more »
I think with Iran, it is possible to creat the events for the government to be overthrown it’s profoundly unpopular with almost all of its population essentially hating it. It’s a classic example of if a small group of people are brutal enough they can hold the many in thrall, but with external support they could be removed..personally I think the west and the Middle Eastern monarchies should do unto Iran as it’s doing unto others and hammer it with massive levels of political warfare operations…
I couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately, nuclear weapons are easily operated by the few brutal Shiite fundamentalists. Capable of being deployed by many different methods. Shipping container and truck being the most worrying.
There is plenty of information about chinas long term plans they are going around the world trying to get control of rare earth minerals they have a land dispute with virtually every single neighbour it has its growing it’s military and global influence it’s said it’s going to gain control of sovereign taiwan and claims a ocean it’s pretty clear what it’s long term plans are
The UK & the rest of the west already shot ourselves in the foot by exporting so much of our manufacturing to the PRC, feeding the beast that threatens us. Relations are spoilt by continually launching cyber attacks against us, repressing their own people, gazumping the SCS, threatening to invade Taiwan, backing nutters like Kim & Putin, interfering in elections etc.
Very well said. I hope your comment remains here for all to see.
They’ve worked out what’s going to happen to us when the Strategic Defence Cuts Review is published.
To include T26 frigates one hopes.
Stories like this give me a little (probably misplaced) hope for the next SDSR. Everyone else seems to be waking up and smelling the bacon on the likelihood of war in the very near future
Next time Kier is heading towards his limo and a journalist says are you planning on raising defence spending by 21% Prime Minister perhaps he will say no I’m increasing it by 100%. That said most of the people on here will still find fault with it.😂
I don’t suppose anyone is going to complain that Norway, like almost all NATO countries, includes expenditure on such things as military pensions in its calculations and thus it can’t possibly be meeting its NATO obligation of 2% despite NATO specifically allowing for such things to be included in the military spending target.
He quite possibly could say 100%, doesnt mean its true or will happen!
To be fair I am not sure Kier has ever said very much will ever happen 😂. Seems to be quite good at that. Therefore nobody will be disappointed.
Mainly because he has no discernible ideas and no discernible policies? If he has he hasn’t made much effort to communicate them.
I thought the last lot were awful.
These clowns are worse – how is that possible?
Not worse. I’d take vague ideas over a trainwreck any day
Kier was the one telling everyone how bad the last lot were even when they were trying to tell us Ukraine was about to be invaded. Apparantly Boris having some birthday cake was worse than an invasion. Perhaps the British people will start taking a bit more notice of policy and ignore the character assasinations in future.
I would certainly not complain, only question the validity of the statement. It being from the orifice of TTK.
In truth, Russia is far from broken and is currently ratcheting up its arms industry to keep fighting Ukraine for years. Who can tell if Putin is to remain within the confines of that conflict in the coming months and years? Norway has smelt the air and doesn’t like what it is seeing. If only the British Government had a similar approach other than warning of defence cuts at a time of critical danger to the peace of Europe.
Russia is spending 41% of its budget and 8% of its GDP on defense. At least, that’s what they publicly acknowledge. Thats’s the same expenditure a much stronger Soviet Union had at the end of the Cold War. The Soviets realized that that was unsustainable. It’s also unsustainable for present day Russia. The question that’s unanswerable is when does the Russian economy collapse if the war keeps on in its present case of stalemate.
Maybe.
USSR didn’t supply as much oil and gas as Russia does today.
Yes the USSR economic, industrial and food production model collapsed…in reality you can keep pushing huge amounts of your GDP into war preparations for a very long time…it took 45 years for the Soviet Union to fall apart.
The worry is that in reality china is spending around the 7% mark on the totality of Harding itself for war as well. The CCP are not idiots they know that’s unsustainable and that’s how the USSR lost…so the question is why have they over that last 5 years ramped it up to that level..one answer is they plan to go to war.
Sorry but Xi Jin Ping is clearly an idiot. He took the worlds greatest economic miracle and fucked it up in juts 10 years.
Jim, that makes me feel secure because ? It’s the funking idiots of this world that cause world wars and kill untold millions…infact the more he fucks it up the more likely we are to have a world war.
Hi Jonathan, the 7% figure mentioned – are you referencing a % of total Chinese state expenditure? Surely that cannot be defence spend as a % of GDP.
Hi Klonkie, not defence spending, the 7% is Harding itself for war, which is a wider set of expenditure than just defence..at present china is spending money like water on the following domains to prepare for war that go beyond defence 1) Harding of economy..it’s probably expending around 2% of GDP on Harding its industrial infrastructure and economy to be war ready. 2) internal security..china is mad on this..I think it has around 1.5million internal security personnel and more advanced monitoring per person than any other nation on earth ( it knows when are where it’s population moves about). This… Read more »
thanks for the detailed reply- that make much sense.
Just like the Soviet Union their economy will collapse when oil prices drop significantly.
And perhaps equally importantly, what decisions does a despotic leader make when the Russian economy collapses? Able to generate a few possible scenarios, ranging from ugly to God-awful. 🤔
Nobody knows what the UK Government is thinking. They were given a blank cheque.
O/T but NLO is reporting Fort Vic to be placed in long term layup. CSG2025 solid stores ship will be HMNoS Maud.
Is it my imagination or does this shift simply put Norway above the 2% target.
Exactly but not phased over X years.
Not phased means cash chucked at suppliers?
That’s not easy to do. Most suppliers expect their Government to dither for years before dithering themselves and eventually putting in a bill 20 years later. What can they possibly buy off the shelf for an extra 21%..
It certainly sounds like it!
All this while Kier ditthers over accepting more “freebees” and gives blank cheques to the unions.
And gives away sovereign land that might come in very handy in the future
We retain the base, the military aspect of the territory is unaffected.
We retain a base on someone else’s land I’ve yet to see the details and we also pay for the privilege of renting something that was ours in the first place won fighting the French where British troops gave blood for this isn’t a good deal
You are living in dreamland. We retain nothing but a tiny flag on the beach if we are lucky as a face saver. Its total surrender and betrayal. The USA carries on with its base and the rest will be Mauritius. You think they will not let everyone in to the Archipelago to over fish? We declared it a Marine Reserve.
It seems everyone is increasing defence spending exept the UK . Come Starmer , we are getting left behind
But the UK is increasing defence spending and it spends more than Norway as a % of GEP or any other major European nation over the he past 30 years.
Yes most seem to not realise that this 21% increase in Norways spend is about 1.3billion which is less than the MODs normal annual increase.
While in the UK cuts still rule……
Well done Norway , and in the mean time Starmer government have plans to cut. Could go on but won’t 🙄
The comments section here is like reading the intrusive thoughts of those that finished school at 9🤣.
Re the headline I’m not sure I’d characterise a 21% increase as “whopping”. I’m thinking of the numerous comments on this site wanting the UK to move from a 2% of GDP official target to a 2.5% of GDP target. Assuming constant GDP that would be a 25% increase and from the comments I’ve seen here over the years, and my own personal perceptions, if such a 25% increase in UK defence spending were to happen I personally, while being very happy about it, would characterise it as maybe a reasonably encouraging first step but certainly not a whopping increase.… Read more »