REPORT ON THE BATTLE READINESS OF THE SLOVENIAN ARMY
Following the visit of the President of the Republic and Commander-in-Chief to the General Staff of the Slovenian Army

Ljubljana, Ministry of Defence, 23 April 2001



In his constitutional capacity as Commander-in-Chief of the Slovenian defence forces, the President of the Republic, Milan Kucan, visited the General Staff of the Slovenian Army today. The Chief of General Staff, Brigadier General Ladislav Lipic, and the Minister of Defence, Dr Anotn Grizold, and their staff informed the President of the achieved stage of development, the organisational structure and battle capabilities of the Slovenian Army, its international co-operation as well as certain other issues of import to national defence. Following the delivery of the report President Kucan gave a statement emphasising that this year's reporting exercise was not just a mere formality.

MILAN KUCAN:
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen. This year's reporting on the battle readiness of the Slovenian Army (SA) could have been a formality, as it more or less was every year. There are three circumstances keeping it from being just a formality and from it constituting only a report on the situation in SA to the Commander-in-Chief. Instead, the issues raised by the Report will also have to be dealt with by the Government, which, according to our system, is responsible for directing and leading the SA, as well as by the National Assembly which defines the fundamental defence policy and the basic guidelines for the operations of SA. This was also my proposal to the General Staff of the SA and to the Ministry of Defence: to prepare an appropriate report for both institutions on these problems, including proposals for their solution.

The first reason is the fact that this year marks the tenth anniversary of the Slovenian state and thus also the tenth anniversary of the SA, which, at that time still in the form of the Territorial Defence and in conjunction with the Slovenian Police, had many merits for defending from aggression both Slovenia and its decision to form an independent state as adopted democratically at the plebiscite in 1990. Many expectations in the area of defence were part of the birth process of this country, including the future of the SA and Slovenia's positioning in international structures in this field, that is the Euro Atlantic alliance. Ten years is enough time to provide an assessment as to how these expectations were realised through the years.

The second reason is the fact that after living with the expectation of Slovenia becoming a full member of NATO for ten years this expectation is also becoming a reality with the decision on NATO enlargement to be passed at the Prague summit next year. Provided, of course, Slovenia meets the requirements and expectations which Slovenia alone can influence best. In other words, provided its defence system and army are such that Slovenia's accession will represent a strengthening of the defence capability and effectiveness for NATO as a whole. This, however, requires an appropriate organisation, structure, equipment for the SA, including of course an adequate share of the GDP which the country has to provide for its own and for common defence.

The third reason is that in recent months both the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff got new leaderships, unburdened by relations within the SA and the Ministry. They can thus be much more critical and much less bound by those relations, provided they are capable of maintaining a certain critical distance towards the findings contained in this report and provided they will be capable of formulating proposals to rehabilitate the situation, which is a prerequisite for greater efficiency of their future work.

Against this background, I would like to stress the following: most of the expectations in the past period - I am referring to the past year rather than the past decade - were not fulfilled and the results achieved are not satisfactory. They are also not in line with the decisions and proposals adopted following a discussion on last year's report by the Government and the National Assembly, as well as the SA and the MoD. This does not apply to the majority of the decisions made at that time, but some of the crucial ones remain unrealised.

In spite of every year's admonitions - including mine - and a declarative consensus between all the state institutions ranging from the Ministry of Defence to the Government and the National Assembly, we witnessed a failure to overcome the uncertainties, the unclarities and some sort of wandering in the dark in searching for concepts and systemic solutions to provide for national security, defence and the role of the SA within this whole system. The SA or the defence structure as a whole still does not have all the required normative, staffing, material and financial conditions required for operation and development. Although this might have been understandable in the first years following independence, it is now no longer so. Particularly, since the Slovenia's aims in this field are clear: first and foremost everything that NATO membership synthetically expresses. There is a NATO Membership Action Plan, there are annual implementation programmes, as well as a report from the special group headed by US General Garret or his study on the defence organisation of the Republic of Slovenia, including the SA. This study was produced on the basis of a request from the Republic of Slovenia as part of our defence co-operation with the United States. The recommendations and objectives have now become the criterion and the mission which has to be transformed into concrete projects, tasks, head of projects, deadlines, which also require a financial evaluation and which must then be approved, bearing all consequences, by the Government or the National Assembly, depending on who has the appropriate competences. Devising these projects is up to the General Staff and the Ministry of Defence. The projects have to be in line with the long-term development and equipment plan for the SA. In case this plan proves incompatible with the objectives, then additions and changes to this and other documents which constitute the legal framework for the functioning of the SA will have to be adopted. This includes responsibility for stopping the trend of a decreasing defence budget, which Slovenia has been experiencing ever since 1994 and was only able to stop Friday evening with the adoption of this year's National Budget. In this way, we could provide for a general change to the current situation, of which the Minister of Defence, Mr Grizold, cleverly says that "we have been building a house without any real blueprints".

In my opinion there are three crucial reasons why it has been this way. The first regards mainly the staffing changes, which were disproportionally frequent in the leadership of the Ministry of Defence, as well as in the General Staff. Their consequence were a series of staffing interventions in the overall structure of the Ministry as well as of the SA. These interventions weren't optimum ones also for the reason that the primary criterion in the selection process was not always expertise. Instead, other criteria prevailed, including party affiliation and direct involvement of party interests in the functioning of defence structures. This prevented a clear distinction between the military and the political and a separation of the two. In the future, the criterion of expertise should prevail and this is also the approach that the Minister opted for, performing what he calls a "caesarean section" from current practice. In doing so, he will have my full support. That is why the staffing issue is of central importance both in the SA and the Ministry, an issue that was also included in the report presented today. An improvement of the situation, the capabilities of the SA and of Slovenia's entire national defence system depends very much on this issue so as to provide for efficient and effective defence. This issue will, to a high degree, also be decisive for Slovenia's fate in terms of our approximation and accession to NATO and to the defence structures developing within the EU. The whole system of staffing, training and promotion in the SA is linked to this. This system was not sufficiently stimulative and did not allow for a sufficient degree of career building and promotion for people who opted for the military profession.

The second reason lies in the fact that the entire political and legal framework of the SA's organisation, development and operation is still not finalised, in spite of repeated words of caution. A national security strategy has not been devised. Recently, the Ministry invested great effort in submitting a draft of this document to the National Assembly. With it, Slovenia would get a modern fundamental document in this field, thus becoming comparable to other countries it wishes to use as benchmarks and partners for co-operation in this area. This also constitutes a basis for the formulation of a new or a revised military doctrine, a status law and, of course, amendments and adjustments of the Defence Act which, in spite of the recognised irrationalities, inconsistencies and inefficient solutions still remains unrevised, although I myself also reminded the Ministry and the Government, who is competent in this matter, of these deficiencies, some of them even when the act was still in the making.

The third reason lies in the postponing of formulating clear concepts of national security and the role of the SA, which, precisely due to this postponement, has found itself in a position where one could even say that it defined its own objectives and missions. No army in a democratic social system can do that, naturally. Other factors in the state are responsible for the definition of tasks and goals, particularly the Government and the National Assembly, which are responsible for leading and directing the SA. That is why a NATO compliant organisation of the SA was not carried out and that is also why its equipment, including arms, isn't in line with NATO standards. As I mentioned, we now have the study compiled by the group headed by General Garret, which is becoming the basis for our decisions in the light of our ambition to join NATO. Our own comparative analysis could have answered all these questions earlier, although perhaps not as precisely, but we could nevertheless have basically done this earlier.

Right now the new leadership at the Ministry of Defence and at the General Staff is not burdened by the situation we had previously. This gives me realistic hope that we will put an end to the meandering and searching we had in the past. The directions and decisions presented to me today and on which proposals are to be developed as to the Ministry's and the General Staff's activities, as to what they will propose to the Government, all this can be brought together into a single currant, a synergy of the immense individual energies of most of the professionals at the Ministry and the SA, many of whom were always ready to do all that was necessary for development, yet the general situation did not allow them to do so. I believe that their endeavours have generated positive pressure for the changes that are now starting. They have my praise and gratitude for their sacrifice and zeal. I am convinced that we will be capable of creating a new image of the SA and fully meet the criterion Slovenia needs to fulfil for NATO membership.

In the end, I would particularly like to thank the members of the SA who, in often not too friendly circumstances, ensured the high level of readiness of the SA's equipment and who ensured that the most urgent tasks were completed. In saying this, I am fully aware of the contradictory position the SA is in. On the one hand there are great expectations created by the public - perhaps also because they were unrealistic - and on the other hand there is little support and not many opportunities for the SA to meet these expectations.

In coclusion: since this is about the tenth anniversary of the country and the SA's contribution to the strengthening of its reputation and prestige around the world, I would like to particularly point out that the members of the SA exhibited the importance of a high level of national pride and patriotism for the defence of the homeland, for the respect and nurturing of the heritage of Slovenians' past battles for the survival of a nation, the SA's committment to the principles of democracy, peace and freedom. The SA and its members had to prove their commitment to these values three times in the past century, most recently in 1991 through the decisive action of the Slovenian Territorial Defence which successfully defended the democratic decision of the Slovenian nation to live in an independent and sovereign state, as passed by the plebiscite which implemented our right to self-determination. I am convinced that this will apply also to the future operation of the SA and to future generations of Slovenians who will enter the military profession in the SA, regardless of the shape of that army, of whether it will remain a conscript force and for how long, or whether and when it will become a fully professional force. This patriotism will also require the addition of the highest professional standards and a broader integration of the state, the nation, and our army with other nations and allied armed forces in the protection and defence of common values of our civilisation. This final statement also strengthens optimism, which will turn out as realistic if the Government and the National Assembly will endorse the proposal put forward by the General Staff and the SA for them to become better informed through a special report on the situation, readiness and development, thus consecrating more time to this issue than is perhaps required by routine discussion of these issues.