What caused this “loss of spending power?” Is he talking about budget cuts, depreciation of the currency, .... what?
The socialists have always managed to make the government cut the budgets, using the “cheese slicer” principle: one slice at a time, gradually reducing the size of the units.
the situation now is that there is no more cheese to slice, if they cut more now, they have to deactivate the units. And that is what’s happening. An interesting stealth MTB, “SKJOLD”, was supposed to consist of 6 units, but now they are axing them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skjold_class_patrol_boat
In addition, the new 5 NANSEN-class fregattes seems to have to run on a skeleton-budget, coupled with the fact that it is unsure whether they will be rigged with SPY-1 and AEAGIS.
As for the purchase of 48 JSFs as a replacement of 58 (more or less operative) F-16s: that might be in the blue if the socialists get their will.
I fear for the situation: Russian bombers are on missions in the North-sea almost every day, and the Russians are preparing to exploit the Barents Sea for oil: A huge part of that area is covered by the Norwegian economic area around Svalbard, which is disputed by the russians, together with the disputed area between the territorial lines in the sea outside Norwegian main-land and russian main-land. How will Norway be able to enforce national sovereignty?