According to former senior officers, Denmark’s promised patrol ship contribution to NATO’s common defence does not meet the Alliance’s minimum requirements despite repeated assurances to Danish politicians that the ships would fulfil this promise.
Several former senior officers claim the Danish Navy’s Thetis-class patrol vessels with which the kingdom is required to contribute to NATO fall far short of the Alliance’s standards.
“I find it incredibly difficult to see that the Thetis class can fulfil the NATO requirements for a real warship,” declared Nils Wang, former Rear Admiral and head of the Danish Navy from 2005 to 2010, to Denmark Radio.
“To save money, all the systems, weapons and sensors that once made it a quite capable unit about the force goal have been removed.”, he said, adding that what remains today is “basically a cannon on the foredeck, which is not enough to make it a real warship”.
Another former Rear Admiral and current chairman of Folk & Sikkerhed, Torben Ørting Jørgensen, agreed.
“There are minimum criteria for being able to operate and survive in a given area, and they are not met here,” he explained, adding that the Thetis ships are largely demilitarised and have reached the end of their life cycle.
In addition to the requirement to spend at least 2% of gross domestic product on defence spending, NATO also sets another, more tangible requirement for member states, which is called the force goals.
These are a list of specific military assets, such as soldiers, ships or aircraft, that countries must contribute to the common defence to ensure that the military has suitable vessels, aeroplanes or soldiers in a crisis or war.
It is a military secret what exactly Denmark has agreed with NATO regarding force goals, but according to Danish national broadcaster DR, one of Denmark’s tasks is to contribute a number of Arctic patrol vessels, which the Danish Defence Command confirmed.
According to the Defence Command, the Navy’s patrol ships have been promised to NATO as a type of warship called ‘Naval Warship Limited’ (NWL) with 13 minimum requirements for the ship type.
But according to former Rear Admirals Wang and Jørgensen, the patrol vessels only meet six of the requirements. The rest are not or only partially fulfilled.
“NATO wants to have a ship that can be called a warship. And thus have the capabilities that a warship should have. It is not a configuration like the one you see in the Thetis class today”, Wang declared.
Jørgensen also believes that the Thetis class is not Denmark’s answer to NATO’s force target.
“It does not. There are too many points where it is not up to speed, and you will have to work magic to present an image that it can do something. Everyone knows that the ship is limited,” he said.
(Charles Szumski | Euractiv.com)
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