During his speech yesterday at the opening meeting of the Special Group for the Mediterranean and the Middle East (GSM) of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, held at the Hellenic Parliament, the Minister of Defense Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos presented the financial figures that Greece devotes to defense spending.
The Ministry of Defense specifically stated that in 2021, the country allocated 3.7% of GDP for defense spending, with “channeling 37% of this defense spending into research, development and procurement of new weapons systems.” In 2022, the respective numbers have risen to 4% of GDP and around 45% of all defense spending on procurement etc.
The reference to expenditure on Research & Development of defense products is perhaps surprising. However, it would be interesting to clarify the percentage and total amount of expenses that are purely for Research & Development purposes. We have to point out two things:
a) If this percentage is so tiny that it gets lost in the billions spent on procurement and repayment of ongoing weapons systems contracts, no wonder the country is not developing domestic defense products.
b) If the R&D expenditure reported is for the country’s participation in joint European development programmes, this simply represents national participation in a collective effort (this EU). The key question is whether the country itself is channeling resources to Greek companies and entities for the same purpose. Only if the second is true can one argue that there is a national-state policy to ensure some degree of self-sufficiency in armament needs, as a purely national effort, it goes without saying that it is directly linked to the development of defense products needed by the Greek Armed Forces.
The European development programs do not always concern objects and products requested by the Greek Armed Forces, which we have the paradox of being asked to place in relation to them, after the programs have first been assigned. Furthermore, the final result that a Greek company will present through the joint European programs, is not necessarily that it will be adopted by the armed forces of other European countries or, ultimately, by the Greek Armed Forces as well.
Based on the above, the challenge for the Greek political system is not simply to be drawn by the initiatives at the EU level and to participate in them, but to define a national state policy for the development of the Greek Defense Industry. The current political confrontation regarding the failure of the present government to ensure through the procurement of foreign weapons systems serious participation and assignment of work to Greek companies, creates the misleading impression that this is the main method of development of the Greek Defense Industry on the way to obtaining a degree national self-sufficiency in equipment needs.
In fact, it is only one of the methods of maintaining and strengthening the Greek Defense Industry. The main method of obtaining national self-sufficiency is for the state itself to allocate resources for development programs that will be awarded to Greek entities following a competition and transparent procedures. However, these programs cannot have a general and indefinite content and… destination, but be institutionally defined as an expressed requirement of the Greek Armed Forces. The issue of a new defense product is to secure the first customer, so that its course in the international market evolves more smoothly. The rational practice is for the state to finance development programs first and foremost to serve its own state agencies, i.e. the Armed Forces. So when we reach the point where the Ministry of Defense launches national development programs to cover national needs, only then will we be able to say that we are developing national defense products and slowly gaining national self-sufficiency in weapons.
In Greece in the 1970s, it was decided that domestic self-sufficiency in arms had to be achieved, and the effort started with the basics. With ODA for maintenance – first phase support of aviation hardware and EBO for essentials such as portable weapons and ammunition. Instead of the effort to develop gradually and self-sufficiency to be strengthened, the state made them a sea. Today, after half a century, we see where these two state industries are and to what extent they are fulfilling the mission for which they were created. The bottom line is that we are not self-sufficient, not even in the basics, because as a state we lack continuity and national vision, rewarding nepotism and corruption.
Today, Greece has very little self-sufficiency in equipment, even in key areas such as ammunition. The experience of Ukraine has shown to the world the value of the domestic production of weapons for the maintenance of a test of war that no one guarantees will be short. We may buy planes or frigates from foreigners but have the ability to produce simpler necessities like grenades, rockets, ammunition of various calibers? Any infrastructure in state-owned companies, are they now discredited and production lines don’t even exist?
In summary, fighting to get some work for Greek companies from foreigners, we do not cease to be primarily simple buyers. At some point, the competent state body must be created to coordinate policy towards a serious degree of domestic self-sufficiency in equipment, so that we can also become producers.
This competent state body is currently missing, which is why there are no announced plans to develop a national drone, a national loitering munition, a guided munition, just to mention some representative weapons that lead the new trends in the war being waged in Ukraine. Representative weapons, for which the degree of technological challenge is within the capabilities of the national potential in scientific personnel and engineers, to design them.
