foto: KNDS Deutschland, Public domain/Leopard 2A8
In her speech at the Commanders' Assembly, Defence Minister Černochová said, among other things, that the department has a fundamental problem with a lack of personnel in the field of acquisitions. In the case of the joint procurement of the Leopard 2A8 tanks, the capacity of the Federal Ministry of Defence can be relied upon in this respect.
At the end of February, in a speech by the Minister of Defence at the Commanders' Assembly, she addressed the pressing problem of the armed forces – the lack of recruitment results combined with the fact that a record number of experienced soldiers are leaving for civilian life: „We have neither enough professionals nor enough reservists, although the numbers of both are slowly increasing. And unfortunately there is no simple solution to deal with this quickly and easily. We are in a situation where our population is ageing. Young people are declining. According to the forecasts, it will not get any better by 2050,“ said Jana Černochová.
The defence ministry is also fundamentally short of staff in the field of acquisitions
This is a problem that has been discussed for a long time. A relatively new topic is what the Defence Minister said about the staffing situation in the civilian part of the department: „We tend to talk only about recruitment in this context, but that is only part of it. We face the same problems with recruitment in the civilian part of the ministry, for example in the construction, acquisition and economic areas we have a fundamental problem with recruiting new personnel, and this is as serious a problem for the Army as the lack of soldiers. In fact, over the last 30 years, a large part of the service activities have been transferred to the civilian part, and if this support is not functional, you soldiers, i.e. the army, will also suffer.“
Jana Černochová wants to address the situation by preparing research studies and surveys, on the basis of which concrete measures will be taken. This means, not surprisingly, a long run. The long-term underfunding of defence has clearly been evident in this respect as well. In the case of the Army, its equipment and the state of its personnel, it has been visible for a long time. In the case of the civilian part of the defence department, the problems are surfacing less clearly but more intensely and somewhat paradoxically as defence spending is increased. This was discussed, among others, by the outgoing Chief Director of the Economic Section Blanka Cupaková when the Committee on Defence discussed the implementation of the MoD budget chapter for 2024 on 14 January.
The same number of staff addresses the doubling and growing defence budget
In short, the framework is that the same number of civilian employees of the Ministry of Defence now handles significantly more projects, often at a value many times higher than was usual in the past. If in 2010 there were 8303 civilian employees working for the Ministry of Defence, in 2022 there will be 7096 + 1096 civil servants, a lower number in total. Meanwhile, defence spending amounted to about 51 billion crowns (1.38% of GDP) in 2010 and had fallen to 41 billion crowns (0.96% of GDP) by 2014, while in 2022 it amounted to 91 billion crowns (1.34% of GDP), and continues to rise, and according to a recent government decision, which, however, can easily be modified and fundamentally changed by the next government, is set to rise to 3% of GDP by 2030.
And it is not just the total number of staff to service this budget, but also their quality. And these must be matched by the entry and long-term working conditions, which is really a similar problem to that faced by the professional army. And it is simple in principle – if an employer wants enough quality employees, it must motivate them accordingly and be competitive on the labour market. However, this is a question of a long-term approach and a systemic solution to the problem will affect current projects rather marginally and prospectively.
The solution in the case of the acquisition of 2A8 Leopards is offered by the mechanism of joint procurement
Last week, we asked what the Czech Republic is waiting for in the matter of the acquisition of the Leopard 2A8 Main Battle Tanks, the acquisition of which, or joining the joint procurement with Germany, was decided by the government in June last year, as reported by the MoD: „Subsequently, by the end of the year, a comprehensive material on the terms of purchase will be presented to the government for a decision. (...) The estimated expenditure for 61 tanks is CZK 39.8 billion including VAT, and for 77 tanks CZK 52.1 billion. The pace of financing is still to be negotiated. (...) After the signing of the CPA, further negotiations will follow, for example, on industrial cooperation, on the issue of financing or on the model of guarantee and after-guarantee service.“ By the end of 2024, the aforementioned comprehensive material had not been submitted, and in mid-March we only know that negotiations are continuing and the total number of tanks to be acquired by the Czech Army has not been decided.
Is this development, which in the bad tradition of major Czech army acquisitions is accompanied by delays and the associated risk of higher costs, longer delivery times and uncertainties, not due to a lack of personnel in the civilian part of the ministry in the area of acquisitions? If so, and major projects are certainly particularly affected by this problem – otherwise, Minister Černochová would not have mentioned it at the Commanders' Assembly – a solution is offered, based directly on the nature of the Leopard acquisition method, i.e. joint procurement with Germany. The detailed administration in this case is handled by the Federal Ministry of Defence, and the Czech side can take full advantage of this.
The acquisition of the 2A8 Leopards should be implemented urgently and the forces should be deployed in other projects
From the indications of the answers provided by the Czech Ministry, it is clear that the key is to take a decision on the basic parameters of the acquisition of the 2A8 Leopards – i.e. how many and which versions of the tank the Czech Army needs. This follows a November communication from the General Staff, according to which insufficient financial resources were allocated for the acquisition on the originally intended scale. In this respect too, the documents for such decisions are prepared by the department's staff, and if there is limited capacity, with the concurrence of several strategic projects that the Acquisitions and Armaments Section must address in cooperation with the General Staff, delays are foreseeable. But there are also predictable consequences.
In the imaginary queue for military equipment, with the growing demand and all the complications the defence industry faces, this procedure puts us between and rather behind other countries that are able to act faster and more efficiently for some reason. Even after three years of hot conflict in Ukraine,production capabilities in Europe are still, for a number of reasons, in line with the state into which the long-term underestimation and underfunding of defence has brought them. And no private company will produce helicopters, tanks or cruise missiles without contract, and it can and will only develop its production capacity on the basis of real demand.
According to the MoD's response, the option of the Army making do with the old 2A4 Leopards is not being considered, and rearmament to the 2A8 variant is being envisaged. The project needs to be tightened up, to meet Alliance Capability Targets, and to deploy the capacities into areas without which heavy ground equipment is not worth a fraction of its value on the modern battlefield – in particular, ground-based air defence.
Tagy