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

representative of the Minister of Defense. In the framework of the MAP (Membership Action Plan), the following objectives have been followed: approximation of legislative norms between the SR and NATO; assuming the NATO strategy; implementation of the system C3 (command, communication, control); participation at the air defense; interoperability of infrastructure; modernization of the army; language skill preparation. 43

In 2000, however, the reform of the Army that had been launched in October 1999 (the document "MoD Concept of the Reform of the Army until 2002" met many obstacles, the financial ones being clearly in the foreground. An assessment report elaborated by an American team headed by gen. Joseph Garrett, points out the Slovak deficits of the launched reform in a very detailed and critical way (a low level of official documents; bad distribution of defense resources; low professionalization of armed forces; low numbers of armed forces that depend on national mobilization; non-existence of reliable standards for the planning of resources; coexistence of military and paramilitary elements - three independent commands of armed forces: under the MoD, Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications); principles of personal policy that still copy the communist past.

Thus, at the beginning of 2001, the future of the Slovak security and defense policy within the covered structure - NATO - does not appear as secure.

Security Policy of the Slovak Republic

43 See in: Samson, I. et al.: Inteeracia SR do EU. NATO a OECD ("Integration of the Slovak Republic into EU, NATO and OECD"), in: Kollar, M. - Meseznikov, G.: Slovensko 2000 ("Slovakia 2000"), Bratislava 2000, pp. 337 - 366.

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