Arne O. Holm says The Noise of Boring Taxes Debate Cannot Drown Out the Gravity We’re Facing
Harald Sunde, former general and head of the Total Preparedness Commission, repeated the message from the commission's report in Narvik: "This is serious."
Comment (Narvik): In October last year, I sat in Reykjavik and wrote about how contradictory it was that Russia's war against Ukraine created optimism in the Arctic. The defense industry was a new area of investment. The question that remained unanswered was whether the business sector in the North was to connect to the "new" industry.
This is a comment written by a member of the editorial staff. The comment expresses the writer's opinions.
Since then, the arms manufacturers' stock prices have skyrocketed in line with increasingly costly public orders. A tragic development, but real nonetheless.
In the North, the industry along the coast is threatened by quota reductions and without accounting for Ukrainian refugees, the population continues to decline.
Nuclear weapons
In addition to export, Norway's border with Russia is the driving force behind the growth. Behind the Russian border, a few kilometers from Norway, we find Russia's nuclear arsenal and a nuclear fleet threatening the US.
"This is the only area where Russia is a great power," said former general Harald Sunde in a lecture in Narvik, Northern Norway, last Thursday.
For the same reason, the High North is Norway's most important strategic area. That is how it will always be. It is not a pandemic that will pass with vaccines.
The defense industry is more than production than weapons. More than 70 and 80 percent of the Armed Forces' needs are produced by civil society, such as food, health care, internet, and cars, to mention a few.
This is where the Northern Norwegian business sector wants a piece of the cake. The challenge is that the businesses are small and far from the decision-makers. The market is rigged for competition instead of cooperation. Thus, the Northern Norwegian business sector is the losing team, and the Armed Forces in Finnmark buys its bread from Drammen in Southern Norway instead of local bakeries.
This is not a pandemic that will pass.
The Armed Forces' immediate areas
It is, therefore, not a competitive advantage to be in the Armed Forces' vicinity, where military exercises are conducted. Whether exercises are held on land, in the air, or at sea, it all takes place in the North.
Arctic Frontiers, together with Troms and Nordland County, as well as the Northern Norwegian consulting business Kupa, recently asked how the Northern Norwegian business sector could connect to incoming investments as the total preparedness in the North is to be upgraded. Such an upgrade is high, although not at the top, of most political parties' list of priorities.
Yet, the noise of a never-ending tax dispute is still what dominates the political discourse. Thus, it is both commendable and necessary for a Northern Norwegian initiative to elevate the realities we're facing into politics.
The noise of a never-ending tax debate.
This is serious
When the former General Harald Sunde slammed the Total Preparedness Commission's report on the government's table in June 2023, the conclusion could be read already on the cover: This is serious.
The seriousness is first and foremost about making the High North capable of withstanding hostile attacks, whether they are hybrid or carried out with weapons. A crucial part of the civil part of our total preparedness will be to benefit the accounts of Northern Norwegian businesses.
The Armed Forces depend on a solid business sector, health care, infrastructure, and a civil population in the North. That has been repeated often enough, although not to the point of boredom, not least by the Chief of Defense Eirik Kristoffersen.
We can argue about the military operational value of establishments in the North. The value of investment capacity and profits in northern Norwegian companies is indisputable.
Experiences from the oil industry show that early action is necessary to participate in value creation at all.
Political absence
Andøya Spacecenter and Kongsberg Satellite Service are companies already incorporated into the Armed Forces. The question that seeks an answer is how the private sector can become part of the total supply chain in a world preparing for war.
Norway's two largest weapons manufacturers, the Kongsberg Group and Nammo, were conspicuously absent from the conference.
But at least both the Armed Forces and European and American giants in the defense industry were present.
Also absent were the top management in Troms and Nordland counties. I hope both the Chair of the County Government in Nordland, Svein Øien Eggesvik, and the Chair of the County Executive Board in Troms, Kristina Torbergsen, had good reasons for choosing not to participate in such an arena.
Finnmark has chosen to stay out of this initiative for reasons unknown to me. The otherwise forward-looking Chair of the County Government, Hans-Jacob Bønå, should have good reasons for such a choice.
I hope they have good reasons for their absence.
The expertise was more than adequately provided by Mari Siljebråten, Chair of the Transport Committee in Troms, and Aina Johanne Nilsen, Executive of Finance and Organisation. Their arguments were definitely heard by both defense and industry, but the salespeople in the European arms industry would like to add meetings with top politicians when they return home and report to their bosses. Like, for example, Tobias Wuertz from ThyssenKrupp Marine System, a company with 98,000 employees in 47 countries and a turnover of 35 billion euros.
National security
One thing is certain: If Northern Norwegian businesses are to participate in future investments, political decisions and will are required.
We already know enough about what the different parties think about wealth tax.
But we know little about how the gigantic investments in total defense will benefit business in our most important strategic area.
It is not about small gifts. It is about national security.
