Despite a shrinking budget, the Defense Ministry promises the Czech military won't have trouble fulfilling promises made at a recent NATO summit to increase its presence in Afghanistan by 50 percent next year.
President Václav Klaus pledged to boost Czech forces in Afghanistan in 2007, raising the number of troops there from 150 to 225. A NATO summit in Riga, Latvia, last month put pressure on members to commit further troops to ground forces in Afghanistan.
In 2006, Czech forces in Afghanistan cost 225 million Kč ($10.7 million). Following more deployments, the cost is projected to increase about 18 percent to 265 million Kč, Defense Ministry spokesman Jan Pejšek said.
At the same time, the defense budget will shrink 1.7 billion Kč. Despite the cuts, the military will maintain its dedication, Pejšek said.
"Foreign missions are the Defense Ministry's priority, and the expected cuts will have no impact on them," he said. "Increased funding for the mission in Afghanistan has been expected and planned for in advance."
The military will have to reduce investment in infrastructure and equipment and postpone plans to update its helicopter fleet, he said.
The country faces criticism here and abroad for decreased spending. In October, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer chastised Czechs for the shrinking defense budget during a visit to Prague. NATO recommends members spend a minimum of 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense projects.
In 2006, military spending reached 1.8; in 2007 and 2008, it will decrease to 1.55 percent and 1.45 percent, respectively, according to the Czech News Agency.
Parliamentary Defense Committee head Jan Vidím says decreased spending is a mistake. A Civic Democrat, he believes cuts — passed by the previous Social Democrat government — are "a disaster."
Funding for Afghanistan must not come under threat, he said. "It is of course good for the Czech Army's prestige that our soldiers serve with the international mission. However, it's also good for the Czech Republic as a whole," Vidím said. "Terrorists used Afghanistan as a base, and it is definitely better to fight them there than to wind up doing so on Wenceslas Square."
The country's dedication attests to pressure newer NATO countries feel to step up to the plate, said Dana Allin, a research fellow at the London-based Institute for Strategic Studies, which specializes in defense.
Along with Hungary and Poland, the Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999. Seven more Central and East European countries joined in 2004.
"Newer members of NATO may take the success of the [Afghanistan] mission extra seriously," Allin said. "There's less of a tendency to take NATO for granted. The notion that NATO could become irrelevant through disuse is not an option."
The Riga summit, with its renewed calls for fresh troops, comes at a critical time, he said. "The pressure is huge. Afghanistan is NATO's most important mission, but it's not entirely clear it will prevail. It appears to be reaching the tipping point where it could slip back into Taliban control," he said.
"If NATO fails in Afghanistan, then its relevance and overriding effectiveness in the 21st century will have gone unproven."
Petr Kašpar contributed to this report.
