Kongsberg Lands Billion-Kroner F-35 Contract, Deepens Norwegian Dependency on US Defence Chain

• Kongsberg Gruppen wins billion-kroner deal to supply parts for the F-35 fighter jet programme
• Norway occupies a dual role as both F-35 customer nation and major industrial subcontractor
• Kongsberg's growing US dependency raises questions about Nordic defence sovereignty
• European rearmament rhetoric clashes with deepening transatlantic supply chain integration

Kongsberg Gruppen, Norway's flagship defence conglomerate, has won a contract worth over one billion Norwegian kroner to supply components for Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter jet programme, E24 reports. The deal covers parts deliveries for the world's largest military aircraft programme and extends Kongsberg's already deep involvement in the F-35 supply chain, where the company has for years produced composite structures and weapons systems integration components.

The contract is good news for Kongsberg's shareholders and for the town of Kongsberg, where the company remains the dominant employer. It is more ambiguous news for anyone who takes seriously the idea that the Nordic countries should control their own defence industrial base. Norway finds itself in a peculiar position: it operates 52 F-35s as a customer nation while simultaneously serving as a critical subcontractor to the American prime contractor that builds them. Every billion kroner in F-35 work ties Norwegian defence industry tighter to a programme whose production decisions, technology sharing, and export approvals are made in Washington and Fort Worth, not in Oslo or Kongsberg.

This entanglement runs deeper than a single contract. Kongsberg's defence and aerospace division has steadily increased its share of revenue from US-linked programmes. The company's Joint Strike Missile — designed specifically for internal carriage on the F-35 — was developed with Norwegian government funding but requires American approval for every export sale. The National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS), co-developed with Raytheon, follows the same pattern: Norwegian engineering, American gatekeeping. Kongsberg has built a profitable business model on being indispensable to US weapons programmes, but indispensability is not the same as independence.

The timing matters. European capitals are spending more on defence than at any point since the Cold War, and the stated goal — from Brussels to individual Nordic capitals — is greater European strategic autonomy. Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway all fly or will fly the F-35, making the entire Nordic region dependent on a single American platform for air superiority. If transatlantic relations deteriorate further — over trade, over Ukraine, over any of the friction points that have multiplied in recent years — the leverage runs one way. Washington can restrict spare parts, withhold software updates, or slow deliveries. Oslo cannot.

Nordic defence cooperation, on paper a priority for all five countries, is harder to build when the region's largest defence company is structurally oriented toward the US market. Kongsberg's expertise in missiles, remote weapons stations, and maritime systems could form the backbone of a Nordic defence industrial base. Instead, that expertise is channelled into American programmes where the intellectual property arrangements and production decisions serve American strategic interests first.

Kongsberg's stock price rose on the announcement. The company's order backlog now stretches years into the future, almost entirely underwritten by the US defence budget and its allied procurement network. Norway gets jobs, revenue, and the prestige of participating in the world's most advanced fighter programme. What it gives up is harder to price — until the day Washington decides Norwegian interests and American interests no longer align, and Kongsberg discovers which country's phone calls get returned first.

Sources: E24