ISLAMABAD: Air force commanders from four countries as Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark have said they have signed a letter of intent to create a unified Nordic air defence to counter the increasing threat from Russia.
According to the statements by the four countries’ armed forces, the intention is to be able to operate jointly based on already-known ways of working under NATO.
A commander of the Danish air force, Major General Jan Dam, said that the move to integrate the air forces was triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February of the previous year.
Jan Dam said that “Our combined fleet can be compared to the large European country,”
Four countries, several jets
Norway has 57 F-16 jets and 37 F-35 jets, with 15 more of the latter on order. Finland has 62 F/A-18 jets and 64 F-35s on order, while Denmark has 58 F-16s and 27 F-35s on order. Sweden has more than 90 Gripen jets. It was unclear how several of those planes were operational. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Air Command chief General James Hecker, who also oversees the US Air Force in the region, attended the signing at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany the previous week.
Sweden and Finland applied to join the transatlantic military alliance last year. But the process has been held up by Turkiye, which along with Hungary, has yet to ratify the memberships.
The Nordic air force commanders discussed the closer collaboration at a meeting in November in Sweden.
Dam said that “We would like to see if we can integrate our airspace surveillance more, so we can use radar data from each other’s surveillance systems and use them collectively,” and “We aren’t doing that today.”
