The Army is the oldest of the Norwegian service branches, established as a modern military organization under the command of the King of Norway in 1628.

It constitutes part of the Norwegian military contribution as a charter member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since 1949.

After the Kalmar War broke out in 1611, the Danish-Norwegian king, Christian IV tried to revive the leidang, with dire results.

The soldiers had to participate in military drills while providing supplementary labor to the local community when not in active service.

As a result of the Torstenson war (Danish: Torstenssonfejden, Norwegian: Hannibalfeiden, Swedish: Torstensonska kriget) lasting from 1643 to 1645, Danish–Norwegian territories were to be ceded to Sweden.

The British bombardment of the Danish capital in 1807 pushed King Frederik IV to align with French Emperor Napoleon I. Hostilities reached north into Scandinavia and by 1807, Denmark-Norway was at war with Great Britain.

The union with Sweden lasted until which time the Norwegian Army retained a separate entity within the joint kingdoms.

Enlistment in the active army was however still based on the drawing of ballots, with those escaping full-time service going immediately to the reserve landvern, where they received brief and basic training.

After a short but tense period during which both armies were mobilized, Sweden agreed to the peaceful dissolution of the union.

Liability for military service was extended to 55 years of age and the period of training was lengthened to about five months.

Additional localized regiments were created within a framework of six military districts, permitting more rapid mobilization of reservists.

In 1911 the 5th Brigade was established as the Norwegian Army's district organization in Møre og Romsdal and Trøndelag.

Despite the escalating hostilities throughout Europe in 1939 and 1940, the Norwegian government at the time failed to mobilize; leaving the Army wholly unprepared for the German invasion of April 1940.

However, these divisions were ill-prepared by the time the landings commenced and four were destroyed by the Germans during the initial phases of the campaign.

The Home Front (Hjemmefronten) was the Norwegian resistance movement during Nazi Germany's occupation of Norway (1940–1945).

The bulk of the Norwegian Army during the years in exile in Britain consisted of a brigade in Dumfries as well as smaller units stationed in Iceland, Jan Mayen, Svalbard and South Georgia.

Norwegian police troops and units from this brigade took control over Finnmark in 1944 after the German retreat from the Red Army.

[4] This picture definitely changed with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent break-up of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.

It has been downsized after the end of the Cold War, with the biggest changes taking place in the middle of the 1990s, when a number of garrisons and units were discontinued.

The Army had by the end of the decade been significantly downsized from its late Cold War heights, and has for example faced criticism from within claiming that it would now only be able to defend one district of Oslo in the event of a national invasion.

[5] Norwegian contributions to international crisis management have been generated from a system that is first and foremost geared towards the rapid activation of mobilization units armed and trained for territorial defence.

As a consequence, Norwegian contributions to international military operations have a high degree of sustainability, as they have a substantial number of reserve units on which to draw.

Moreover, the contributions that Norway has been able to make to international operations have tended to consist of lightly armoured mechanized infantry, well-suited for more traditional peacekeeping tasks (UNIFIL in southern Lebanon to which Norway contributed a sizable unit for over twenty years) but not sufficiently robust for missions which might entail enforcement tasks.

Norwegian Defence Minister at the time, Bjørn Tore Godal, said "the United States is Norway's most important ally.

After the terrorist attack in 2011, the unit also functions as a defence force in Norway’s capital Oslo and will assist the police when needed.

In 2024, it was announced that the Finnmark Land Command organisation would be reinforced as part of the Norwegian government's long-term plan, with the ultimate aim to have it formed as a full brigade.

The intention is to have a light infantry battalion, artillery (with embedded anti-aircraft element), engineers and intelligence units based in the region by 2032.

[13] According to the Norwegian MoD 2012 White Paper the Brigade Nord maneuver elements will be reorganised.