Author: Robert Brešťan, HlidaciPes.org
The European defense industry has been forcibly awakened after the Russian aggression against Ukraine, and democratic governments have realized that they need to support it more than at any other time in the last four decades. “But the debts and mistakes of the past are huge. If we want to protect our way of life – freedom, democracy, the rule of law and free enterprise – we should be able to return to our roots, and therefore to the principles and approaches that lead to effective defense,” summaries a fresh Aspen Institute study.
Poland, influenced by current events east of its border and taking into account its historical experience with Russia, has launched its “Eastern Shield” project: the construction of fortifications on the border with Russia’s Königsberg region. The result is to be 800 kilometers of fortified border.
Similarly, the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are preparing for the worst. Fearing the continuation and spread of Russian aggression, they are jointly building a line on the borders with Russia and Belarus, where bunkers, trenches and minefields are to be built.
The above-mentioned countries have also radically increased their defense budgets, which are quite significantly above the minimum two per cent of GDP required by NATO.
But as a new Aspen Institute study, “Defense Industry: Development and Innovation, Challenges and Issues”, describes, even two per cent of GDP spent on defense is not nearly enough. EU countries in particular have built up a huge internal debt in the defense sector in recent decades, with “inadequately low defense budgets lasting fifteen or twenty years” affecting most Alliance members.
The lead author of the study is also interesting. He is Daniel Kostoval, a security analyst, in the past, among other things, Deputy Minister of Defense for Armaments and Acquisitions, who is to become the new Czech ambassador to Russia from next year.
Defense in an atrophied state
The security situation in the world is changing and the use of military force is seen by many states as the best means to achieve their goals, the study points out, “Powers such as Russia, China and Iran are seeking fundamental power shifts in international relations – from their perspective, the goal is to regain power and influence at the expense of states collectively known as the West.”
While Russia and China have begun to demonstrate the will and ability to take significant military action in multiple places around the world simultaneously, the US and its allies have lost this ability due to low budgets and underinvestment in defense. According to the study’s author, Daniel Kostoval, this needs to change fundamentally. However, it is not possible to ensure defense. capability, and thus deter a potential aggressor (or defeat it if necessary), without a functioning arms industry.
However, low defense. budgets from the end of the Cold War to the present day “have led NATO member states to a severely atrophied state of their defense. industries”, where – as the war in Ukraine shows – European allies have lost the ability to produce many of the weapons systems needed to wage modern warfare.
It is not surprising that the development of the defense. industry is directly proportional to the size of the defense. budget.
“Today, this formula has been proven for more than a century: The basis for the minimum necessary development in peacetime is a budget of at least 2% of GDP, while observing the following budget structure: a maximum of 50% for mandated expenditures, a maximum of 30% for current expenditures (typically servicing or training) and a minimum of 20% for investments (purchase of weapon systems, construction of units = creation of new capabilities),” the study reminds.
However, he points out that “in the case of a strategic rivalry with the potential for high-intensity armed conflict involving the deployment of modern technologies and the need for rapid innovation”, this amount of money is completely inadequate.
The effects of thirty years of peace
For example, during the Cold War, the US spent on average over 6% of GDP on defense. and the Europeans up to 3% of GDP. Since the 1990s, however, defense. has ceased to be a priority.
In the case of the Czech Republic alone, the Aspen Institute study estimates underfunding (i.e. the difference between 2% of GDP and actual budgets between 2005 and 2024) at CZK 600 billion.
Low defense. budgets have their impact: new weapon systems are not purchased, training is cut, equipment is not properly repaired, long-term contracts for servicing equipment and buying ammunition are not concluded, investments are cut into a series of partial purchase contracts, investments in innovation are minimal or zero…
“If inadequately low defense. budgets persist for fifteen or twenty years and affect most Alliance members, then this has a devastating effect on the capabilities of the defense. industry across all NATO countries. This is exactly what happened in the period 1990-2022. The effects will be fully felt in 2024, and the conflict in Ukraine as a result of Russian aggression exposes the atrophy of the defense. industry in NATO and EU countries in concrete numbers,” the study summaries.
We have seven years. Maybe
Russia – and all potential aggressors in general – certainly keep a close eye on how prepared their potential victims are for conflict and how powerful their defense. industry is. So what do they see today?
For example, Europe’s inability to produce the necessary quantities of anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems, guns, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles or the much sought-after 155mm artillery ammunition.
“If NATO and EU countries cannot remove this incompetence within seven years, there will be no deterrence against Russia’s possible aggression against the Alliance’s own territory. Nor will effective defense. work in the event of an armed conflict,” Daniel Kostoval stresses in his study.
Seven years, he said, is the window of time that NATO and EU countries have “to stop a consolidated Russia in the future after the exhaustion of the war in Ukraine and the start of war production as a result of the aggression in Ukraine.”
Another obstacle for the defense. industries at the European level is the excessive administrative complexity and various regulations, where it takes ten years or more to build a new munitions factory in the EU, for example: ‘And that’s if the company in question is able to meet the requirements for construction management, environmental protection, handling of chemicals, etc., which are set by EU and national legislation.’
As Daniel Kostoval proposes in his analysis, the parameters of the Green Deal should also be changed: “So that the pressures for deindustralization cease, energy prices are reduced to a level that allows the defense industry to compete globally, and disproportionate budgetary resources are not siphoned off for inadequate or even unattainable goals that are then missing for investment in defense capability.”
Outwardly, however, the EU has declared its efforts to increase its defense. capabilities and production capacities: it has adopted, among other things, the “Act on the Strengthening of the European Defense Industry through Joint Procurement” and the “Ammunition Production Promotion Act”, which aims to ensure an increase in the EU’s production capacity.
