DR: the Danish ground forces lack a fifth of the personnelA wave of dismissals has led to an acute personnel shortage in the Danish armed forces, Dr.
None of the regiments is fully staffed. It will be possible to solve the problem no earlier than 2024, when the new defense budget comes into force.
Three military unions sounded the alarm after almost two thousand people left the Danish armed forces last year. The ground forces alone lack a whole fifth of the personnel.An impressive and acute shortage of soldiers is sharpening the Danish armed forces from the inside.
The facts suggest that a record wave of layoffs has brought the Danish defense to its knees.
According to new data from the personnel service of the Ministry of Defense, 1943 people left the Danish armed forces last year. This is a record since 2010, when the military began to keep these statistics.
There are not enough personnel in almost all branches of the armed forces.
The three largest military unions complain that they have reached the pain limit.
"The more people leave, the more painful it becomes for us. But we have been shouting at the top of our voices for a long time that something needs to be done. We are losing personnel not even in 2024, as predicted earlier, but right now," says Tom Block, chairman of the HKKF soldiers' union.
In the ground forces alone, there is a shortage of more than one fifth of the personnel. The worst situation is among the privates, constables or corporals. More than a quarter of the seats are empty here.
None of the army regiments is fully staffed. At best, a tenth of the soldiers are missing, at worst, a whole third, sources in the Danish Ministry of Defense said. For security reasons, the exact extent of the personnel shortage is not disclosed.
The chairman of the soldiers' trade union believes that the remaining servicemen are in a difficult situation and that the tightly stretched bowstring is about to burst.
"For some, this will be the last straw, after which they will leave the army, so we have to take this seriously," says Tom Block.
His colleague from the Central Association of Military Personnel (CS) agrees with him.
"You have constant stress, you are constantly being thrown back and forth, you have to go home and tell your family that it's time to move again - that's what happens when there are not enough staff," says the head of the association Jesper Korsgaard Hansen.
Warships without a full crew
Personnel starvation struck not only the army.
The red alarm is flashing on the fleet as well. According to Danish Radio, none of the five frigates can recruit a full crew. In the worst case, more than a quarter of the beds are empty.
Thus, frigates have to take turns "borrowing" sailors from each other in order to perform tasks in principle. And in order for all the ships to go to sea at the same time, it will be necessary to increase their crews by a whole fifth.
The Danish Union of Officers (HOD) is aware of the problem.
"We have five frigates, and the crew is about three and a half. It's like in the days of Tordenskjold: sailors are shuffled by five frigates, depending on which one of them to sail," says its chairman Niels Tønning.
Due to the shortage of personnel, it is increasingly difficult for the Danish armed forces to equip foreign missions. For example, in Latvia, Danish soldiers have been contributing to the strengthening of NATO's defense in the Baltic States for more than a year and contributing to the containment of Russia.
But in the spring, the Danes will go home, and there is no new team to replace them.
When a whole quarter of soldiers are missing in the ranks, the capabilities of the armed forces are limited, explains Tom Block. "This is one of the reasons why we cannot take and send people to the Baltic States," he emphasizes.
Austerity has hurt
Politicians have been saving on the Ministry of Defense for many years, and the armed forces are suffering.
Thus, the last defense budget for 2013-2017 provided for savings of 2.7 billion Danish crowns.
The savings made it difficult to perform tasks abroad, explains Nils Tenning.
"The conditions of service have become so bad, and career opportunities are so scarce that there are fewer and fewer people who want to become a career soldier," complains the chairman of the union of officers.
In 2021, the union sent to the general staff a list of proposals with urgent measures to retain staff.
The proposals were well received, but they replied that there are no available funds before the new budget and are not expected, explains Nils Tenning.
"We did not comply with the main rule, which allows us to prevent an accident, and therefore we are still rolling down. That's why it will be even more difficult to reverse the situation with the new budget, when we also start expanding," he says.
Look for the answer in the new budget
In any case, there is no other way out but to wait for the new defense budget, which will come into force from 2024, said the commander of the Danish armed forces, Flemming Lentfer.
Therefore, the trade unions will have to be patient until their proposals on how to stop the exodus of personnel do not work.
"We have sorted out most of the sensible proposals that have been put on our table, but they are also worth something. That's why they will be included in the new budget," says Flemming Lentfer. "Funds are also needed to improve salaries, employment and working conditions and increase the attractiveness of military service."
I have to run faster
Flemming Lentfer agrees with the unions that soldiers, figuratively speaking, have to run faster than they would like.
But the situation should be considered in the light of the Ukrainian conflict that began a year ago. He changed the approach of the military to tasks abroad.
"For the last 25 years, we have participated in operations on our own and set their deadlines and tasks ourselves, but now the situation has changed," says Flemming Lentfer.
He is referring to about a thousand Danish soldiers stationed in Latvia and Estonia as part of the NATO forces to deter Russia in the Baltic States.
"Now we are no longer talking about an international operation in some distant country. It's about protecting Denmark and its immediate surroundings," he concluded.
The Commander-in-Chief admits that this has undermined the power of the Danish armed forces.
"We've been running as fast as we can for the last year — in fact, even faster than we can. But the situation demanded it. As a result, we will either have to build up the armed forces or reduce the tasks facing them," he concluded.
Authors of the article: Anders Dall, Mads Korsager Nielsen, Maja Flinthøj, Lasse Lindegaard
