Army saves for mission ahead

Bundeswehr celebrates 50 years of service but needs more money for future tasks

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10. Juni 2005 By Aaron Kirchfeld

On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Bundeswehr on Tuesday, Defense Minister Peter Struck took a moment to describe what Germany's military will look like in the coming century. “The soldier of the future - apart from the weapons which he needs for self defense - will go into combat with a laptop so that he can communicate with every possible position,“ Struck said.
But his vision of the futuristic soldier equipped with the most modern technology available faces one major hurdle: lack of money. The military budget has not kept up with the Bundeswehr's mission, which has changed dramatically from protecting Germany's borders against a Soviet invasion into a mobile unit deployed around the world. The funding levels for the Bundeswehr have actually been falling since 1990, when military spending amounted to about 3.5 percent of gross domestic product.
Today, defense spending equals about 1.6 percent of German GDP, compared to the NATO average of 2.1 percent and the United States' 3 percent. And budgetary woes make an increase unlikely. Critics argue that the budget of €24.4 billion is too small to finance the necessary transformation of the Bundeswehr into a well-equipped force ready for NATO and U.N. led missions abroad.
“We desperately need a budget improvement,“ said former Inspector General Dieter Wellershoff this week. He said the Bundeswehr has become a vital partner for international peacekeeping missions, but was suffering under defense cuts.
Last year, Struck announced plans to institute drastic saving measures through 2010 such as downsizing the military by around 35,000 to 250,000 and closing over 100 military bases.
The goal is to free up funds to pay for a highly qualified military that is equipped for international relief and military efforts. Currently, there are around 6,500 German soldiers stationed abroad, the majority of which are participating in NATO and U.N. operations in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo.
Germany's current army is a far cry from the original Bundeswehr, which was born when the Ministry of Defense was created on June 7, 1955, ten years after Hitler's Wehrmacht surrendered to Allied troops. During the height of the Cold War, the Bundeswehr grew to 500,000 troops and was assigned to oppose an invasion by Soviet-led forces.
Looking back on the development of the Bundeswehr at official anniversary ceremonies on Tuesday in Berlin, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder praised the institution as a “one-of-a-kind success story.“ He also used the event to support Struck's backing for the draft, which has been the center of a years-long debate. The defense minister, who like Schröder is a member of the Social Democratic Party, said the combination of professional soldiers and conscripts is the “secret to success“ of the Bundeswehr.
This did little to quiet critics, which include some members of the SPD, its junior coalition partner, the Greens, and the small Free Democratic Party. They have long called for an end to the draft and argue that the Bundeswehr's missions abroad require a professional army and the selection process is unfair because so few of those eligible actually serve. The majority of the SPD and the major opposition party, the Christian Democratic Union, want to keep the current rules, which require young men to serve nine months in the military or do civil service.

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