Defense Minister Makes Savings Push
February 24, 2003
By cutting down on the number of planes, helicopters and boats currently in its possession, Germany's military is planning to save more than €3.2 billion ($3.46 billion), the country's defense minister announced Friday.
The cost reduction plan is scheduled to be carried out until 2012, and the military's budget will remain fixed at its current €24.4 billion annual figure, Minister Peter Struck (photo) said Friday. On its way to meeting the goal, Struck said that the German air force would retire between 80 and 90 Tornado fighter jets and 30 Tiger helicopters, and that the Navy would get rid of 10 fast boats.
The reductions, combined with 800 million euro that has already been saved in the 2003 budget, will give the military the financial room it needs as it moves from its Cold War mission of defending the homeland and develops into a mobile force capable of rapid international deployment, Struck said.
"We want to create room for further investments," Struck told reporters on Friday.
Among those planned investments are additional armored personnel carriers, better equipment for special forces, improvements in military computer systems and the acquisition of unmanned airplanes.
There have also been reports that the army will reduce its stockpiles of one Cold War legacy -- the battle tank. Large numbers of these rolling cannons will be sold to NATO partners in eastern Europe, said Rainer Arnold, the military affairs spokesman in the Social Democrats' parliamentary group.
The aim of this operation will be to reduce operating costs, which make up about 75 percent of the budget, and gain additional funding for investments, Arnold said.
Struck re-emphasized the importance of the security of German troops serving as part of the U.N.-led international security force in Afghanistan and added that such international deployments confirmed the need for reform.
Military making a transition
This realization marks another step in a military evolution that began when East Germany and West Germany united in 1990. At the time, both countries' militaries were designed to throw their massive weight into a war that would pit the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact against the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The battleground was expected to be the countries' very own home turf.
At the time of reunification, the West German armed forces had around 480,000 servicemembers who were prepared to carry out this fight. In the 12 years since then, the military's funding and force totals have plunged. The number of servicemembers was cut to 370,000 and then to 340,000. That trend is continuing under a plan implemented by Struck's predecessor, Rudolf Scharping. The goal of this plan is to cut the level to 285,000. But the actual number will be 30,000 fewer because of training and other non-mission activities.
These cuts have come at time when the military's mission has grown. No longer faced with massive tank battles at home, German troops moved abroad to try to bring peace to places like Somalia and Bosnia or, if need be, to join Germany's NATO allies in waging war against Yugoslavia. Today, roughly 10,000 German soldiers are serving abroad in operations that burn up large amounts of resources. The biggest mission is the joint command of the international security force in Kabul, Afghanistan, that Germany and the Netherlands began to perform this month.
Resources running out
In carrying out such missions, the Germany military has seen just how limited its resources are. Such everyday items as tents and flak jackets have been in short supply at times. Its main transport plane, the Transall, is a costly three-decade-old maintenance nightmare. And the watchword has become cannibalization, the term for using one vehicle as a spare parts supplier for another.
As German military leaders look ahead, they will be identifying areas in which they must invest and areas they can ignore. Arnold, the military affairs spokesman, already has an idea where these funds will flow. "We will be increasing investment in communications technology much more than we anticipate today. We will also invest heavily in nuclear, biological and chemical protections," he said.