Hard Euro budget crunching

[MarkOttawa]

How much stomach or money for much more in Afstan?  Want to bet our government will really be able to fund its "Canada First Defence Strategy"?

Further to these stories on SecDef Gates trying to deal with Pentagon budget,

Gates: Cuts in Pentagon bureaucracy needed to help maintain military force
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/08/AR2010050802495.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead

Pentagon Told to Save Billions for Use in War
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/us/politics/04pentagon.html?ref=todayspaper

and to this topic,

British budget troubles
http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/81956.0.html

the vice is tightening all over:

NATO allies poised to slash military budgets; Gates urges other cost savings
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/08/AR2010060804299.html?hpid=topnews

LONDON -- European allies are bracing for their deepest cuts in military spending since the end of the Cold War, fueling concerns in Washington that an already wide gap in military power between the United States and the rest of NATO will grow.

On Monday, the German government said it is looking to reduce its 250,000-member military by at least 40,000 troops; the defense minister has suggested that a whopping cutback of 100,000 might be necessary.

Meanwhile, analysts project that Britain may have to cut its defense budget by 10 to 15 percent over the next six years as it grapples with what Prime Minister David Cameron has called "a staggering amount of debt."

France and Italy are also contemplating manpower reductions.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, on a trip to London and Brussels this week, is pressing allies to hold the line as Pentagon officials fret they could be stuck with an even bigger share of the burden of the war in Afghanistan or future NATO missions.

On Tuesday, Gates said he was urging European leaders to avoid wholesale cuts to their active-duty forces and instead try to reduce overhead and other less essential programs.

"I think we all are having to take a hard look in a way that we haven't financially for the last couple years," he said after meeting with Britain's defense secretary, Liam Fox.

Europe's fiscal troubles have worsened considerably since February, when Gates warned that NATO was confronting a "crisis" because U.S. allies had spent too little on defense over the past decade and were too averse to using military force.

Other NATO leaders, who are expected to gather in Brussels for meetings Thursday and Friday, warned that the long-term consequences could be dire if European lawmakers, in search of a quick budget fix, squeeze their militaries too much...

In the United States, however, the Obama administration has declared defense and national security programs off-limits to the budget ax.

Gates has warned U.S. military officials to prepare to tighten their belts, as well, after nine years of soaring defense budgets. But the Pentagon is expected to confront only a slowdown in spending, to slightly above the annual rate of inflation.

In contrast, some NATO allies confront actual cuts that could substantially diminish their military power...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

One way of dealing with things:

'Weapons of War'
Germany Considers Loosening Arms Export Controls
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,728844,00.html#ref=nlint

"Eurofighter," "Leopard," Submarine Class 214: Germany is the third largest weapons exporter in the world, despite restrictive guidelines. Now the federal government wants to make arms sales abroad even easier to make up for defense budget cuts at home.

It all started with the French. Years ago, the Defense Ministry in Paris presented an official plan promoting arms exports. The German response? Self-imposed limits. Arms exports should be "restrictive," according to the "Federal Arms Exports Guidelines" from the year 2000.

The situation hasn't changed much since. In a recent issue of the financial magazine Wirtschaftswoche, an unnammed head of a German weapons manufacturer complained about the French: "We are the ragamuffins here, and they are the heroes."

That, though, will soon come to an end.

A recent report from the commission studying the structure of the German military, led by Frank-Jürgen Weise, the head of the Federal Labor Agency, states that the German defense industry will "depend more than before on their exports and civilian use of their products." The commission forwarded a recommendation to Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (CSU) for the "alignment of national arms exports guidelines to European standards."..

Trade unions in Germany are estimating that Defense Minister Guttenberg seeks to cut the German military's procurement budget by some €9 billion in coming years. Last Wednesday, in the Bavarian town of Manching, more than 2,000 employees of the defense company Cassidian (a division of the EADS Corporation) demonstrated against proposed cuts to the defense budget. A representative from the union IG Metall warned that the cuts could result in 10,000 lost jobs in Germany.

Are arms exports to provide a way out of this dilemma?

Florian Hahn, a defense expert from the Christian Social Union (CSU) -- the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's Christian Democrats -- says, "because the domestic market will shrink due to the military reforms, we must actively support arms exports. Other nations are ahead of us on this."

In India, for example, he says much too little is being done to advertise the "Eurofighter," the European designed-and-built fighter plane. The Indians are currently interested in buying 126 fighter jets, a contract worth more than €10 billion. The European plane manufacturer EADS is competing with the Americans, Russians, French and Swedish for the contract. Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle offered assurances during his visit to India in October that Germany has the "best and most reliable technology."..

The Germans are only behind the US and Russia on the list of weapons exporters, and are ahead of the British and French, who are envied by German manufacturers [emphasis added]. According to data from the respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Germany had 11 percent of the world market between 2005 and 2009. The countries owning the most weapons manufactured in Germany are Turkey (14 percent), Greece (13 percent), and South Africa (12 percent.) In 2008, the German government allowed the export of armaments worth almost €6 billion...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

One place where the US is still a dominant superpower--what about NATO members doing more in the way of military specialization?

Is Europe Headed For Security Irrelevance?
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3a516e5fd1-58fb-4ec4-b991-2fc98e247956

The growing imbalance between the European and U.S. contribution to NATO is once again in the cross hairs.

NATO Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, made the issue his central theme during the speech he gave at the annual Munich security forum.

While the NATO boss has expressed misgivings about the situation before, this time around he is particularly sharp in warning Europe it is risking its relevance in the future global security context.

The whole speech (below) is well worth reading, but here are a few bullet points for those that don’t want to read it it all right away:

-          European members have cut $45 billion from defense spending in the last two years.

-          The U.S. defense budget represents about 75% of defense spending in NATO.

-          The U.K. and France spend about 12% of what the U.S. spends on R&D.

Here’s the full text...

"...
Let me stress that I perfectly understand nations’ concerns: for them budget deficits come first, defence second.  And indeed, a strong economy is an essential part of security.  However, the choice between dealing with deficits and bolstering defence is a false choice.  Because security is also about military capabilities that allow governments to defend their populations against new threats, and possibly to engage in crisis management.

Let me be very clear: Europe simply cannot afford to get out of the security business.  It has to re-vitalise its role as the United States’ prime security partner and adjust to the new global security environment.

If we want to avoid the scenario that I have just set out, then the time to act is now. However, we cannot ensure our security just by spending more money – because the money simply isn’t there.  We need a new approach: Smart Defence – ensuring greater security, for less money, by working together with more flexibility...

Of course, not all nations can afford or need all capabilities. After all, NATO's foundation is collective defence – an attack on one Ally is considered an attack against all. In times of need, we help each other. The reassurance of solidarity should encourage some nations to focus on certain capabilities – either alone or working together with a few other Allies [emphasis added].  And NATO can help identify those options..."

Perhaps we in Canada should pay attention to that last para above:
http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/99004/post-1015036.html#msg1015036

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Continuing the theme:

Cuts in European defense budgets raise concerns for U.S., NATO
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/14/AR2011021403542.html

First, Germany announced it would suspend its draft, ending one of the touchstones of its post-World War II society. Then Britain and France, frequent rivals since at least the Norman Conquest, announced plans to share military equipment and research. And smaller countries across Europe are cutting defense budgets and shrinking militaries that were never large to begin with.

European policymakers say the cuts are necessary given their financial straits, and that training, not sheer numbers, is what matters in a post-Cold War world.

But some top officials, including the U.S. defense secretary and the NATO secretary general, worry that the changes could burden the United States by reducing the number of European troops available for NATO missions and other military efforts around the world. NATO's ability to function as a collective defense pact may be hobbled, they say.

The depth of the concerns was on display at a security conference in Munich this month, where instead of talking about Egypt - the situation at the forefront of many American minds - Germany's defense minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, gave an impassioned speech defending his cuts. The NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, followed by warning that the budget decreases across the continent could have dire consequences.

"If the cuts are too deep, we won't be able to defend the security on which our democratic societies and prosperous economies depend," Rasmussen said. "We risk a Europe increasingly adrift from the United States."

Rasmussen said the cooperation between Britain and France was an example of smart cuts but that he was concerned about the cumulative effects of the fiscal crunch across the continent.

In Germany, where the defense ministry has been asked to cut more than $11 billion from its budget over the next three years, a major part of the proposal is to reduce the size of the armed forces from 240,000 people, most of whom are conscripts, to 180,000 volunteers. Their commitment would be longer, as would their training.

France and Britain plan to share aircraft carriers and nuclear research labs. Sweden eliminated the draft last summer and has reduced the number of recruits it takes in annually by more than half. The Netherlands announced plans in November to cut the number of workers in its Defense Ministry by almost 15 percent. Italy has also unveiled plans to cut military spending.

Some analysts say that without increased coordination among European countries about how to make the reductions, they risk increasing their dependence on the United States for defense...

Mark
Ottawa