It took only a few frigid February days for several United States Marines trudging through Norwegian snow and ice to notice something was wrong. First, they found holes yawning in the leather of their often brand-new boots. Next, gaps opened up in the soles of the shoes, freezing water slipping in as they hiked and skied, weighed down by the packs strapped to their backs, according to a Pentagon official and U.S. military records reviewed by Newsweek.
The failures occurred during pre-exercise training for Cold Response 2026, a Norwegian-led NATO exercise involving more than 25,000 personnel in the Nordic country, and more than 7,000 others in Finland. They have raised questions about the quality of military-issued footwear and about a congressional push that would further restrict the boots U.S. service members may wear to models made entirely in the United States. Among those taking part were roughly 3,000 U.S.
Marines, most of them deployed with the II Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, according to the Marine Corps, to Norwegian training grounds above the Arctic Circle in early 2026. The exercise was intended to showcase how U.S. forces could operate alongside other NATO countries in some of the toughest conditions they could face. And in many ways, they did.
U.S. forces obtained locally available cold-weather footwear in Norway when replacements were needed, according to the Pentagon official and a joint statement from U.S. Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa and Marine Corps Systems Command. Under U.S. law, Pentagon funds can't be used to buy military boots unless they're made in the U.S. (subject to certain limited exceptions).
The intention was to give U.S. companies a boost and pull down dependence on foreign supply chains, but critics say service members are suffering because they're being forced to don poor quality, domestically-made footwear, ultimately racking up costs when they have to buy replacements. This raises tough questions for lawmakers and lobbyists now pushing for manufacturing rules to become even stricter, at a moment when the U.S. military is stretched by operations around the globe, from strikes on Latin America to the months of war with Iran in the Middle East, with demand for these boots likely to swell. More Marines were later pulled off the ice-slicked Norwegian fields during Cold Response, with their boot soles peeling away from the rest of the shoe, or part of the plastic heel digging into their tendons, the Pentagon official, who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, told Newsweek.
For others, the heel cup wore quickly through the lining or the eyelets become loose. The Norwegian military, according to the official, helped the U.S. Marines source M77 boots manufactured by the Nordic country's Alfa company, which developed the footwear with Norway's army back in the 1970s.
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