As the longtime U.S. ambassador to NATO leaves his post, he’s not hesitating to tell European governments what he thinks of their military cutbacks.
“Most European allies are hollowing out their militaries, jettisoning capabilities, and failing to spend their existing budgets wisely,” said Ivo Daalder in a farewell speech, hosted by Carnegie Europe, a think tank this week.
Daalder, who has served in the role since May 2009, didn’t mince words when criticizing European countries’ decisions to reduce military spending as a means to reduce debt and government expenditures. From 2002-2012, collective NATO military spending by European countries totaled $2.5 trillion.
The decreases, although marginal, could result in policy differences splitting the U.S. and NATO countries regarding a possible military intervention in Syria.
“Europe is not investing enough in Defense to remain a viable military partner. Today, Europe’s ability to serve as America’s partner of first resort is diminishing,” Daalder said. “As a result, the gap between American and European contributions to the alliance is widening to an unsustainable level. The trends need to be reversed.”
Retired Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute was nominated by President Obama to replace Daalder last month. Lute has served for the past 6 years as a White House adviser on Afghanistan.
NATO splits
Formed in 1949, NATO was created as an institution for the collective defense of allied countries after World War II. The pact grew considerably during the 20th century as a means to counter the growing influence of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the pact continued to expand and now includes 28 member states, including a handful of nuclear powers in North America, Europe and Western Asia.
The relevant question is: Will recent cuts affect the security of NATO countries? All data indicates that collective military expenditures still place NATO states well ahead of all non-NATO countries in combined military spending.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, NATO member states still account for more than 70 percent of total military expenditures worldwide, even as China, Russia and other major non-NATO players up their military budgets.
Most NATO countries continue to follow the lead set by Washington, maintaining troops in Afghanistan and backing the military no-fly zone in Libya in 2011 that was credited by leaders with helping rebels eventually overthrown Moammar Gadhafi’s regime.
As the 2.5-year conflict in Syria grows larger, the prospect of a military intervention has split NATO members. The official NATO position is still opposed to a boots-on-the-ground approach to resolving the conflict that has consumed 93,000 lives, according to the latest United Nations estimates.
“We don’t have any intention to intervene militarily in Syria,” said NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in March.
NATO forces have not been deployed, but the issue of arming rebel groups has become an explosive topic of discussion for those NATO members attending the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland this week.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced this month that Washington will begin to directly supply arms to rebel groups, a position supported by British Prime Minister David Cameron and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The decision was made after a U.S. intelligence report claimed that Assad used chemical weapons to kill 100-150 rebels earlier this month.
Critics fear that the arms could fall into the hands of al-Qaida and other terrorist groups that may pose a future security threat to NATO countries. Leaders in Germany, a country that has already spent billions bailing out countries mired in economic crisis, have made clear they want no part of a costly intervention in Syria.
“The FDP [Free Democratic Party] leadership is worried that the US government could come under such pressure domestically and internationally that it would conclude it has to do something, and would then seek evidence to justify military intervention,” said German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle during a May speech.
The overall reduction could change plans for countries involved in the occupation of Afghanistan. Although NATO has announced a formal 2014 withdrawal, there are plans in place for a more permanent force of 8,000-12,000 troops.
Sacrificing security for austerity?
Some NATO officials still argue for increasing security budgets as Europe struggles with a debt crisis and 20 million people, or 12.2 percent of the EU, unemployed.
“Security challenges won’t wait while we fix our finances. And more cuts now will lead to greater insecurity in the future, at a cost we simply can’t afford,” said Rasmussen during a recent trans-Atlantic security conference in Munich.
“I realise how difficult this is with an economy having slipped back into recession last year and the ever-present temptation to back away from commitments on defence spending. But I also know that maintaining our capabilities is what enables us to advance our common global agenda,” Rasmussen said, according to EUObserver.com.
Greece exemplifies the failures of government spending that outpaces real economic growth. As the country is mired in economic crisis, with nearly 27 percent unemployment and 58 percent unemployment for youth ages 15-27, Greece continues to outspend all EU countries compared to GDP.
During the 1960s and 1970s, roughly 6 percent of Greek national spending went to the military. The number fell to 3 percent from 2000-2010 — still twice the average for other EU countries over that period.
Greece justified this spending because of a long-standing historical gripe with Turkey, an allied NATO member state. Economist Angelos Philippides claims that if Greece had a more modest military budget during the years of economic prosperity, “there would be no debt at all” today.
Others contend that the military cuts are long overdue given the dire economic state in EU countries.
Frank Slijper, a senior researcher and economist at a Dutch group opposed to the arms trade and an associate of the Transnational Institute, claims that years of overspending on arms and defense remains a major factor exacerbating the effects of the financial crisis sweeping Europe.
“The elephant is the role of military spending in causing and perpetuating the economic crisis. As social infrastructure is being slashed, spending on weapon systems is hardly being reduced. While pensions and wages have been cut, the arms industry continues to profit from new orders as well as outstanding debts. The shocking fact at a time of austerity is that EU military expenditure totalled €194 billion [$259 billion] in 2010, equivalent to the annual deficits of Greece, Italy and Spain combined,” writes Slijper in an April 2013 report titled “Guns, Debt and Corruption: Military spending and the EU crisis.”
It’s a double-edged sword, as many of the cuts have already led to layoffs for hundreds of thousands who once served in European militaries.
“Between 2009 and 2011, European states discharged 160,000 soldiers, understanding cuts as necessary to maintain effective armed forces in times of economic austerity. By rule, they are implemented within broader government spending reductions. Many of the measures proposed are drastic and would have been hard to imagine only a decade ago, wrote Marko Savković for the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy in a report published last year.
“Spain, for instance, is vacating air bases and introducing more unmanned drones to its air force. Close to 20,000 soldiers will leave the British Army, in what Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has described as ‘the biggest shake-up in 100 years,’” Savković wrote.
Citing a recent study by the University of Massachusetts, Slijper claims that defense spending is one of the least efficient ways to put people back to work.
He wrote that when compared to domestic initiatives, defense spending “creates the fewest number of jobs, less than half of what it could generate if invested in education and public transport. At a time of desperate need for investment in job creation, supporting a bloated and wasteful military can not be justified given how many more jobs such money would create in areas such as health and public transport.”