The Nordics could be a defence "superpower". This is why they fail

For companies in the defence industry, the Nordics are four separate markets.

In practice, they could function as a single, integrated value chain. They simply do not. And that, according to Peter Sperling, chief innovation officer at NFC Denmark, is the core of the problem.

In his view, the building blocks are already in place:

- If you combined Finland’s combat experience, Sweden’s industry, Denmark’s innovation and Norway’s oil wealth, you would have a superpower, he says with a wry smile.

There is no need to gather the councils of state and sign a treaty in a cathedral somewhere

Johannes Kibsgaard, lecturer at Forsvarets Høgskole in Oslo

Taken together, the Nordics rank around the top ten of the world’s largest economies with a collective population of less than 30 million. Yet in practice, the region continues to function as a set of separate systems.

- We operate in parallel tracks instead of acting together and that’s why we remain small nations, Sperling says.

The result is fragmentation. Investment decisions are made nationally, strategies are developed nationally, and co-operation rarely extends beyond what individual countries have already chosen to pursue.

According to Sperling, this is not primarily a question of intent, but of structure.

There is no shared mechanism for allocating capital or setting priorities across the region. Without such a mechanism, even the most obvious complementarities fail to translate into coordinated action. 

A "middle power"

Johannes Kibsgaard, a Norwegian lieutenant colonel and senior lecturer at the Norwegian Defence University College in Oslo, broadly agrees that the Nordics possess more collective weight than they currently project. But he is more subdued in how he describes that potential.

Where Sperling talks about a possible “superpower”, Kibsgaard prefers the term “middle power",  a region that would still sit below the great powers, but well above the level of the small state.

His point is not that the Nordics need to become a formal federation. The more realistic path, he argues, is deeper integration in practice with gradual accumulation of real co-operation across sectors.

- It is more about the sum of the actual co-operation. There is no need to gather the councils of state and sign a treaty in a cathedral somewhere, Kibsgaard says.

Building a durable Nordic constellation would require leaders to think beyond the next one to five years

Johannes Kibsgaard, lecturer at Forsvarets Høgskole in Oslo

This makes the Nordic cooperation question less about symbolism and more about operating systems: whether the countries can build enough practical integration for the region to act with greater strategic coherence, without first having to invent a new political entity.

While the model may appear straightforward on paper, it would require a form of joint decision-making that does not currently exist. National interests continue to outweigh collective ones.

In that sense, the real question is not whether the Nordics could function as a single entity, but why they do not.

Sperling suggests that doing so would require a fundamentally different approach to coordination. He points to ideas such as a Nordic, DARPA-style model for joint investment in technology and innovation.

But even that serves to emphasise the underlying problem.

Separate parts

Such a model would depend on shared priorities and a willingness to pool risk across borders - conditions that are largely absent today. As long as investment decisions remain national, the system will continue to produce parallel efforts rather than mutually integrated ones.

Johannes Kibsgaard points to a related, but broader, obstacle: political time horizons. In his view, the current security environment calls for structures that can last for decades, while political systems are often drawn towards the next immediate crisis.

That makes Nordic integration difficult even when the strategic logic is strong. 

We operate in parallel tracks instead of acting together and that’s why we remain small nations

Peter Sperling, CIO at NFC Denmark

- The region may have more in common than what separates it, but building a durable Nordic constellation would require leaders to think beyond the next one to five years, Kibsgaard says.

For Kibsgaard, the question is therefore not only whether the Nordics can co-operate more closely inside NATO and the EU. It is whether they can build a practical architecture robust enough to matter over time.

The result is a paradox.

The Nordics already contain most of the components of a unified defence-industrial system. Their capabilities are complementary, their economies are substantial, and their technological strengths are well established.

But without a structure to connect them, they remain just that: separate parts.