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Old 12-06-2010, 15:25   #1
akv
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As Europe cuts military budgets, some worry about its clout

Didn't "the war to end all wars" end in 1918? Hope is not a strategy.

Quote:

By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times
December 5, 2010

Key U.S. allies say they must slash defense spending to rein in budget deficits that are spooking investors. Some experts fret that it's not just manpower and materiel being cut, but Europe's reach and ambition.

Reporting from Bergen, Germany — Ever since Allied troops liberated the infamous Bergen-Belsen concentration camp down the road, thousands of British soldiers have made this town their home.

From beating back the Nazis to girding for a Soviet assault, they've been a constant and comforting presence here in northern Germany for 65 years. But by 2020, the last British service member will lace up his boots, march out of the barracks and turn off the lights on that piece of history.

The planned closure of the base here is part of a wave of military cutbacks across Europe, the battleground of two bloody world wars and a protracted cold one in the last century.

Key U.S. allies, such as Britain, Germany, Italy and France, say they must slash billions of dollars from defense spending if they are to rein in runaway budget deficits that have spooked investors and put a question mark over the continent's economic recovery.

But some officials and observers fret that it's not just personnel and materiel being scaled back, but Europe's reach and ambition. They warn that the cuts will further widen the European-American gap in firepower, even as other nations such as China and Iran continue to beef up their military capabilities.

"Do Europeans want to be actors on the international stage, or do they want to be the actors in a play they are not writing?" former French Defense Minister Herve Morin asked recently, saying with Gallic bluntness: "At the pace we're going, Europe is progressively becoming a protectorate, and in 50 years we will become the game in a balancing act between the new powers and will be under a Sino-American dominion."

Not all analysts share Morin's pessimism, or at least its extent. Plenty of Europeans, mindful of their blood-soaked past, have no problem with downsizing their militaries. A few even see a potential upside in a tighter-knit Europe whose nations, although driven by economic necessity, coordinate more closely on defense and integrate more of their forces.

But there's little doubt that the spending cuts will downgrade armies and arsenals, which could cause a strain on the United States. if, for example, its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies proved less able to respond to terrorist attacks or to fight in conflicts such as the one in Afghanistan.

"There is a point where you are no longer cutting fat; you're cutting into muscle and then into bone," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in October. "We have to avoid cutting so deep that we won't, in future, be able to defend the security on which our economic prosperity rests."

At the end of 2008, according to the European Defense Agency, the European Union boasted 1.8 million men and women under arms, about 400,000 more troops than the U.S. had.

But far fewer European troops are deployed on missions than Americans, an imbalance seen most starkly at present in Afghanistan. And Washington's defense budget is more than twice that of all of Europe, where such expenditures dropped 2% in 2008 to about $260 billion at today's exchange rate.

The cutbacks being implemented or considered will only heighten the disparities.

Britain, Washington's closest ally, is determined to shrink its defense budget by 8% in real terms over the next four years as part of a sweeping public austerity plan. The military is to shed 17,000 troops, postpone an upgrade of its submarine-based nuclear deterrent and decommission a flagship aircraft carrier, 40% of the army's tanks and an aging fleet of fighter jets.

France intends to cut $1.3 billion, or 3%, from its defense budget for next year and eliminate 54,000 defense jobs by 2014. Italy recently canceled an order of jet fighters to save more than $2 billion. Spain is slashing its military spending for the third year in a row. And the Dutch defense minister announced last month that one in seven defense jobs in the Netherlands is likely to be scrapped in the next few years.

Here in Germany, the government has decided to end conscription starting in July, making the army a purely professional force. A blue-ribbon panel also recommends that Berlin cut the number of its troops from 250,000 to 180,000; Germany's popular defense minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, has suggested even more drastic personnel reductions.

In theory, the grim economic climate should offer the ideal opportunity for nations to pool their resources and pursue a common foreign and military policy, the Holy Grail for many advocates of greater European integration. Although they are bound to each other through alliances such as NATO, each nation largely pursues its own foreign policy.

Some steps have been taken toward closer coordination. France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands recently put 200 transport aircraft under a single command at an air base in the Dutch city of Eindhoven.

And in spite of the inevitable calls, in London, to remember the battle of Waterloo, Britain and France last month sealed a deal to share use of aircraft carriers, conduct joint training exercises, tackle cyberwarfare together and cooperate on nuclear technology.

But critics say there has been little sign of a continent-wide vision or strategy emerging from all the cutbacks.

"France and Britain went in the right direction, saying we duplicate things we don't need to," said Carlo Masala, a security expert at Bundeswehr University in Munich. "But this could be even done on a European level, and this is a debate which I'm missing."

Some European officials argue that the defense cuts will spur them to create nimbler armies more capable of responding to new threats at home and abroad.

Yet the public appetite for expeditionary operations like the war in Afghanistan is steadily shrinking, raising doubts as to whether these streamlined forces would ever see action. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she was "worried" that the work of NATO could be undermined.

"If you look at the majority of ordinary people in Europe, what they want is a stable and prosperous Europe," Masala said. "They don't care that much about what's going on outside Europe. So they don't see the need to be present in military terms in other regions."

Or even in other parts of Europe.

More than 20,000 British troops are stationed in Germany, the legacy of victory in World War II and the long standoff with the Soviet Union. But in October, Britain said it would bring all its soldiers home by 2020, far sooner than the expected withdrawal date of 2035.

Towns that depend heavily on the British presence, mostly in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony, were devastated by the news.

Rainer Prokop, the mayor of Bergen, said the Britons account for 20% to 30% of the local economy, bringing about $40 million a year to the area. The base here is home to Britain's famed Desert Rats, the armored brigade that fought Rommel in North Africa during World War II.

Just as difficult as the economic consequences of the pullout will be the emotional ones, Prokop said. A close relationship has developed over 65 years; the soldiers are accorded the honor of parading armed through town on special occasions.

"They're part of our spirit," Prokop said.

"We will survive. But we will have a very, very hard time ahead."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...788,full.story
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