24.12.2019.
Minister Vulin: If investing in strong Armed Forces can prevent the shedding of blood, this is not expensive
Explaining the position of military neutrality before the Members of the Parliament of the Republic of Serbia, Minister of Defense Aleksandar Vulin said that Serbia would “endure” on this path.
- While Aleksandar Vučić is the President of this country, we will be militarily neutral and there is no such force and pressure that can change this matter. I want to add that military neutrality is expensive. It is expensive politically, economicly. It is expensive to be military neutral because you have to have everything. If we were not military neutral, if we were part of, say, the NATO Pact, we would not have aviation, there would be no need. If you needed someone to secure your airspace, you would ask a neighboring country, such as in the case of Northern Macedonia, Montenegro, or as Slovenia does, so others guard your skies – Minister Vulin said and wondered if you were a free country if someone else was guarding your skies and if someone else took responsibility in your own territory, providing the answer himself – you are not.
He emphasized that military neutrality should cost that much, if that was the price of your freedom. - If the price of our freedom could be calculated, and if it can be measured with money, then it is the cheapest in our history. Unfortunately, we have always measured the price of our freedom by means of lost lives and blood, and if we can use money for that purpose now, it has never been cheaper and I will always fight for the money to be the currency, and to preserve our freedom and that there is no blood and the loss of lives – said the Minister of Defense, adding that a better question was how expensive the alliance alignment was.
- I will give you an example from our immediate environment, say our Bulgarian neighbors, with whom we have good relations. They are a member of the NATO Pact. They buy new planes for more than a billion Euros; you will guess which ones – the Phantoms. They buy for additional 800 million Euros or Dollars – armored vehicles, you will have guessed correctly, of Western production and for another billion they need to buy two frigates for their navy on the Black Sea – said Minister Vulin and wondered if there was a need for that.
He also wondered what aggression they were under threat of and who from, and what they were preparing for.
- Nobody asks you, you shut up, and pay up. They do not even have the money, they had to get a loan, and in our case every plane, every bullet is paid from our revenue. As much as we can acquire, as much as we can endure, as much as we can save – that much we buy, said the Minister of Defense. We do not get loans, we do not borrow while our neighbors do that to buy weapons, and the question is – wait, you belong to the Pact, who is going to attack you? You couldn’t possibly think that Serbia is going to invade Bulgaria? Are we going to attack Bulgaria and go to war with the NATO? There is no need for them to spend the money. Our Croat neighbors – some they bought, and some received, but in total that is 400 armored vehicles – and now they have taken the Panzer Howitzers Division, 14 Kiowa helicopters armed with Hellfire missiles, which significantly shift the balance of power in the region. Over 60 Bradleys are now due to arrive to them and some 20 more for spare parts – the Minister of Defense said, explaining that these are heavy armored vehicles that are not taken for the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, “these are for making war, not for going to peacekeeping missions.”
He recalled that Croatia had failed in her plan last year to buy F-16 jets from Israel, in the Barrack version.
- Now, they probably want to buy new ones. It will cost, it cannot go below one billion to one billion and 200 million. So wait, are you in the NATO Pact, the largest force in the world? Have you not entered it to be safe and secure? So why waste money? So you see that joining Alliances costs a lot, too – Minister Vulin told the MPs, illustrating this with an additional example.
-The President of the United States of America, a leading NATO country, comes to you and says – 2% of Gross Domestic Product has to go to the military, end of discussion. And as you can see, it works and the Big Powers agree to give 2 percent, while we answer to our citizens only.
We spend as much as we can spare, give as much as we can and as much as we have, and it is not difficult for us to give for the Armed Forces that we all love and respect so much, but we give as much as we have – said the Minister of Defense, confirming that neutrality is expensive, but that alliance alignment is not cheaper.
