Our NATO Membership Can Be Really Useful By Fulfilling Obligations
Szöveg: honvedelem.hu / MTI | 2014. március 15. 10:13Besides collective defence, our NATO membership can guarantee the security of Hungary and the region through the obligations to develop the personnel’s skills and to upgrade the equipment and technical assets of the Hungarian Defence Forces, Gen. Tibor Benkő, PhD, the Chief of the Defence Staff told Hungarian News Agency MTI in an interview.
In the process of building a relationship with NATO, Hungary was among the first countries to join the Partnership for Peace (PfP) program on February 8, 1994. Tibor Benkő told MTI that this program helped the country a lot in learning about the working mechanisms of the Alliance, prepared it for political consultations, and allowed an insight into the collective defence planning process on the military level. It provided soldiers with great many opportunities, so by participating in joint training programs, exercises and then in foreign missions, they started familiarizing themselves with the previously unknown western thinking and military planning culture.
Gen. Tibor Benkő, PhD
The Chief of Defence pointed out that NATO and the Warsaw Pact differed not only in procedures, methods, equipment and technical assets, but also in approach. So the first task – which proved to be one of the most difficult ones – was to change the personnel’s mindset and approach. They had to learn how to be a member of this alliance and how to work with people that we had earlier considered our enemies. He added that over the last 15 years, the military personnel’s approach has radically changed, due to the adoption of NATO principles (doctrines, standards, concepts) and the introduction of educational and training systems. The leaders’, commanders’, soldiers’ skills and the capabilities of the units have been upgraded and now they form a professional force which is ready to cooperate (interoperable) with other members of the Alliance. The next step is to raise the standards of Hungarian soldiers’ equipment, weapons and weapon systems to the level of NATO capabilities. The last step is going to be the establishment of a close to identical pool of military assets.
Talking about the tasks for the future, Tibor Benkő stressed that the Alliance must face new challenges such as defence against cyber attacks, and has to carry on with setting up mobile, rapid reaction and Special Force units that are powerful and may be deployed in any part of the world. The Chief of Defence said that part of the military equipment had already been upgraded during the NATO membership of the Hungarian Defence Forces. There have been purchases – for example, Gripens, 3D radars, all-terrain vehicles, equipment and armament for operational tasks, simulation systems – but in the future, more emphasis should be given to addressing the shortfalls in equipment. Among the related tasks, the first priority is to supply the personnel with modern assets, clothing and equipment, he added.
Tibor Benkő also noted that NATO’s jointly financed security investment programs had greatly contributed to a more cost-effective development of the Hungarian Defence Forces’ capabilities. Referring to the most successful examples also recognized by NATO, he mentioned the Pápa-based Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) and the NATO Center of Excellence for Military Medicine (MILMED COE), which operates in the area of the Military Hospital in close cooperation with the Hungarian Defence Forces Medical Centre. The Chief of Defence said he hoped that on the level of the Alliance, all those processes would stop that have adverse effects on capabilities, which, first of all, requires the necessary defence budgets. To this end, in 2012 the government of Hungary issued a decision to keep the defence expenditures nominally level until 2015, and starting from 2016, to increase them by 0.1 per cent every year until they reach the European average GDP percentage of 1.4.
