What are the new solutions for Europe's security after the international meeting organized by "Capital" – commented Petar Karaboev on "The Network" on the "Hristo Botev" program.
The context of the forum
"It is obvious that we have a problem in the East, I am talking about Russia. But the regional threat goes much further. Russia has declared Bulgaria an enemy state and continues to wage a brutal and destructive war, which no one in Europe imagined until four years ago – on such a scale and with no end in sight. And this cannot continue indefinitely, thinking that we will get away with it. No, we will not get away with it. Questions must be asked and answers must be heard. The forum was not an anti-Russian event. On the contrary, there was not so much talk about Russia. There was talk about how many years we have missed, what we can do and where to focus our attention.
Business should talk and hear what can be done with the authorities, because we all know that the number one customer in security in every direction is the state. Private corporations do not buy tanks, right?"
Private business, the state and the defense of Europe
"Private business does not stay away from the state, on the contrary, in well-regulated states it has very good relations and earns billions from this. In Bulgaria, real private business keeps its distance because the public procurement process is highly politicized and who the state assigns to. This is the distance that hinders. On the other hand, the Bulgarian state has a very strong military-industrial sector. What the state and military enterprises, but also strong private ones, provide as part of the Bulgarian economy is one of the largest in the EU. So the state itself has a highly developed position in the arms business. But it is known that there are private manufacturers who have had serious problems over the years, for example, like Emilian Gebrev. So yes, private business has reason to keep its distance."
If business was counting on meeting the state - it did not meet it at this forum
"Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev had come on behalf of the government. True, he is a deputy prime minister, but he is the minister of innovation and growth. He does not have a strong profile in the defense sector. The Ministry of Defense had sent one of the deputy ministers, Radostin Iliev. But in fact, business has more to do with the other deputy minister. He did not come. The minister did not come. The chairman of the parliamentary defense committee was in the hall at one time. I didn't see him take a stand. But the government and the state - I wouldn't say they were there. Those who were visibly absent from the state's perspective were the military. It's clear that they are obliged to maintain apoliticality, but not astatehood. They shouldn't pretend that they are not part of the state."
The conversation about innovations and the reality of the defense business
"Deputy Prime Minister Donchev talked about the fact that by 2030, probably about 40 billion leva will go to defense. Of these, 20% or about 8 billion will be invested in physical defense assets: weapons, tanks, howitzers, ships, and so on. According to him, this will create about 14-15 thousand jobs.
That sounds good. But he also talks about drones, that we need to learn to make drones, lots of them and cheaply. I personally attended a conversation between participants and some of them were quite skeptical about this. They said: "What drones? This drone work was invented and done in Ukraine".
There was a presentation on the topic, which showed that the capacity of Europe, of the entire European Union, is currently to produce 1 million drones per year. Ukraine has the capacity to produce 5 million. China between 12 and 15 million. Somehow it is not understood that the conversation about innovation should be strongly focused on where we can actually find a niche, achieve something that will make an impression – first, to the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense, which should buy it, and then, when you have a result in Bulgaria, to sell it abroad. And not to look only abroad."
Armin Paperger said this, by the way. He said: "You cannot be a strong company in this market if you don't have a national market. 40% of your sales should come from the national contracting authority in the beginning".
"Rheinmetall" is coming to Bulgaria with a big investment. But let's be honest - this is gunpowder and iron. They are building a gunpowder and shell factory. The same conversation could have been had at the end of the 19th century, because artillery looks different and will soon be able to fire shells 100 km away. The future is in technology, this is the foundation of defense. But "Rheinmetall" is selling Bulgaria a standard basic production. This is not an innovation. We will get good technologies to produce gunpowder and shells. The meaning of the conference was a little different."
Drones, deficits and strategic change in Europe
"Europe needs everything. This is the problem. There is a simple reason: what we have seen in Ukraine so far, and it will continue for God knows how long, is that several types of war, several ways of conducting combat operations have taken place. We saw something that resembles World War II - with massive attacks by tank columns, armored vehicles, missiles, aircraft. Then this phase stopped. It began to resemble World War I - trench warfare. Russian troops are suffering serious losses. They are advancing a kilometer here, two there. Since the end of 2022, if I am not mistaken, they have not advanced much. Although they are losing hundreds of thousands. Of course, the Ukrainians are also losing a lot of people. But it looks like a war that we have seen decades ago. Then it turned out that the war has entered a phase in which the two sides cannot have direct contact.
There is a buffer zone - maybe about 30 km wide, where they can barely get close and see each other in person. Because there are drones in the sky. Thousands of drones are there every day. You can't get close. Some of them are flying missiles - suicide drones. And suddenly the war starts to look like a way that even the former commander of the US army Mark Milley described in a big article. He said: "People, we are not ready. When you look at what is happening in Ukraine - we have F-35s, and they are just pouring drones - both of them". And we don't know what the war will look like at the end of 2026.
Europe has deficits in each of the phases. You can't not fill your warehouses first with what you quickly sent to help Ukraine. You can't end up with tanks that were manufactured 30-40 years ago, slightly modernized. You can't have Soviet-standard howitzers because only Bulgaria can produce them according to the Soviet model. The places in Europe where this is done are two or three - Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia. The Soviet standard must be changed so that you can get shells from South Korea. You must have missiles, radars, satellite intelligence and real-time surveillance. And most of all, you must have people who know it. They must be good artillerymen, good tankers, good radar operators, and everyone must be able to work with drones.
In the Baltics, this is already being done - they start teaching children to pilot drones from the first grade. Soon young people in Bulgaria will have to learn to fly drones."
Deficit and money
"It's not just money. It's overreliance on the American umbrella. On the presence of American troops. America as the "arsenal of freedom and democracy", as it was called during World War II. And if something happens in Europe, the Americans will help. But this scheme was developed for conflicts in which the West has a dominant superiority. First, the war is not between Russia and the West, obviously. There are no trained, educated and synchronized troops fighting from the Baltics to Bulgaria and from Portugal to Finland. It was believed that if someone decided to attack, they would clash with the NATO machine, dominated and led by America. But the clash took place in Ukraine. And it turned out that Europe helps with what it can, but has no reserves. The Americans adopted a cautious approach - do not provoke the Russians, because they are a nuclear power.
Nobody wants to turn a regional conflict into a global one. It looked like a European problem. The Russians themselves tried and still do it - to present it as an intra-Soviet conflict. "We are settling some things here – what do you care about in Europe? We haven't threatened you". That's not true.
America said: "We will help, but we won't give everything at once, because we don't want to get to a nuclear confrontation. This compromise, in which the Joe Biden administration operated, evaporated the moment the Donald Trump administration came.
Europe turned out to have wasted – or rather, Ukraine gave Europe three years, and it wasted them in postponement, hopes, consultations, raising funds, creating funds. While it turned out that we need to clarify the situation we are facing very quickly. Europe, for almost four years now, has no clear idea of what exactly it should be afraid of. What is the threat."