Habersack, Sabine - Puşcaş, Vasile - Ciubotă, Viorel (szerk.): Democraţia in Europa centrală şi de Sud-Est - Aspiraţie şi realitate (Secolele XIX-XX) (Satu Mare, 2001)

Ivo Samson: Security Policy of the Slovak Republic: Meeting NATO Criteria before Madrid and after Washington

Ivo Samson

policy (grand strategy, national security strategy in the USA), military strategy, military doctrine, etc.26 Among the American, French and German terms we find several differences in meaning and Slovakia has to look for fitted equivalents that correspond to Slovak specific conditions. After several considerations, for example, the term “military doctrine" was rejected and given the denotation “defense doctrine”, which might be changed in the new documents the Ministry of Defense is working on. There still exists a slight confusion about the proper meaning of “security”. In the case of Slovakia, however, an efficient security cannot be guaranteed the moment the country is attacked and one can reckon only with potential enemies. Slovakia would rely on prevention and deterrence only (this could be elaborated in several examples). Official statements declare that Slovakia realizes that certain requirements must be met if Slovakia wants to be integrated. Through U.S. and British assistance and analysis, Slovakia intends to develop its program in the following deficit areas: Command and Control Techniques; the Air Force; Defense Planning and Spending; Long Term Finance Planning; and Restructuring of the State Reserve System.27

Another important item in the case of “compatibility" is, of course, the compatibility of arms and armaments. In this regard Slovakia has performed well due to the fact that the heavy armament industry was concentrated in Slovakia during communist times, although in the second half of the eighties and also due to the historical changes in 1989, production was drastically reduced. So the former Czechoslovakia, historically among the WTO's chief armourers, reduced its arms output to about one tenth of pre-1989 levels in 1990. In the mid-nineties, Slovak arms executives and government officials made it clear that the industry be given a second chance. Slovakia succeeded in modernizing the arms industry and to gain new markets in the course of 1993 -1995.28 With the

26 See in: Samson, I.: Národná bezpecnos ("National Security"), in: Meseznikov, G.; Ivantysyn, M.: Slovensko 1998 - 1999. Súhmná správa o stave spolocnosti ("Slovakia 1998 - 1999. Global Report on the State of the Society"), Bratislava 1999, pp. 377.

27 See in: U.S, - Slovak Security and Foreign Policy Roundtable. Report, Washington, D.C, 26. October 1999.

28According to the former Deputy Defense Minister A. Sobol (in office until the beginning of 1995) “we do not want to be known as the gun suppliers of Europe, we just want to supply our citizens with jobs... It is a strategic fight for the arms market out there, and every tactics and means is fair game. We will do what the rest of the world does”. See the Interview for “Reuter”, Bratislava, 24 November, 1994.

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