(Bloomberg) -- Slovakia’s president heralded it an “emotional moment” when the first newly purchased F-16 fighter jets landed in his country in July. Poland’s defense minister called an order for Apache helicopters transformational. In Bucharest, billboards proudly proclaim that American F-35s are being “built for Romania.”
There’s no shortage of excitement on NATO’s eastern flank over military hardware nowadays. Put together, 14 member states have ramped up defense spending since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to a level unseen since the fall of communism. It amounts to $70 billion this year alone.
Yet the orders for jets, helicopters, tanks and missile systems have exposed just how much more needs to be done to catch up with NATO standards at the most perilous time since the Cold War.
While they’re replacing often Soviet-era equipment dispatched to Ukraine, they’re also trying to quickly build up military capabilities most of the countries neglected for decades as defense took a backseat following the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the end of the Balkan wars.
Countries in the region are the military alliance’s biggest spenders relative to the size of their economies. It’s just a fraction of what’s needed, though, according to interviews with top military officials. Then that new equipment requires personnel with the right skills, they said.
“After doing almost nothing in this area for 20 years, it’s basically a jump from first or second-generation machines straight to fourth or fifth generation,” said General Daniel Zmeko, chief of staff for Slovakia’s armed forces. “It’s like going from a 386 processor computer to today’s most advanced multi-core network solutions.”
It’s not like the rest of Europe was spending big. When he was US President, Donald Trump excoriated fellow NATO members for relying too much on his country.
In 2021, the year before Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, among the continent’s biggest economies only the UK was meeting the target of 2% of gross domestic product set by the alliance. On his first day as NATO’s new chief last week, Mark Rutte urged member states to invest more and close capability gaps.
NATO’s eastern flank was first stirred to increase military spending when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and then shifted up the gears. Estonia, for example, spent more in the last 18 months than in the previous 30 years, said Magnus-Valdemar Saar, head of the Baltic nation’s defense procurement agency.
Still, critics say Eastern Europe is only finally making the investments that should have taken place from when the first of the countries joined NATO in 1999. Instead, they relied on Western allies while governments shifted focus onto more popular spending on improving things like telecom networks, transportation and housing.
Nations reduced their defense capabilities, often to a fraction of what they were during the Warsaw Pact, the communist-era opponent of NATO. Slovakia, for example, has only 30 tanks compared with 960 when it split from Czechoslovakia in 1993, according to Zmeko.
The issue is a chronic lack of spending, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said. The country, which shares a border with Russia, is allocating 3.4% of GDP.
“The problem is that we have not been on 2% in the last 30 years, we were at 1% and some countries even under the 1% threshold,” he said. “And that means that the taxpayer’s burden has sharply increased.”
Eastern European nations account for five of the seven top defense spenders in NATO as of percentage of GDP this year, according to estimates from the military alliance.
Poland is No. 1, surpassing 4% of GDP. Less than a month after the invasion of Ukraine, parliament approved legislation that increased the budget and created a special fund to finance costly purchases.
Orders include dozens of fighter jets, more than 1,300 tanks from Korea and the US and 100 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters from Boeing Co., which at $10 billion is the largest ever procurement by the country. In August, the government signed a $1.2 billion agreement with Raytheon Technologies Corp. to produce components for Patriot air-defense batteries.
But the Apaches replaced a contract for French-made Caracal helicopters canceled by the previous administration in 2016, while an earlier deal for Patriot missiles was also shelved.
The influx of new hardware has boosted morale, said Brigadier General Grzegorz Potrzuski, Poland’s chief of land forces field artillery. He is responsible for integrating American missile launchers and Korean howitzers into the Polish military as they replace Soviet-era equipment. He said it was like comparing a small Fiat 126 car with a Mercedes S-Class.
“This is a time that Poland hasn’t had in decades,” said Potrzuski. “Looking at the development of the armed forces, then in my opinion we will be one of the stronger armies — certainly in this part of Europe, but also in NATO.”
But it’s not just a question of buying the new equipment from allies such as the US and Germany. New storage facilities have to be built and new personnel hired and trained, military officials across the region said.
Poland pledged to more than double the number of professional soldiers to 250,000 by 2035. The military added about 20,000, bringing the total to 134,000 as of the end of 2023. In places such as Romania, there’s pressure to raise starting salaries from some 500 euros ($549) a month now to be able to attract young soldiers with new skills.
“It’s tough to teach a 40- or 45-year-old how to use these new systems,” Slovakia’s Zmeko said. “Ideally, you find an 18-year-old who’s already spent hundreds or even thousands of hours using computers.”
How much pressure will be put on the region’s state budgets will become clearer later this year, when NATO member states present their new defense plans, including spending commitments through 2044.
What’s already clear is that getting militaries closer to where they need to be will require public, as well as government commitment. Europe also has the opportunity to scale up its own arms production, said Zmeko.
“The real question is whether Europe has the will to do it,” he said. “Will it be willing to tighten its belt and tell its citizens that, for the next few years, or even a decade, the standard of living might not improve because we need to prioritize our security?”
--With assistance from Andrea Palasciano, Slav Okov, Jan Bratanic and Andra Timu.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
