Analysis: European defense contracts

BRUSSELS, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- The British government will allocate an additional $811 million for defense spending this year.

Finance Minister Alistair Darling, who replaced Gordon Brown after the latter became prime minister, announced the extra spending in his pre-budget report Oct. 9.

Austrian gunmaker Glock denied reports that an estimated 80,000 semiautomatic pistols, delivered to Iraqi police by American troops, have disappeared and are available on the Iraqi black market.

According to the Pentagon, the U.S. armed forces supplied the Iraqi police with some 125,000 Glock pistols between 2003 and 2006. In 2006 an investigation by a senior U.S. official showed that 13,000 of these pistols were missing.

In June a congressional body found 190,000 weapons supplied by the United States to be unaccounted for, 80,000 of which were Glock pistols.

Glock’s lawyers, Quendler, Klaus & Partner, told the Austrian Press Agency that the report was “incorrect.”

“As in every army and police unit around the world, a minimal number of weapons may have disappeared within the Iraqi defense forces, but that was a result of criminal acts such as theft or misappropriation,” Quendler, Klaus & Partner said. They added that the stolen guns “will not have any substantial effect on the security situation and will certainly not lead to a flooding of the local gun market.”

With Scandinavian governments planning to cut back defense budgets, plans for a centralized pan-Nordic army could gain traction.

Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden are all taking measures to curb their military spending and convert their armies into more mobile entities. These concentrated armies will be equipped primarily for international operations and will put less emphasis on territorial defense, according to Defensenews.com.

Norway and Sweden are already in talks about collaborating very closely militarily and are expected to involved Denmark and Finland soon. “We would not oppose enlarged talks with Finland or Denmark, but right now the focus is on achieving a cross-border agreement with Sweden,” Gen. Sverre Diesen, head of Norway’s defense forces, told Defensenews.com. “We believe that closer military collaboration will become more important in the future and will play a role in both lowering defense operating costs and helping the military to afford better equipment.”

Finland in particular is keen on closer cooperation. “Weapons costs are rising 8 percent a year, and Finland is ready to look at other options, including closer cooperation with Sweden and Norway regarding equipment purchases,” Finnish defense chief Adm. Juhani Kaskeala told Defensenews.com

The British government is in negotiations with the United States over the purchase of an additional 148 Force Protection Cougar vehicles.

In June the British armed forces deployed 108 Cougars, which they upgraded with more armor and their Bowman tactical communications system and renamed Mastiff, in Iraq and Afghanistan. The new vehicles will be used by British troops in southern Afghanistan who are being confronted with an increasing amount of improvised explosive devices.

Yet according to defensenews.com, the British will have to compete with the U.S. Army if they want the vehicles soon. Force Protection is already producing at capacity for the American troops. Although the Pentagon has previously allowed vehicles built for them to be sold to the United Kingdom, it remains to be seen if it will do this again.