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Germany to cut arms spending by €26 billion

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  • Germany to cut arms spending by €26 billion

    Germany to cut arms spending by €26 billion

    GERMANY announced plans to cut defence spending by €26 billion (£18.2 billion) yesterday, slashing weapons procurement orders and reducing the army by 35,000 troops.

    Peter Strück, the Defence Minister, said that the cuts, which include closing 100 bases, would help to make the Armed Forces more professional and deployable.

    However, British experts viewed the cuts as another example of Europe’s failure to follow the United States in devoting greater resources to defence.

    Daniel Keohane, research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in London, said that the cuts would send the wrong signal. “If the biggest members of the European Union with the largest economies won’t spend more on defence, it will have a huge impact on smaller countries,” he said.

    Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands spend 86 per cent of the EU’s defence expenditure. Britain and France, the two biggest spenders, account for 45 per cent of the total.

    Andrew Brookes, of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that Germany’s plan to create more flexible military units was commendable, but he failed to see how substantial cuts in spending would help to achieve this.

    Across Europe, he said, there had been big talk of “headline goals” to improve defence capabilities — “but there is still a long way to go and nothing much has really happened,” he said.

    The Ministry of Defence reacted cautiously. “We will listen with keen interest for any implications that will directly impact on the defence interests of Britain and our European allies,” it said.

    Herr Strück said that savings would be made in arms procurement projects, although he insisted that Germany stood by its commitment to buy 180 Eurofighter combat aircraft, bringing relief to the other Eurofighter partners — Britain, Italy and Spain. Britain is planning to buy 232 Eurofighters for about £20 billion.

    Germany would also stick by its order for 410 Puma armoured vehicles, Herr Strück said. These are being developed jointly by German and British firms.

    Herr Strück said that a government austerity drive as well as post-Cold War security concerns had prompted the plans, which include reducing the German Army to 250,000 soldiers. The savings, he said, would allow for investment in troops and equipment from 2012.

    He said that all three German Armed Forces would have to share the burden of cuts and that the government would buy only the most necessary equipment in the coming years.

    Despite the cuts, experts said that Germany was at last focusing on rapid reaction forces for future conflicts and emergencies. It is heavily involved in Afghanistan and the Balkans.

    Yet with Britain spending 2.8 per cent of its gross domestic product on defence, compared to Germany’s 1.26 per cent, reduced military expenditure by Berlin will be viewed with alarm within Nato and the EU.

    Mr Keohane said that the 15 EU members were spending $125 billion on defence, less than half of the United States’s expenditure, and they could deploy overseas fewer than 10 per cent of their two million troops.

    Source: London Times
    "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

  • #2
    So that leaves their defense budget at about $0.00:D

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    • #3
      They spend about $40 billion a year atm.

      I wonder how many years this is over. Because 26 billion Euros is about $33 billion.
      "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

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      • #4
        It is proble over severl years.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Ironduke
          Germany to cut arms spending by €26 billion
          Yet with Britain spending 2.8 per cent of its gross domestic product on defence, compared to Germany’s 1.26 per cent, reduced military expenditure by Berlin will be viewed with alarm within Nato and the EU.

          Source: London Times
          anybody knows the military expenditure of all the countries in the world, or at lease of some more? I guess North Korea must have a fairly high one.
          No matter how the next war ends, the following one will be fought with sticks and stones.
          (Albert Einstein)

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