German arms cuts criticised by US

The US Defence Secretary, Mr William Cohen, yesterday in Hamburg called for a substantial increase in German defence spending…

The US Defence Secretary, Mr William Cohen, yesterday in Hamburg called for a substantial increase in German defence spending, warning that a growing gap in Allied military capabilities threatened NATO's unity.

"If the alliance is to exist in word and deed, in fighting capability as well as political appeal, then we cannot undercut Alliance capabilities with defence budgets that fail to provide minimum readiness and investments," he said, in prepared remarks released ahead of his speech.

Mr Cohen's forceful speech to senior German military officers came two days after the German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, appeared before the same audience to defend a cut in Germany's defence budget.

Mr Cohen argued that more spending, not less, was needed to make up for allied shortcomings exposed by the air war over Kosovo.

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Germany also needs to radically reduce the size of an outmoded main defence force designed to stop a Soviet invasion, and double or even triple the size of its army's Crisis Reaction Force, he said.

Mr Cohen told the Bundeswehr: "We cannot afford the disparity of alliance capabilities we witnessed this spring. There was not disparity of courage or will, but the disparity of capabilities, if not corrected, could threaten the unity of this Alliance.

"A great alliance cannot have only one member, the United States, conducting virtually two-thirds of all support sorties and half of all the combat missions," Mr Cohen said. In future missions, NATO would need forces which could move quickly and operate from scratch outside their national territories. A review is under way to restructure the 330,000-strong German military, which aims to make it a smaller, more mobile force.

The military budget was cut this year to DM47.7 billion (£19 billion) from DM47.8 billion last year - in the face of strong opposition from the Defence Minister, Mr Rudolf Scharping.

An even deeper cut of DM3 billion was proposed.

Acknowledging the costs of unifying Germany and consolidating the common European currency, Mr Cohen noted, however, that the country's defence budget had not kept pace with that of other NATO allies.

German defence spending currently amounts to about 1.5 per cent of its gross domestic product.