Defense Budget Contrast: Europe Lowers Funding, While India Announces Record SpendingMarch 03, 2010

 

The United States' budding ally, India, announced a 4% hike in annual defense spending while the head of the U.S. Defense Department castigated its traditional European defense partners for underfunding their defense budgets.

Europe has gone too far in demilitarizing itself since the end of the Cold War, undermining its shared security goals with the United States, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said at a NATO seminar in Washington. The defense cuts are already having real consequences, he added, noting that there are too few helicopters, aerial refueling tankers, and surveillance and cargo planes for the NATO mission in Afghanistan, Reuters reported.

Gates said the shortfall is a "natural consequence of having underinvested in collective defense for more than a decade."

Despite the need to spend more on vital equipment for ongoing missions, “the alliance has been unwilling to fundamentally change how it sets priorities and allocates resources," Gates said. "We need to provide our troops in the field the resources they need and fund other urgent priorities, such as missile defense." Gates noted that European countries were increasingly underfunding defense because large segments of its public and the political class "are averse to military force and the risks that go with it."

Less than two months into the new year, NATO's 2010 budget shortfall has already jumped to hundreds of millions of euros, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, India, the U.S.'s increasingly close South Asian regional ally, upped its annual defense spending to $32 billion, making its defense budget the world's fourth-largest, according to Defense News. India's Finance Minister, Pranab Mukerhjee, has budgeted $13 billion toward modernization projects, $12.4 billion for the country's million-plus army, $3.3 billion for its air force and about $2 billion for its navy.

India is now by far the largest buyer of weapons among developing nations. It has imported about $28 billion worth of military hardware since 2000, with most built by Russia, Israel, France and Britain.