The other day Slovenia came up on the forum and I clicked over to read the Wikipedia, which I do a lot. While Wikipedia is not a terribly reliable site, it is a good starting point.
My question is:
How would you go about trying to improve the defenses of these countries....I found the Wikipedia page about the Slovenian military. I find the military of small countries interesting, because sometimes it can seem pointless.
Currently there are approximately 7,300 active troops and approximately 1,500 in reserve... €378,575,978 budget in 2013.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovenian_Armed_Forces Soldiers are to be located nearer to their homes in order to minimize travel costs. Since the Slovenian Armed Forces do not have enough modern armored vehicles to maintain three motorized battalions fulfilled at every time, one Wheeled Combat Vehicles Company and one Tank Company have been organized within the Logistics brigade, which now lends vehicles to any of four newly formed infantry regiments, regarding to the regiments' needs.
Sounds like tanks are part of the motor pool.
It is one of the countries that regularly lends forces to UN peacekeeping operations, although it doesn't seem like they do this for the money like Fiji.
It does not appear to have any jet aircraft. Apparently it owns 9 Pilatus PC-9's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovenian_Air_Force_and_Air_Defence---------------------
Moldova is another country that has already lost part of its territory to a Russian-inspired breakaway in Transnistria. It has only 5,000 to 6,000 active personnel, and a reported budget of 16 million Euros. Obviously it has no air force. With the breakup of the USSR it did inherit some jet fighters, 31 to 34 MiG-29's, but could not maintain them and sold them off.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_MoldovaBy 2006-7, the Moldovan Ground Forces had been reduced to a strength of 5,710, including three motor rifle brigades, one artillery brigade, and independent Special forces and engineer battalions, plus an independent guard unit. Equipment and weaponry included 44 BMD-1 AIFVs, and 266 APCs, including 91 TAB-71s, as well as 227 artillery pieces
Not exactly up to date, but it gives you an idea of how small the force is.
As far as I can tell, from these outdated articles, Moldova had 2 old Russian-built helicopters and one AN-26 (which probably is too expensive for them)
Obviously if the Russians invaded they would just pass through without stopping.
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Republic of Georgia before 2008 maintained a Navy, but all of their ships were destroyed in port by the Russians when they invaded South Ossetia. It is non-existent now, anything left was folded into the Coast Guard. They have no facilities to maintain a navy anyway.
The air force and army were depleted by that war too, the little country has not really recovered from it. The Air Force is now a section of the Georgian Land Forces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Armed_Forcesbudget: ($324,023,170 USD)
According to Wiki it has 9 HIND helicopters and 11 SU-25 ground attack planes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Air_ForceUnlike Moldova, Georgia does have the ability to build some armored vehicles and other light equipment, including armored vehicles. (Lazika and Didgori (3 variants)).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazika and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didgori-1Also see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STC_DELTA--------------
There are a lot of other countries around the world, of course. I just find it fascinating. Georgia has very good reasons to want to improve their armed forces. Slovenia and Moldova would barely be speed bumps in any real large-scale war.
So what's next? The 3 Baltic countries?
