Title: With the Armed Forces into year 2000 - Foreword
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FOREWORD BY THE DEFENCE MINISTER
It is with great pleasure that I introduce White Paper No. 22 to the Storting. In this report the Government sets out its views on how the Armed Forces should develop into the next millennium. The White Paper describes the structure, tasks and development of the Armed Forces over the period 1999-2002 with further perspectives to the year 2018.
The 1998 budget allocation for Defence amounts to NOK 24 billion. That is a great deal of money and there are certainly many who think that it cannot be necessary to spend so much on the Armed Forces at a time when Norway has no enemies and faces no military threats.
We must not overlook the long-term uncertainty that surrounds future developments. This uncertainty contains within it the risk that armed conflicts in other regions could spread to areas that are closer to home. Also it includes other dangers such as the possible proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, terrorism and environmental disasters. Hence the Government takes the view that we must still maintain a sound and credible defence organisation in order to ensure that we have the capability, should it become necessary, to defend our freedom and interests.
As well as providing a means of deterring war, the Armed Forces must be capable of providing support to the community in other important areas. Service personnel, and the defence organisation as a whole, must be able to assist in the event of natural disasters, rescue operations and environmental preparedness. It is therefore important for the Armed Forces to retain visibility in the community and to foster contact with the rest of society over a broad front. We must, moreover, preserve a defence organisation capable of safeguarding our national interests in international operations conducted under the auspices of NATO, the Western European Union (WEU), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) or the UN.
Defence planning is a long-term process. An effective and credible defence capability cannot be achieved over a short period. The procurement of defence materiel over the next four years, and the way in which we develop the professional skills of service personnel, constitute key components of the defence capability that we shall have in fifteen years time.
I hope that all will appreciate that we do need a forward-looking, modern and efficient defence organisation capable of discharging the tasks with which it may be entrusted by the community both in peacetime and in time of crisis or war. We cannot afford to give up our national insurance policy even though it is many years since we had a «fire».
The last report of the Armed Forces, White Paper No. 16 to the Storting (1992-93), was laid before the Storting in January 1993 and covers the period 1994-1998. The last White Paper was based on the findings of the Defence Commission of 1990 (NOU 1992:12) and the Defence Study 1991. This marked the start of extensive restructuring and quantitative reductions throughout the Defence Establishment. Since then much has been done but much complex and wide-ranging restructuring still remains to be implemented.
The new White Paper is anchored in the political basis of the Centre Government negotiated at Voksenåsen in the autumn of 1997 and is founded on a comprehensive examination. I hope that this White Paper, which sets out the principal guidelines for the Government's security and defence policy for the period 1999 - 2002, will have the support of the Storting and of the Norwegian people.
Dag Jostein Fjærvoll
Minister of Defence