Slovakia Defence and Security Report 2013

Slovakia's government changed hands in March 2012 and, with it, the chances for a concerted effort tomodernise the country's aging military diminished. The Smer-SD, the country's leftist party, won aresounding victory against right-wing parties tainted by corruption and incompetency. Smer-SD, which iscommitted to meeting EU fiscal rules capping deficits at 3% of GDP, is unlikely to increase spending onthe military whilst it is cutting social services and raising taxes in order to plug the 4.5% of GDP gap inpublic finances. In short, no major procurement tenders can be expected in the short-term and it is likelythat modernisation will be, at best, delayed for a number of years.

Following the victory of the Smer-SD party in the Slovakian elections of March 2012, a wave ofdepartmental consolidation is likely to follow. While certain moves may be relatively uncontroversial -such as joining the Social Affairs and Health ministries - the plan to merge the Ministries of the Interiorand Defence are unusual and fold the two military intelligence units into the civilian Slovak InformationService (SIS). The move has been supported by Prime Minister Fico as part of a plan to deliverpredictable government in Slovakia.

This plan has been mooted before but it has now won the support of three former Ministers of Defence,including two from right-wing parties that are now in opposition. Nevertheless, such a move would likelycement the institutional neglect of the Slovakian military, which already has fallen far behind on NATOmodernisation plans and is widely considered incapable of defending the country. Only the Air Force istoday up to a level which allows integration into NATO command structures and even here training andequipment falls far short of NATO expectations. A relatively puny 1.1% of GDP is spent on defence.

Should defence issues be subsumed to the interior ministry, it is highly likely that this figure will inpractice fall even further as Slovakia focuses not on modernising its military, but on managing its declineto a purely token force.

Meanwhile, Konstrukta Defence is set to miss out on a major self-propelled howitzer deal. The firm hadbeen shortlisted along with German firm Rheinmetall to manufacture 180 self-propelled howitzers forthe Indian Army in a contract worth INR46bn (US$867mn). The Indian government has cancelled thetender for the howitzers for the fourth time. The cancellation follows a letter circulated in late 2011claiming that faults in Konstrukta's design had been hidden by the firm and by army officers. Artilleryprocurement in India has been controversial since the Bofors deal of the 1980s, which became shorthandfor endemic corruption at the highest levels of the Indian government. No new artillery pieces have beenimported since then, according to reports from the Economic Times, though a deal to purchase 145 ultralight howitzers from the United States is currently moving forward according to plan.

Slovakia's foreign minister Miroslav Lajcak has said that rehashing Obama's changes to the missiledefence stance in Eastern Europe is not useless as 'people have moved on' in the past three years. The UShad originally intended to site land-based missile defence systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, butin the US presidential campaign, the challenger, Mitt Romney, attacked this move as being anabandonment of US allies. Though Slovakia was not set to host these systems Lajcak's comments arelikely to represent reluctance in Eastern Europe to disrupt relations in Russia by returning to thecontroversial missile defence system.