Karel Řehka

Karel Řehka is a former Chief of the General Staff of the Czech Armed Forces. According to an interview with HlídacíPes.org, he left the armed forces at the end of August after 37 years of service and is running for the Senate of the Czech Republic in the Plzeň-město electoral district, where he wants to focus mainly on defence.[1]

Statements on defence

In an interview with Info.cz he said that twenty years of underfunding of the armed forces cannot be made up by merely meeting the two percent of GDP target, and that the Czech Republic will have to invest more than three percent of GDP in defence for at least ten years.[2] In his words in the HlídacíPes.org interview, the armed forces and their development have as much room as politicians give them through money and legislation.[1]

In the podcast Kam se (to) řítíme? he described the present period as a turning point but rejected catastrophic scenarios; in his view Europe will not have its defence guaranteed by the Americans indefinitely.[3]