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Austria National Security
Austria - Unavailable
Coat of arms of the province of Vienna
IN 1993 THE AUSTRIAN DEFENSE ESTABLISHMENT was in the process of
restructuring, from a force intended to defend Austria's
territory against threats arising from hostilities between North
Atlantic Treaty Organization and Warsaw Pact countries to a force
that could react rapidly to local crises. Under the restructuring
plan, both the standing army and reserves are to be scaled back
but are to maintain individual units in a rapid-response status,
enabling the army to intervene quickly with appropriate forces to
prevent instability in Austria's border areas. In view of the
civil warfare in the former Yugoslavia and the breakup of
Czechoslovakia into two states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia,
as well as the possibility of overwhelming movements of refugees
fleeing violence in nearby states, Austria considers itself to be
in a highly exposed position in spite of the end of East-West
confrontation in Europe. The intervention of the Yugoslav army in
Slovenia and Croatia in 1991 prompted the largest mobilization of
the Austrian army since it was reconstituted in 1956.
The Austrian armed forces consist of only one branch, the
Bundesheer (Federal Army), of which the air force
(Fliegerdivision) is a component. There is no navy. Ground forces
consist of 46,000 men on active duty, 19,500 of whom are
conscripts who serve for six months, followed by sixty days of
refresher training with their mobilization units spread over a
ten-year period. There are 6,000 men in the air force, 2,400 of
whom are conscripts. (These are no women in the Austrian armed
forces.) The main active combat units are three mechanized
brigades equipped with M-60 main battle tanks and Saurer armored
personnel carriers. Two squadrons (twenty-four aircraft) of
Draken fighter aircraft acquired from Sweden defend Austrian air
space. Including activated reserve infantry brigades and
regiments, total mobilized strength is about 200,000, but the
mobilization level will decline to 120,000 under the
reorganization plan, the New Army Structure, announced in late
1991 and to be completed in 1995.
Weapons of mass destruction and guided missiles were
prohibited under the State Treaty of 1955. Also in 1955,
parliament enacted a constitutional law prohibiting participation
in any military alliance and specifying that the armed forces
were to be used only for the defense of the country. However,
neutrality, according to the Austrian interpretation, did not
preclude contributing to peacekeeping operations under United
Nations (UN) auspices. As of 1993, Austria had battalion units
serving the UN in Cyprus and on the Golan Heights in Syria.
Austria did not, however, participate in the UN-supported
coalition against Iraq after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in
1990.
Austria's Federal Police function in fourteen of the largest
cities; the federal Gendarmerie functions in the remainder of the
cities and towns and in most rural areas except for a few that
maintain their own police forces. The Criminal Investigative
Service, the Administrative Police, and the State Police (secret
service) are also nationally organized under the federal Ministry
for Interior.
Austrians are generally peaceful people; domestic politics
are rarely violent, and the level of crime is moderate. Criminal
codes and criminal procedure codes are enlightened. Practices
relating to criminal justice and the penal system are considered
fair by European standards, although questionable conduct by the
police and the secret service has been investigated and reforms
have been instituted.
Data as of December 1993
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