I'm not saying Norway doesn't have technical or defense capabilities. I'm merely noting that Norway doesn't have the budget to develop state of the art fighter jets solely to provide the Norweigan government. In the case that it did develop one, it would still need to sell the plane to other countries like the US, and then the original OP's question comes back into play of why would the US do that given it has the leverage? International trade can help breed specialization alongside monetary and strategic alliances. I gather Norway would rather have the state of the art weaponry to defend itself from Russia and the US would want that as well.

You said above:

> to develop its own weapons and airplanes.

This can be read in two different ways I guess, and ccsalvesens reply is a valid reply to the way I'd read your post, -namely that "Norway can neither make their own weapons nor their own planes".

You seem to have meant that Norway cannot develop both weapons && planes, true?

Just trying to clear out the source of the misunderstanding here.