IISS study highlights inefficiencies in European armed forces

IISS study highlights inefficiencies in European armed forces

July 16, 2008: Europe's armed forces are underperforming, inadequate, disorganised, and will need Franco-British impetus in order to play an effective role in addressing international crises, according to a new report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). Entitled 'European Military Capabilities', it said the 27 European countries spent EUR204 billion (USD325 billion) on defence in 2006 and have deployed and sustained between 55,000 and 79,000 troops abroad each year since 1999. However, in 2007 this represented only 2.7 per cent of around two million active service personnel. "The requirement for more deployable forces is unlikely to be temporary," said the co-author of the report Alexander Nicholl. "Both NATO and the European Union are planning on the basis that in the future there will be an even greater number of limited but demanding operations", he said. Yet, "most European forces are unable to live up to their own targets for availability. "The NATO goal - that 40 per cent of land forces should be deployable - seems much too low. We don't see why it should be acceptable that any part of a nation's armed forces cannot be put to use ... targets for deployability should be much higher," he said.