A drastically inflated bill for F-35 fighter jets would inadvertently hurt other branches of the Norwegian defence forces, a newspaper has warned amid ballooning costs, prompting strong reactions from Norwegian parties.
The total cost of the massive F-35 investment may be around NOK 16 billion (almost $1.9 billion) higher than the preliminary calculation made in 2012, the Norwegian newspaper Bergens Tidende reported.
Since the cost of fighter aircraft and necessary infrastructure will be covered almost entirely by the Armed Forces, this will mean that an annual NOK 2 billion ($230 million) may disappear from their running budget until 2025.
“The follow-up to the Norwegian Armed Forces' long-term plan will fail, if the fighter aircraft investment is overblown by such a sum,” Royal Naval Academy researcher Ståle Ulriksen told the newspaper Bergens Tidende.
Lack of Pilots, Operating Costs May Keep Norway's F-35 Fleet Grounded
His concerns were shared by active servicemen.
“I don't see how the Armed Forces will be able to finance this on their own. This will have a dramatic effect on the Armed Forces' operational capabilities,” Jens Jahren, the leader of the military officers' organisation BFO said.
Major General Morten Klever, a programme director at the Ministry of Defence, acknowledged that the probability of reaching the spending objectives set in 2012 has become lower. Still, this doesn't mean that they have been set aside, he argued. In this year's…
