The Norwegian Home Guard in the future

What does the future look like for the Norwegian Home Guard? On behalf of the Ministry of Defence and the Home Guard, the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment has studied what the Home Guard should be like in the future. We have done this through a three-year project: ‘The Home Guard towards 2030’. This is the first time in the Home Guard’s 75-year history that the organisation has been the subject of such a comprehensive analysis. This edition of VITEN summarises our project.

Norway needs a Home Guard that can mobilise when required so that the rest of the Armed Forces and our allies are able to maintain their defence capabilities over time in war. This has traditionally been the raison d’être of the Home Guard and will continue to be in the years to come. However, today’s threats are more demanding and complex than before. We conclude that the distinction between state security and civil protection will be less clear-cut and that one is a prerequisite for the other. The Home Guard should therefore be further developed in order to be able to contribute to a greater extent to societal security and civil protection.

The Home Guard’s mentality and tasks should to a greater extent be aimed at challenges in the grey areas between war and peace. This is where we consider the future threats and the shortcomings of our nation to be most critical. We outline four different levels of ambition for the Home Guard in the future. To determine which level the Home Guard should aim at, we identify the central question as this: how much should the Home Guard be able to safeguard? The answer requires a political balance between cost and risk.

Regardless of the level of ambition, three recommended main principles remain for the future Home Guard:

• Flexible support: The Home Guard should be a general, flexible capacity with the ability to provide relevant support to other divisions of the Armed Forces, the police and other civilian emergency preparedness organisations.
• Civil-military cooperation: The Home Guard should utilise the civilian competence of its members and contribute to a common understanding of the situation and cooperation across the civil society sector.
• Local anchoring: The Home Guard should be an organisation with local knowledge and independent soldiers who can be ready to handle unforeseen events quickly.