Norway will infuse an additional $12 billion during the next decade into a defense plan it enacted in 2024. Oslo needs the spending increase because equipment costs — and threats — continue to escalate, according to Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre. “We are now taking steps to adjust the [Long-term Defence Plan 2025-2036] to ensure more effective development of our defence capabilities in a more uncertain world,” Støre said in a March 2026 government news release.
Norway, like other NATO members, is boosting its military budget in the wake of neighboring Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and the United States’ calls for Alliance members to shoulder more responsibility for European security. If Parliament approves the increase, Norway can reach a NATO target to spend 3.5% of its gross national product on defense by 2035.
The Nordic Defence Review journal pointed out Oslo’s economic strength as the catalyst for its “once-in-a-generation” military modernization. Because of its $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund, which is the world’s largest, Norway is the only country in Europe that does not need to borrow money to finance increased defense spending, according to Reuters.
“It costs a lot to invest in defense, but the costs of war are even higher. We are investing in defense and preparedness … to increase deterrence and prevent war, but we are prepared to defend Norway and NATO,” Norwegian Minister of Defence Tore Sandvik said in the government news release.
Sandvik calls his country “NATO’s eyes and ears” in the High North and Arctic. In addition to a land border, Norway shares a maritime boundary of more than 1,600 kilometers with Russia, where the Alliance can detect Moscow’s submarines heading toward the strategically important Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom gap and track them into the North Atlantic. The gap is the only passage for ships and submarines heading between the Arctic and open ocean.
“To be honest … after the Cold War, we haven’t done enough on our [defense] industry and we are definitely ramping up production in Norway, but we’re also buying a lot of new equipment,” Andreas Flam, state secretary to Norway’s defense minister, told United Kingdom newspaper The Times in a March 2026 report.
Norway’s equipment purchases include recent agreements to buy six submarines from Germany and at least five anti-submarine frigates from the U.K. as well as long-range rockets and artillery systems from the Republic of Korea, according to Reuters. Norway is also establishing its first permanent brigade in Finnmark, its northernmost county that borders Russia, and is incorporating Ukrainian defense technology firms in the design of its defenses, Norwegian Army Maj. Gen. Lars Lervik told The Times. Ukraine’s asymmetric tactics against Russia offer lessons for northern Europe’s defense, Lervik said.
“Norway, Finland, the Baltics and other NATO countries, we are … moving towards a ‘not-an-inch’ type of policy,” he said. “We’re increasing our capabilities and scaling up our ambitions to defending [our] territory” and being “ready not to lose the fight on day one … and still be in it four years later.”