Thompson, David G.

About the author: David Thompson attended Augustana College and Illinois State University before completing his PhD in military history at The Ohio State University in 1996. He is now Assistant Professor of History at Illinois Central College.

The Norwegian Armed Forces and Defense Policy, 1905-1955

2004 0-7734-6422-0
After Norway gained full independence from Sweden in 1905, it faced the challenge of maintaining its sovereignty as a small state caught in the midst of rivalries and conflicts among the great powers. This book examines how the armed forces played an important part in this policy through the end of World War I, followed by the steep decline in Norwegian defense spending and capabilities in the face of economic depression and apparent absence of international threats in 1918, the Labor government’s taking office in 1935 with Norway still lacking any clear military strategy or unified defense policy on the eve of World War II, the German invasion in 1940, and then the apparent danger of a Soviet invasion in 1948 that galvanized the government to make defense a priority, Norway’s NATO membership in 1949 and participation in the American Military Assistance Program in 1950, both reflecting Norway’s choice of collective security over non-alignment.