In early 2008, the senior military service chiefs of both Norway and Sweden commented in the press that their respective militaries are too small to uphold their own defense, and they are evaluating change.1 The scope of these efforts ranges from immediate budget shortfalls to more long-term structural changes. In the short term, the Swedish military wants to sell surplus assets to meet operational unit needs.2 More medium-term opportunities focus on acquisition and personnel development for all the services.3 And long-term ideas seek to transform these militaries to better reflect the envisioned defense budgets of these nations based on current trends.
Despite these broad approaches to funding problems, each presents challenges that need to be addressed. And more importantly, these challenges and changes need to be considered not only by the leadership, but also by their military partners within the region and on its periphery. In particular, U.S. policymakers should study these changes and offer counsel, because the changes will affect the future military capability of the nations involved and subsequently affect U.S. military and defense policy in the Nordic region.
Selling assets to provide funds for operational units is only a stop-gap measure and will not produce any long-term benefit. In addition, this reflects a management failure that needs to be addressed for the future health of the organization. In the private sector, if an organization must sell assets to fund operations, the organization qualifies as a candidate for hostile takeover. Although this is not possible because of the nature of a sovereign military, management processes need to be improved to avoid this situation in the future. The Swedish military must develop a system that manages its assets effectively during both good times and bad.
Procurement and Maintenance
Medium-term opportunities exist in acquisition, maintenance, and personnel development. These areas focus on the procurement of service men and women and equipment, from simple articles to advanced weaponry. By combining these procurement activities, the Nordic militaries gain a buyer advantage and cost reduction. But the danger with this approach is that cost-cutting is the only goal, resulting in a force not capable of completing its mission. Thus, the definition of the mission and the military capabilities that the mission requires must be clearly articulated prior to procurement.
Possible long-term structural change also aligns conceptually with improving efficiencies and reducing costs. A Norwegian Defense spokesman commented last year that "a Nordic army should be Finnish, the air force Swedish, and Norway should take care of the navy."4 This idea focuses on the best military attributes of the three countries when compared to each other.
Finland has the largest army of the three nations, with a history of ground military success against the Soviet Union during World War II. Norway's coastal position along the North Sea demands that its navy operate on the high seas, which has produced a more competent and well-rounded force, compared to its Baltic-focused peers. The Swedish air force uses indigenous (Saab) aircraft comparable to the F-16, which Norway and Denmark are considering for adoption.5
Although this long-term restructuring concept seems to play to the strengths of three services, the result could be disastrous. An individual service with a single nationality creates barriers to interoperability. And no modern military nation can fight using only one service in today's world. In comparison, the U.S. military has been trying to overcome the single-service mentality for almost 25 years, after an assessment of Operation Urgent Fury (the invasion of Grenada) highlighted the divisions between the four services. If the Nordic countries choose this path of one nation-one service, they reduce their capability to fight against a major threat (i.e., a military that does operate its services jointly).
In addition, this concept could place unreasonable demands on one Scandinavian nation because of extra-regional responsibilities. For example, the Finns would be the major contributor to peacekeeping missions, because these operations usually demand a higher component of ground forces compared to air or naval forces. Unless countries share burdens equally, the cohesiveness of this experiment breaks down, and the capability goes unrealized. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps currently provide the bulk of the heavy lifting, and this fact has been a point of contention with the other services, rightly or wrongly.
Other Challenges
The span of ideas considered provides a wealth of opportunities for the Nordic militaries to pursue. But other factors also need to be addressed when considering change. Among these challenges are the countries' lack of a common defense vision, the pressing issue of security in the rich energy zone to the north, and the recent posturing by the main threat to the area, the Russian military.
Scandinavia shares common ancestry, culture, and linguistic roots, but national visions of political/military alliances separate like white light through a prism. Norway, Denmark, and Iceland are all part of the NATO military alliance, but Sweden and Finland are not. And these two countries remain steadfastly neutral and distant from the prospect of joining the alliance in the future. Moreover, Finland historically aligns with Russia because of the close proximity of the two countries and the unequal stature of the two militaries, resulting in the dominance of the former by the latter.
Political alliances among these countries diverge as much as military alliances. Finland and Sweden joined the European Union, but Norway remains outside by way of national referendum. Denmark is part of the EU, but is not part of the European defense initiative. The differences between the alliances pull the political and military leadership of the countries in various directions. Subsequently, these cross-currents in posturing make it difficult to form a clear vision for a Nordic military alliance or structure that combines the forces into a unified mission. Without a unified mission, unification of force structures proves difficult and probably impossible, even detrimental.
At one time, the Arctic of northern Scandinavia hosted few travelers except polar bears traversing ice floes while hunting for seals. But today, this region increasingly sees the floes receding and oil companies traveling in their wake. This new activity stems from recent estimates of potential oil and gas deposits in the region, the volatility in the market price for a barrel of crude oil, and the emerging access to the waterways because of global warming. The Arctic Circle reportedly contains 25 percent of the world's untapped oil and gas reserves, which could be the planet's last great frontier for oil exploration.6
Economics no longer prohibit companies from turning their attention to this desolate region. The irony of this situation, of course, is that the production and consumption of fossil fuels world-wide leads to global warming, which melts the ice in the Arctic Circle and allows oil companies' access to oil deposits previously unreachable with modern technology. The confluence of these factors demands greater scrutiny and greater policing by countries that border the Arctic Circle. If the Nordic countries do not invest in providing this coverage, undoubtedly the gap will be filled by either Russia or the United States as the other regional powers with sizable naval capability.
Emerging Russian Maritime Reach
The Russian navy effectively disappeared from the world's oceans after the end of the Cold War, as budgets were slashed and ships and submarines rusted pier-side for years. But the tide has turned and this force recently has returned to sea, albeit in a limited capacity. Vladimir Putin (the former Russian President and current Prime Minister) advocates a more aggressive posturing for the Russian military as a way to globally enhance the country's power. Russian bombers have actively engaged U.S. Navy ships in the Pacific, far beyond Russian territorial waters, replaying a familiar episode of the Cold War. In addition, Russian naval leaders recently articulated a long-term vision for the service as a sea-control force with five to six aircraft carriers by the middle of this century.7
Although these incidents seem minor, they spike from the foundation of the Russian economy, which does not resemble its Cold War predecessor. With the capital and the ambition, the Russian Navy will strengthen, and the Nordic countries will eventually be faced with a more capable and confident potential foe near their coasts. Unless the Nordic countries prepare to meet this growing threat and prepare today, the Russian Navy will have captured the advantage even before a shot is fired.
What Should Be Done
To improve efficiencies and reduce costs without jeopardizing capability, Nordic military leaders must develop solutions that capture the valuable ideas already on the table and address the challenges identified here. Initiating a process to determine surplus assets prior to their becoming excess is a good place to begin. Continuous improvement is a management philosophy that seeks to identify and measure results for organizations to enhance performance. The Nordic militaries could adopt this methodology for one unit and test this theory for their programs and processes. If successful results accrue, the methodology spreads to other areas.
Medium-term efforts in the centralization of procurement activities also offer good options in cost reduction and possible improvement of efficiencies. By joining together, the Nordic militaries cut costs through achieving buying power and economies of scale. However, success depends on first identifying and articulating the necessary capability that the procurement needs to fulfill. Identifying capabilities must be done across the affected militaries to ensure each military aligns with the requirement. This process sidesteps the issue of common defense vision, because this does not matter. The capability (i.e., maritime patrol, littoral antisubmarine warfare) is agnostic and merely needs to be defined by military leadership as a requirement. Once capabilities are defined, the Nordic militaries procure the necessary platforms and personnel to achieve the capability.
Centralizing procurement also offers opportunities to merge entities that could reach long-term goals to unify the various services into a common framework, further improving efficiencies and reducing costs. Similar platforms and training provide similar experiences for the men and women of the different services. These experiences create natural bonds, despite differences in political and military alliances across the region. This effort approaches alliance-building from the ground up.
Implications for the United States
These changes affect the United States by potentially rearranging the defense and security structures on NATO's northern front, an area of future energy exploration and possible military conflict. Security policymakers and Navy leadership in the United States must engage with their counterparts in these nations to ensure these changes, however small, do not affect capability.
The waters north of the Nordic region are increasingly being scrutinized for potential oil and gas resources in a world where more unstable regions currently produce most of the oil consumed by developed and developing nations. The U.S. Navy must plan to secure these regional waters and the energy resources below the surface, despite changes in the Nordic defense structures and the future state of the Russian military.
To prevent a gap in capability, leaders in the United States should bring Nordic leaders to the table to focus on this cooperative effort before it disappears beneath individual budgetary demands. The first effort should focus on defining the possible areas of collaboration that could become the nexus of future effort. In effect, this would reverse the prism analogy highlighted earlier. The different capabilities of the militaries can be fused into a common force similar to the colors of the spectrum being fused into white light as it passes through a prism.
But the creation of a common force rests on identifying the common capability needed based on the common threat. Russia's military operations in the region present the common threat for these countries, despite their differing defense visions and alliance partnerships. A strategic working group of third-party and Nordic leadership participants could capture this idea and align the mix of individual military capabilities into an initially informal, common defense framework. Once this loose agreement can be established, each military can focus on preparing its specific components as elements of the whole.
The different forces would not, however, be unitary structures (i.e., a Nordic Navy of Norwegians, a Nordic Air Force of Swedes, and a Nordic Army of Finns). The structure would be based on the necessary capability (i.e., Arctic Circle maritime defense or patrols could have elements of Norwegian naval ships and submarines, Swedish aircraft flying from northern air bases, and Finnish ground troops providing coastal defense in partnership with the other countries). This concept integrates the militaries into a common defense that builds on the strengths of the individual services, but does not put all the eggs in one national basket. And because the integration is loose, it will not affect current alliance structures.
Once these areas of common capabilities are formed, they become the building blocks to more formal integration as the service members become more familiar with the operations and the strengths of their Nordic neighbors. Eventually, other common aspects of training and procurement can translate into long-term cost savings. This effort envisions the long-term, focuses on the threat, and promises real benefits in the future. And it is possible to begin now.
1. Jarle Petterson, "Norway's Socialist Left Party Seeks Finnish Protection," Inorden.org, 28 February 2008.
2. Gerard O' Dwyer, "Swedish Military Can Sell Assets to Fund Units," Defense News, 27 March 2008.
3. Henrik Wilen, "Rising Costs Lead to Concrete Defense Cooperation," Virtual Finland, February 2008.
4. Petterson, "Norway's Socialist Left Party Seeks Finnish Protection."
5. Gerard O' Dwyer, "Saab Pushes Gripen Variants for Swedish, Norwegian, Danish Programs," Defense News, 28 April 2008.
6. Telis Demos, "The great Arctic Circle oil rush" Fortune, 8 August 2007.
7. Oxford Analytica, "Russia To Expand Naval Capabilities," Forbes, 17 April 2008.