Christine Wormuth, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and Gen. Philip Breedlove, Commander, Supreme Allied Command Europe and U.S. European Combatant Command, listen to opening statements during a House Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington, Feb. 25, 2015. Joe Gromelski/Stars and Stripes (Joe Gromelski/Stars and Stripes)
Russia’s intervention in Ukraine may have been a “game changer” for NATO, but the concern voiced in capitals across Europe has not been reflected in defense spending, which in many cases is decreasing, according to an analysis released Thursday.
While some countries, notably those who feel most directly threatened by Russia — the Baltic nations, Poland and Romania — have been gradually increasing spending, major member states such as Germany and the United Kingdom are continuing to cut spending, raising questions about the state of alliance readiness, the London-based European Leadership Network stated in an analysis of alliance spending plans.
“What we’ve done is try and shine a light on the follow through since Wales, and there is little sign that there has been any,” said Ian Kearns, director of the think tank focused on military and security issue.
At the NATO summit in Wales in September, leaders agreed to “reverse the trend of declining defense budgets.”
The report, titled “The Wales Pledge Revisited,” looked at spending trends in 14 of the alliance’s 28-member countries and how they are faring in meeting NATO’s guideline for each country to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense.
In recent years, only four countries — the U.S., United Kingdom, Estonia and Greece — have met that requirement.
“(T)he figures presented in this document do not reflect NATO’s rhetoric about events in Ukraine being a ‘game-changer’ for European security,” the report concluded.
In Germany, Europe’s economic and political powerhouse, defense spending this year is set to drop to 1.09 percent of GDP, down from 1.3 percent two years earlier, according to the report.
For Europe as a whole, relatively modest spending gains by a handful of small countries such as Lithuania, with a 2015 defense budget of $474 million or Latvia, $283 million, will do little to bolster Europe’s overall defense investment if Germany and the U.K., which last year spent $44 billion and $55 billion respectively, continue to shrink their budgets, Kearns said.
Poland, with a budget of about $10 billion, “is the most important of those countries that are increasing, but after that you’re dealing with very small countries, with very small defense budgets,” Kearns said. “The big players in Europe aren’t doing that.”
For years, the U.S. has been critical of its European partners for cutting defense spending, which has steadily declined since 1990. U.S. defense spending far outpaces its allies’ at roughly $580 billion.
For that reason, the European Leadership Network elected not to examine U.S. spending in its report, saying it already carries “the largest share of the burden.”
In 2014, European allies spent around $250 billion on defense, which was a reduction of $7 billion or about 3 percent from the previous year, according to NATO data.
“We still have a serious mismatch between the security challenges we face, and the resources we are dedicating to our defense, and continuing imbalances — both across the Atlantic, and within Europe itself,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in January.
Still, NATO spending far outpaces that of Russia. While Russia’s military has been growing at a rapid pace in recent years — Moscow’s defense budget is projected to be larger than those of France and Germany combined by 2016 — Europe as a whole still spends four times as much on defense, according to the defense publication IHS Janes.
Despite the spending cuts, challenges from Russia and Islamic State militants threatening its southern flank have spurred NATO to take steps to become more agile and responsive.
However, questions remain about NATO’s long-term viability and ability to respond to threats should the cutbacks continue.
“(T)he freeze of, or decrease in, the defense budgets of these countries is resulting in dangerous underfunding for infrastructure and equipment projects and is damaging what is left of the European pillar of NATO,” the report stated.
Germany in particular has suffered a series of high-profile equipment failures and shortages in the past year, ranging from forced delays in military flights out of Afghanistan to postponed humanitarian anti-Ebola missions.
Such shortfalls call into question “the extent to which Germany will be able to contribute to NATO’s overall defense needs,” the report said. “Technical problems and lack of qualified personnel could also seriously diminish Germany’s ability to fulfill all of its NATO commitments, something acknowledged even by” Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen.
Another challenge for Europe, however, is that it also is not getting enough capability out of what it already spends, with too much funding being directed toward non-deployable military personnel rather than equipment upgrades and bolstering expeditionary units, Kearns said.
“In many of these European countries, it’s skewed toward manpower costs, but it’s politically toxic to talk about laying people off,” Kearns said.
