ČR, Poland talk military alliance

In a response to a NATO plea for greater cooperation between members in order to maintain military strength, General Vlastimil Picek, the Czech military chief of staff, met with his Polish counterpart, General Mieczyslaw Cieniuch, to discuss pooling military capabilities Oct. 11.

The talks revolved around possible overlaps that could translate into cooperation as well as broader regional cooperation, a hot topic because of increasingly tight defense budgets. But such talk has yet to see the political will develop to back it up, military analysts say.

Bilateral cooperation with Poland could encompass airspace and anti-aircraft defense and systems designed to protect against weapons of mass destruction, as well as cooperation on training, logistics and the purchase of equipment.

 "This activity is related to the current budget cuts in most defense ministries of EU member states," said Defense Ministry spokeswoman Jana Růžičková.

Several EU members have started to move toward bilateral cooperation arrangements, but it is still too early to tell how successful they will be, and the Czech-Polish cooperation is no exception, said Tomáš Karásek, director of the Association for International Affairs in Prague.

"When the officials at the ministry and officers of the Army talk about this, they are not very enthusiastic," he said.  

"There is a high level of skepticism about how well these things can work and how beneficial they can be. There is this feeling that is not necessarily correct, that you have to invest more financially and politically than you get out of it."

The problem of shrinking European defense budgets has been identified by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen as one of the alliance's most pressing matters, as even Europe's largest economies have made significant cuts in military spending in recent years. Rasmussen has encouraged NATO members to cooperate through joint purchasing and consolidation.

The Czech Republic recently passed its own grim 2012 budget that some say might end up being cut even more based on poor economic growth forecasts. The current 2012 budget seeks to cut military spending to 41.5 billion Kč from 43.8 billion Kč this year.

"Due to financial restrictions, we expect the Army in 2012 to invest only in projects that have already been started and are closed under a contractual relationship," Růžičková said, including supersonic aircraft leasing, Pandurs, light armored vehicles and new assault rifles.

"The remaining funds will be invested only in maintaining the serviceability of existing equipment," she said.  

The generals also talked about regional cooperation among the Visegrad Four countries, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland, which agreed in May to set up a battle group to be deployable in 2016 to be led by Poland. The group would consist of four units, three infantry and one security, made up of 1,500 soldiers from the four countries. The group would combine military support units in the areas of combat engineering, air defense, medical staff and military police.

The European Union decided to start putting together battle groups in 2007 to create joint deployable groups of soldiers to save money while still allowing Europe to contribute to missions abroad.

None has ever been deployed, although there was talk about deploying one to Libya, Karásek said.

"The potential to solve the problems of NATO or the EU with battle groups is limited," he said.

The rotational nature of the groups, whereby usually two groups are on six-month standby before responsibility shifts, makes the system unstable, Karásek said, and makes logistics and transport costly.

"There's not really enough political will to move forward. I know there are a lot of difficulties; it's complicated to make armies work together, and one of the main obstacles is that politicians are not ready to cross certain thresholds," Karásek said.

Cat Contiguglia can be reached at
ccontiguglia@praguepost.com