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Germany to spend €100billion and what it could mean for us

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  • Germany to spend €100billion and what it could mean for us

    Before I start on what it could mean for us first it is good to watch the video from Perun on the topic as a lot of the messages are also relevant for us.

    **see pinned comment for any corrections**When Russia launched its February 24th invasion of Ukraine, Germany was one of the nations that experienced a drama...

  • #2
    How the Germans came up with the €100bn, nobody knows, there was likely a meeting, the politicians asked the generals as everyone already agreed they were lacking equipment. The generals, not wanting to push their luck too far, but still trying their hand throw out the €100bn figure and all have heart-attacks when it is accepted. This can be seen as almost straight away no-one knew just what the money was for, some even suggested part was for Green energy as energy supply is again a national security issue.

    Now i did not go and ask a bunch of Irish generals as there request would likely be to more Toyota Land Cruisers! So what I have done is take the premise that we should have been spending 2% of GNI and as we have not that we have an establishment deficit; not enough facilities, not enough equipment and not enough stores. We all know that without a massive wartime spending increase it takes time to build up a military and for this I have taken a time period of 20 years. So I have looked at the GNI and the Defence Vote 36 from 2001 until 2021.
    Year GNI
    m€
    Vote 35
    m€
    %GNI 2%
    Target
    m€
    Delta
    m€
    2002 114,021 725 0.64 2280 1555
    2003 125505 711 0.57 2510 1799
    2004 134,878 733 0.54 2698 1965
    2005 147,493 759 0.51 2950 2191
    2006 162,161 772 0.48 3243 2471
    2007 170,376 817 0.48 3408 2591
    2008 162,116 880 0.54 3242 2362
    2009 141,616 804 0.57 2832 2028
    2010 140,170 744 0.53 2803 2059
    2011 139,354 704 0.51 2787 2083
    2012 141,558 657 0.46 2831 2174
    2013 151,329 667 0.44 3027 2360
    2014 164,570 673 0.41 3291 2618
    2015 202,001 671 0.33 4040 3569
    2016 219,970 671 0.31 4399 3728
    2017 235,745 681 0.29 4715 4034
    2018 252,522 701 0.28 5050 4349
    2019 276,707 756 0.27 5534 4778
    2ß20 283,736 781 0.28 5675 4894
    2021 314,595 810 0.26 6292 5482
    Totals 14,717 73,608 58,891
    Now if we had been funding the DF properly then not all of that budget would be with new equipment or new/upgraded facilities. A good funded military normally splits the budget almost equally amongst new equipment, sustainment and staffing. On the sustainment side lets make the assumption that half is for munitions/spare backlog and the other half for running costs. That would mean that of the approx. €55.9bn about half is that missing investment, about €29.5bn. To put this figure in perspective, the cost of bailing out the greedy corrupt banks was €42bn so far.

    That means that even if we magically get the 2% GNI target tomorrow we would be living with an investment deficit for the next 20 years. So while some may jump up and down with joy over a target of €1.5bn in 2028 that is only a drop in the ocean if defence is to be seriously funded.

    And on the topic of the infamous 2% GDP, many countries are now planning to go beyond this figure as it was a peacetime budget figure with friendly neighbours. Not that one of the biggest after many years of bullying has gone full on berserk the 2% is no longer seen as adequate.
    Last edited by EUFighter; 31 July 2022, 10:23.

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    • #3
      Equally how did CoDF end up with its figures as they don’t seem to be detailed?

      PwC talked about 70:30 pay versus non-pay, is that still valid


      PS Perun has some excellent analysis

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by DeV View Post
        Equally how did CoDF end up with its figures as they don’t seem to be detailed?

        PwC talked about 70:30 pay versus non-pay, is that still valid


        PS Perun has some excellent analysis
        The CoDF operated in the confines of a narrow remit and the same goes for the PwC. I have worked with many consultant companies (including PwC) and their first objective is to keep the customer happy so they get to come back again! This means the first thing they do is find out what the customer expects to be told, every customer already has an idea of what the report should say before the on-board a consultant firm.

        So when PwC did there analysis we did not have a balanced force structure, it was and still is primarily an infantry force. It lacks many of the big ticket items such as fighters, frigates or heavy armour. So if you have a primarily infantry force the cost of equipment is low so you get away with the split as long as you do not want to change anything.

        If the IFA were to ask PwC to do a report on the "future of Irish beef farming and the climate" you can be sure that it would conclude that we should keep the national herd as it is. It might even suggest that we expand with some reasoning like "grass grows better in Ireland" than in the dry lands of Australia or it protects the Brazilian rain forest from being cut-down. To wrap this up there is a famous report into the "Banking System of Island" done before the crash. It looked like it was an independent report by a renowned US university. Turns out it was paid for my the Islandic government and was only full of praise, never mentioned anything about the doggy dealings that it knew was going on.When you see a report always look at who has paid for it.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by EUFighter View Post

          The CoDF operated in the confines of a narrow remit and the same goes for the PwC. I have worked with many consultant companies (including PwC) and their first objective is to keep the customer happy so they get to come back again! This means the first thing they do is find out what the customer expects to be told, every customer already has an idea of what the report should say before the on-board a consultant firm.

          So when PwC did there analysis we did not have a balanced force structure, it was and still is primarily an infantry force. It lacks many of the big ticket items such as fighters, frigates or heavy armour. So if you have a primarily infantry force the cost of equipment is low so you get away with the split as long as you do not want to change anything.

          If the IFA were to ask PwC to do a report on the "future of Irish beef farming and the climate" you can be sure that it would conclude that we should keep the national herd as it is. It might even suggest that we expand with some reasoning like "grass grows better in Ireland" than in the dry lands of Australia or it protects the Brazilian rain forest from being cut-down. To wrap this up there is a famous report into the "Banking System of Island" done before the crash. It looked like it was an independent report by a renowned US university. Turns out it was paid for my the Islandic government and was only full of praise, never mentioned anything about the doggy dealings that it knew was going on.When you see a report always look at who has paid for it.
          I both agree and disagree

          but the PwC report completed remodelled the army

          within the context of NI situation, end of Cold War etc

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by DeV View Post

            I both agree and disagree

            but the PwC report completed remodelled the army

            within the context of NI situation, end of Cold War etc
            Replace remodelled the "Army" with decimate, then that would be more accurate. Although decimation of Legions was only to kill 1 in 10. What the PwC report lead to was much greater and if we talk of the Reserves it was more of an annihilation. Before the report it was recognised that defence was underfunded. There was the on going peace process so the politicians wanted a way to kill 2 birds with one stone. Close some old bases sell the land and finance the military, we all know how that went.

            But all that is beside your original question "is the PwC split of 70/30 salary/non-salary spend still valid?" I would argue that it is not. Looking at the US forces (because they publish loads of figures) we see that when a force is balanced the figures look different. Here is an excerpt from an analysis from FY2018 (full report:https://csbaonline.org/reports/milit...or%20FY%202018.)

            "Military Personnel Costs
            Overall, the cost of military personnel pays and benefits (MILPERS), at $146 billion, accounts for 23 percent of DoD’s discretionary budget request for FY 2018. However, military personnel costs are not evenly distributed across the Services. MILPERS costs account for 20 percent of the Air Force’s budget and 27 percent of the Navy’s. However, as the largest Service with the least procurement funding, MILPERS accounts for 37 percent of the Army’s overall budget (see Figure 4-6). Because the Army is the Service with the largest fraction of its budget devoted to military personnel costs, the Army is most sensitive to changes in the costs of military personnel, such as increases to the amount of basic pay or retention bonuses. Conversely, the Army is less able to fund manpower costs with savings in other appropriations titles, leaving adjustments to end-strength levels as the major lever the Army has to meet topline budget restrictions. Overall, the Army accounts for 42 percent of all of DoD’s MILPERS spending. At $60.9 billion in the FY 2018 budget request, the Army’s MILPERS request is 25 percent greater than the Navy and Marine Corps request for $48 billion (33 percent of total MILPERS spending) and 65 percent greater than the Air Force’s request for $37 billion (25 percent of total MILPERS spending)."


            While it could be argued that the US has world wide commitments in terms of % deployed personnel we are not that far off. But when we look at other forces we see a similar pattern which would mean that if we were paying and equipping our forces properly then the figure should look more 30/70.

            Comment


            • #7
              The DF Review Implementation Plan 1996 was based on the PwC report

              it brought an old (<10% of Ptes were under 25), poorly equipped (Panhard APCs, 90mm RCL), garrison based force of 12,750 down to a younger, fitter, better equipped more deployable force of 11,500.

              The problem was over time that’s not what was implemented

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by DeV View Post
                Equally how did CoDF end up with its figures as they don’t seem to be detailed?

                PwC talked about 70:30 pay versus non-pay, is that still valid


                PS Perun has some excellent analysis
                Here is the breakdown of the UK defence spending, in 2017/18 they spent 26.5% on military personnel, not too far from what the US spent in percentage terms. Another 4.7% was spent on civilian personnel, the UK does have a lot of "defence agencies" , plus the RFA are classed as merchant marine. So the 70/30 split of PwC does not fit if you have a military not focus almost solely on infantry.

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