Armor (military)
As Armor (from Old High German and Middle High German deck out , get ready ) refers to the military measures and means to prepare for a military action should it attack or defense . When upgrading or disarmament enlargement or reduction of armaments to be understood.
With the production of arms and military technology which is defense industry deals with its armament factories. Arms control is about the control of armaments .
Military spending
In 2006, global spending on military armament totaled 900 billion euros, which is an increase of 3.5 percent compared to the previous year. The United States spent almost half. In 2008, global military spending was nearly $ 1.5 trillion. The US spent 607 billion, followed by China, France and the UK. This year the share of armaments expenditure of the European NATO countries was 1.65% of the gross domestic product . In the case of the non-NATO countries in Europe, this proportion was only 1.15%. The armament expenditures of the EU member states have continuously decreased in the last few years - from 251 billion euros in 2001 to 190 billion euros in 2012. By 2020, experts predict that expenditures will drop to 147 billion euros. The decline can be explained by the enormous savings made by Germany and Great Britain and the constant spending by France.
A direct comparison of armaments expenditures between different countries is not possible due to the very different cost structures (amount of pay, procurement costs, maintenance, etc.) purely monitarian, but also requires a detailed consideration with regard to manpower, training and equipment.
In 2012, according to SIPRI, all countries in the world together spent around 1,750 billion US dollars on armaments; In 2011 it was around 0.5 percent more. For the first time in years, total spending has decreased somewhat. Russia increased its spending by 16% in 2012, and reduced it by 3.76% from 2013 to 2014 (see table below).
Armaments expenditure in 2013 and 2014
| country | 2013 | 2014 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spend (billion USD) |
Share on GDP |
Spend (billion USD) |
Share on GDP |
|
 United States
|
640 | 3.8% | 610 | 3.5% |
 People's Republic of China
|
188 | 2.0% | 216 | 2.1% |
 Russia
|
87.8 | 4.1% | 84.5 | 4.5% |
 Saudi Arabia
|
67.0 | 9.3% | 80.8 | 10.4% |
 France
|
61.2 | 2.2% | 62.3 | 2.2% |
 United Kingdom
|
57.9 | 2.3% | 60.5 | 2.2% |
 Germany
|
48.8 | 1.4% | 46.5 | 1.2% |
 Japan
|
48.6 | 1.0% | 45.8 | 1.0% |
 India
|
47.4 | 2.5% | 50.0 | 2.4% |
 South Korea
|
33.9 | 2.8% | 36.7 | 2.6% |
 Italy
|
32.7 | 1.6% | 30.9 | 1.5% |
 Brazil
|
31.5 | 1.4% | 31.7 | 1.4% |
 Australia
|
24.0 | 1.6% | 25.4 | 1.8% |
 Turkey
|
19.1 | 2.3% | 22.6 | 2.2% |
 United Arab Emirates
|
19.0 | 4.7% | 22.8 | 5.1% |
Dates in italics are estimates. UAE data for 2013 is for 2012.
Procedure
Broad armor
"Broad armament" is about the rapid production of weapons and armaments in order to achieve rapid armament. For this purpose, many different weapon models are procured from several suppliers at the same time. The advantage of broad armor lies in the rapid expansion of a force. The disadvantage is that different types of ammunition and spare parts have to be organized for the sometimes unmanageable number of weapon models, which causes serious logistical problems, especially in the field. The term and the concept go back to the Wehrmacht general and head of the economic and armaments office Georg Thomas .
Deep armor
The "deep armament" is about the permanent securing of the necessary resources for the armaments production, so to speak about the "sustainability" of the armaments. The longer and more extensive a war, the more important it is.
Deep armament has basically always been important in lengthy military conflicts. Even in antiquity, it was important to ensure a supply of suitable wood for the construction of ships during naval wars. However, the analytical separation of deep and broad armament was meaningless well into the 19th century because the material need for armaments was relatively low and these armaments were also comparatively easy to manufacture.
The concept of deep armor gained in importance in the 20th century as wars became more material-intensive and weapons more complex. The First World War , which initially only lasted a few weeks, made all warring parties aware of the importance of their own and the opposing industrial potential. The longer it lasted, the more important non-military factors such as raw material supply and production capacities became.
Especially in the later course of the Second World War, deep armament was the decisive point in order to survive such a long war of materials. Since Germany did not have the means to operate deep and broad armaments, the leadership and above all Hitler decided to arm the Wehrmacht for broad armaments in order to achieve the armament goals quickly. The rapid Blitzkrieg victories over Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France and the associated low consumption of materials and ammunition suggested that this decision was correct. As the war progressed, this path proved to be a dead end. In order to be able to keep up with the gigantic production capacities of the Soviet Union and, above all, of the United States , a concentration on only a few large-scale military equipment and their simple mass production would have been necessary, which, however, only occurred late and thus had little impact on the course of the war under Armaments Minister Albert Speer was attempted.
Historical armaments policy in Germany
The foundation of the German Empire (1871 in Versailles) took place in the course of the Franco-German War. The quick victory was largely the result of superior artillery; The importance of good rifles and machine guns had also become common knowledge in this war (as in some others of the time). Until 1890, armaments policy was largely shaped by Bismarck; then by Kaiser Wilhelm II (who successfully pushed for an expensive armament of the navy).
For the armament of the German Army see
During the First World War, all the heavily involved countries converted their economies (industry, agriculture, etc.) to a war economy , spent themselves completely and were de facto bankrupt at the end of the war. In Germany there was inflation from 1914 to 1923 , which did not end until 1923/24 after hyperinflation . The Versailles Treaty massively disarmed the Reichswehr and put tight shackles on the armaments policy of the Weimar Republic. On February 1, 1927, the Inter-Allied Military Control Commission , which had been overseeing disarmament until then, ended its activities.
In 1928, the decision to build the powerful armored ship A , which complied with the provisions of the Versailles Treaty - a matter of prestige - brought Reich Chancellor Hermann Müller and his coalition (June 28, 1928 to March 27, 1930) into trouble. For the Reichswehr leadership, the decision to build it was a fundamental political decision. The budget 1929 already contained the first rate for the tank vessel B .
The Reichswehr achieved an increase in the military budget. A criticism of the defense budget was seen as an attack on the Reichswehr and thus the state.
After the start of the Great Depression , many countries adopted radical measures, (d. E., The income and expenses) to their budgets to bring into balance. At the same time, the defense budget was reduced.
Soon after it came to power (January 30, 1933), the Nazi regime began a massive armament of the Wehrmacht . As a result, Germany was often in financial difficulties; there was little foreign currency.
Historical armaments policy in Switzerland
In the newly founded federal state in 1848 , many of the powers of the military still rested with the cantons , the member states of the federal government. In the Neuchâtel trade , a conflict with Prussia that almost escalated into war , as well as the occupation of the border in the Franco-German War of 1870/71, the weaknesses of this concept both in the organization and in the procurement of armaments became clear: as a result, the army became largely a federal matter declared (new military order ). In the First World War, this led to a significantly increased preparedness for defense. In 1915, a one-time war tax had to be levied to finance arms ; it was approved by popular vote .
With the establishment of the League of Nations and the accession of Switzerland, it was believed after the war that armaments expenditure could be reduced. After National Socialism came to power in 1933, this view was revised; from 1935 - again with the consent of the Swiss Social Democrats - a policy of rearmament was pursued again. Nevertheless, in terms of armaments technology, Switzerland was not insignificant in the Second World War, for example it had very few tanks. An attempt was made to compensate for this disadvantage with the Réduit (retreat into the Alps). However, Switzerland was not involved in combat operations during World War II, which is why it or its defense system was spared the "test".
During the Cold War from 1950 onwards, the Swiss army was massively rearmamented. Initially, defense spending took up almost half of the entire federal budget , while other issues - such as social policy - were kept tight. Only with increasing economic prosperity was the defense budget reduced in percentage terms (but not in absolute monetary terms). As in other European countries, it was not until the end of the Cold War in 1990 that there was a noticeable decline in defense spending.
See also
literature
- Georg Thomas : History of the German Defense and Armaments Industry 1918–1943 / 45. Edited by Wolfgang Birkenfeld. Writings of the Federal Archives, vol. 14. Boppard 1966
- Avraham Barkai : The National Socialist Economic System . Ideology, theory, politics 1933–1945. Frankfurt / Main 1988.
- Rudolf Jaun, David Rieder (ed.): Swiss armor. Politics, Procurement, and Industry in the 20th Century. Baden 2013, ISBN 978-3-03919-279-3 .
Web links
- Stockholm International Peace Research Institute : SIPRI Yearbook 2008 (short version) . A compilation of original data from the areas of international arms production, arms deliveries, arms control and global military spending (PDF; 576 kB).
Individual evidence
- ^ A b International Institute for Strategic Studies: The Military Balance 2010. February 1, 2010
- ↑ n-tv: Horrible armaments expenditure - 900 billion went up June 11, 2007
- ^ Article ( Military editions worldwide ( Memento from September 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive )) from Süddeutscher Zeitung
- ↑ spiegel.de April 15, 2013: Worldwide weapons study: China is arming, the West is saving.
- ↑ Sam Perlo-Freeman, Carina Solmirano: Trends in world military expenditure, 2013. (PDF; 3.1 MB) Stockholm International Peace Research Institute , April 14, 2014, archived from the original on July 12, 2014 ; accessed on May 24, 2014 .
- ↑ Sam Perlo-Freeman, Aude Fleurant, Pieter D. Wezeman, Siemon T. Wezeman: Trends in world military expenditure, 2014. (PDF) Stockholm International Peace Research Institute , April 2014, archived from the original on January 27, 2016 ; accessed on January 5, 2016 .
- ^ Alan Milward, War, Economy and Society 1939-1945, University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-03942-4 , p. 29