The great thing is that this money doesn’t have to be found in other budgets or by raising taxes or anything. It’s quite literally fuck-you-money and can be spend as such.
Of course it’s a shame to have to dig into the fund to cover for a war that should never have been started in the first place, but it’d be a lot worse in ten years to have sat on the money if Russia isn’t stopped and knowing that it could have been used for that.
I hope they manage to find enough European manufacturers ready to take orders.
It’s existential for Norway in a lot of ways. They border Russia and if Russia is allowed to get away with grabbing a chunk of Ukraine, they could be next.
This is huge, Norway decided to more than double what they had previously decided.
By comparison this aid is 8 times more per capita, than what USA contributed in combined military and civilian aid to Ukraine in 2024. !!In case you don’t follow Norwegian politics very closely: There are several parties that are pushing for us to give 10-100 times this (new) amount. We probably (unfortunately) won’t see that happen within the next couple weeks, but there seems to be political consensus that more is coming, but that the details need to be ironed out.
I mentioned in another comment that Norway could literally match US donations so far in the war dollar for dollar if the decision is made to really start tapping in to the wealth fund. I’ll be voting for a party that pushes for that.
I’ve seen some crazy numbers from Norway, I think it was the Green party, where they wanted to give almost $80 billion USD in 2025, which will more than compensate for USA if they don’t give a single cent this year.
And yes, the amazing thing is that Norway can actually afford it, if they take it from the huge Wealth fund they have. 😋
It’s crazy such a small country has that much money.
Quick info: Before today it was budgedet to 35bn NOK, or 2.98bn Euro. Today that was increased with 50bn NOK, or 4.26bn Euro, making the total planned aid this year 7.24bn Euro.
It was announced in a joint press conference with all political parties of the parliament. All parties are in favour of this, with some wanting to give more. We have elections coming up in September, so that could prove important.
Also, the current minister of finance is Jens Stoltenberg. He is notorious for two things:
- Until recently and during most of the war he has been general secretary of NATO
- As PM of Norway, and as an economist, he was responsible for the implementation of the budgetary rule which limits the portion of the sovreign wealth fund can be used every year.
There is talk about breaking the budgetary rule to allow for a lot more money to be sent into Ukraine. Due to his NATO position, it is fair to assume Stoktenburg knows the stakes more than most. But due to his history with the budgetary rule, he is also familiar with the risks involved in breaking it, and he might be more protective of it than most. He has not, however, ruled it out. The rule has been broken once before, during Covid.
While this is great, I’m still firmly in the camp that we are spending an embarrassingly low amount on both our own military, Ukraine, and up-arming ourselves and allies in general.
Norway has made an absurd amount of money on the increase in gas prices due to the war, and the rule regarding the wealth fund was put in place to ensure the benefit of future generations. I’m still young enough (< 30) that the latter to some extent applies to me. There is no better investment for future generations than ensuring that we, Ukraine, and our allies, are armed to the teeth asafp.
To be absolutely clear: A quick search tells me that the EU and member states have donated a total of 145 billion USD to Ukraine. Norway has the resources to on its own match that - dollar for dollar - and it would cost ≈ 7 % of our “wealth fund”. This makes the notion of giving donations measured in the single-digit billions absolutely embarrassing.
Norway has the ability to stand up now and show that we’re good for something. We can pick up the slack from the paused US support (in terms of dollars) tomorrow if our politicians choose to do so. If no one leads the way we are doomed to fail. I believe that Norway has the opportunity to show we mean business, and that failure to do so will go down in history as a massive mistake. My vote this autumn is going to whatever party that best understands this.
It’s worth noting that unlike Civilization games, you can’t just magically turn saved money into military power. Like, there is a limited supply of equipment until production ramps up. But of course you are right that bigger investments are super necessary.
Of course, that’s why I specified (in terms of dollars). I guess my line of thinking is that if Norway declared tomorrow that they had dumped 150 billion EUR into buying weapons, and would buy from whoever could deliver the fastest, we would probably see an increase in weapons manufacturing on European soil the likes of which we haven’t seen since WWII. That’s what we need right now.
The second element (which I honestly think is at least as important) is showing the rest of Europe how it’s done. By pushing ahead and doing something symbolic like immediately picking up the slack from the US (in dollars) we can hopefully shake other countries into recognising how high of a priority this should be. It may also help people shake off the “what are we going to do” feeling, by showing what we’re going to do: Prioritise this above all else.
Civilisation forces you to make choices when building military units as well. You either invest some initial production in a factory or other production multipliers, or you queue up the units immediately but they’ll take longer to build.
Why doesn’t Norway buy (and I mean, pay a fair price for) the mineral wealth that Putin and trump are trying to steal from Ukraine?
It only makes sense for ukraine to sell it for security guaranees. Norway can’t guarante that. probably also doesn’t make much sense for Norway to aquire it.
So who can? Trumps promises aren’t worth the toilet paper he wrote them on.
I think that’s the problem, no one else can. But Trump is (hopefully) not gonna be president more than 4 years. And maybe they can strike a new deal with the new government in the future?
I’d go to any other semi-decent country with troops before I’d let trump dictate. Norway may not want or need the minerals but they are an asset just like money, or maybe better since they’ll probably appreciate in value. This shitty behaviour from the US needs to be stopped. I wonder how difficult and time consuming it would be to extract the minerals? If they aren’t safe in Ukraine (from Putin/Trump) then taking them for safe keeping may make the invasion of Ukraine less attractive.
