Norway’s Navy is getting an upgrade.
This past week, the Norwegian government signed a $13.5 billion deal with Britain to purchase a new fleet of high-tech warships, a move that will have long-reaching consequences for NATO, the North Atlantic and the Arctic.
It is the single biggest military purchase that Norway has ever made. Defense analysts see it as an important step by Europe to increase its military capabilities after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and as President Trump’s isolationist foreign policy has scrambled traditional Western alliances.
“Europe has realized it must rearm,” said Njord Wegge, a professor at the Norwegian Defense University College in Oslo.
Under the agreement, Norway will buy from British shipbuilders at least five new frigates that are nearly 500 feet long and equipped with modern weapon systems, possibly including attack helicopters. The Norwegians and the British, both founding members of NATO, are not shy about saying who their enemy is.
“This deal will see our navies work as one, creating a combined fleet to defend NATO’s northern flank and strengthen our deterrence against Russian aggression,” Britain’s defense secretary, John Healey, said in a statement on Thursday.
Norway, which is Europe’s biggest oil and gas producer and has nearly $2 trillion in its sovereign wealth fund, is increasingly watching its northern borders, especially on the Arctic Ocean.
As climate change accelerates, defense strategists predict more competition and potential conflict in the region. Russia keeps some of its most lethal nuclear-armed submarines not far from the Norwegian border in the Arctic.
“The major threat for us, the one threat we deal with every day, is Russia,” said Tor Ivar Strommen, a Norwegian naval commander and lecturer at the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy. “We are dependent on having cutting-edge technology so that we are not doomed to lose.”
The Russian Embassy in Oslo expressed displeasure with the move, saying on its Facebook page on Friday that NATO’s military preparation “naturally poses a threat to our country’s national security, has a destabilizing effect and increases the risk of escalation in the Arctic.”
The Norwegian navy has only four frigates, and the first new ones are not expected to be ready until 2029. They will be equipped with special sonar to detect submarines and torpedoes and will be identical to frigates in the British navy to benefit from joint training, maintenance and repairs, Norwegian officials said.
The expanded frigate fleet will form the “backbone” of Norway’s naval capability, said Marte Gerhardsen, an official in Norway’s defense ministry.
The British government celebrated winning the contract, boasting that it would support 4,000 jobs and hundreds of businesses. Britain faced stiff competition, beating out the United States, France and Germany.
“Norway is up alone in the North, and the U.K. is the most intuitive partner,” Mr. Wegge said. “In this situation, the U.K. appears a very natural partner for us, even if they are, of course, less capable than the U.S.”
Jeffrey Gettleman is an international correspondent based in London covering global events. He has worked for The Times for more than 20 years.
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