Amara Agomuo

Dr. Ivanov
POL 4080
14 April 2012

NATO Smart Defence

The North Atlantic Treaty Alliance came up with a devised plan for a new way of
utilizing defense capabilities by instilling cooperation to maintain military strength and setting
priorities to coordinate better efforts. The aim is to rebalance the defence spending between the
US and Europe and eventually bridge the gap between the US and the Allies concerning military
capabilities. The world has been facing severe economic restraints since 2008 that has resulted in
debt crises, inflation, and failed currencies all over the world. This has posed several restrictions
on the global budget that has affected the shape and impact of the defense budget for the
Alliances. The NATO Smart Defence capitalizes keenly on cooperation and utilizes it as a major
vehicle that holds states accountable. This initiative voices some skepticism but manages to aid
nations in collaboration with NATO and the US to promote its mission for global security and
the US continues to operate as a global hegemon that strengthens and enriches the progress of
NATO. Through research on the NATO Smart Defence initiative, we can expect to see and
expansion and collaboration of NATO in the near future.
The history of NATO shows how the institution was created to deter the Soviet Union
from expanding, stop the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through North American
presence, and encourage European political integration. With over 30 million Europeans dead
after World War II and Communism spreading throughout, the United States finally turned its
back on diplomatic isolation. The USs Marshall Plan aided to creation of the North Atlantic

Treaty being and as well as its Allies. The Smart Defence initiative is just another means to
reduce the gap between the United States and its Allies by equipping critical, deployable, and
sustainable measures to share an equitable amount of the global burden. NATO aims to
specialize in what they do best by requiring the Alliances to cater to certain abilities that NATO
needs the most to accomplish its mission statement. The nations in the Alliance produce these
capabilities in the most cost effective way ensuring better cooperation and sustainability all
around.
When concerning Russia and their military agenda, the US continuously exercises the
cooperation aspect of the NATO Smart Defence Initative. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel
announced that the US missile program in Europe would be reconstructed enabling the
cancellation of Phase 4 that calls for deployment of upgraded interceptors in Eastern Europe.
This result could resolve the United States and Russia dispute over missile, resulting in more
compromise between these two nations. NATO and Russian are already working on a
cooperative missile defense program that could aid to more agreeable talks between the US and
Russian concerning the missile initiative. The talks encompass the ideas of more transparency
and jointed exercises between NATO and a commitment for the US not to target Russian
missiles . Apart from the NATO Smart Defence Strategic Plan, in 2010 NATO and Russia
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agreed to explore a more cooperative missile defense program for Europe. Russian has made the
US and NATO question their military agenda by their recent simulated cruise missile attacks on
the US and Asia. A Russian bomber recently targeted military bases in Japan and as well as the
US, and the motives for this are still not yet clear. With simulated missile attacks on Alaskan
bases, it seems as though Russia and the US will need to sit down with NATO to bridge a more

collaborative missile defense effort. Although progress still needs to be made NATO has
continued to support and bridge this cooperation.
Looking at the data of Spains military it seems to have had a gradual decline in size each
year, except for its artillery, AIFV and APC equipment. Spains artillery rose from 1,355 in 1992
to 2030 in 2012 and its AIFV and APC equipment rose from 1,900 to 4,29. Apart from this,
Spain had a steady rate of reduction in its military for almost a decade. Spain was fortunate
enough to not experience dramatic plunges like some other nations, like Belgium, who plunged
from 1,876 in AIFV and APC equipment during 1992 to 331 in 2013. It is apparent that
Belgiums economy was hit hard resulting in a loss in its defense spending, whereas Spain
experienced much more of a balanced budget that lead to steady cuts and raises in certain
departments. Spain has contributed greatly to NATO including NATO led missions in
Afghanistan and participation in NATO's maritime operations.
The NATO Smart Defence has opened the door for other initiatives that favor
cooperation amongst the Alliances to ensure global security. With the defence budget under tight
financial pressure, the only way these nations can fully exert their capabilities is by collaborating
together. A collaborative effort that stemmed from this program to promote and stimulate more
cooperation among the Alliances is the NATO Forces 2020. The NATO Forces 2020 is a plan
that ensures that NATO is effectively enforcing collective defense, crisis management and
cooperative security while maintaining security around the world. It invites the European Union
to participate in their collaborative efforts to ensure peace through this financial crisis. An
Alliance Ground Surveillance will be created from this plan to monitor and improve joint
intelligence and surveillance during missions . This plan serves to protect Europe from any
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threats of ballistic missiles while encouraging other nations to exercise any form of missile

proliferation wisely. The goal of this NATO Forces 2020 is to tightly connect forces while
equipping, training, exercising and commanding Alliances so that they can operate together in
any environment . Another program that focuses on European reconstruction is the Organization
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for Security and Co-operation in Europe. This organization aims to promote stability in the EuroAtlantic area through conflict prevention, crisis management and addressing new security threats.

Resembling Smart Defence, this effort will help mold a culture of cooperation by paring these
nations with multinational projects to better enhance our global capabilities as a whole. NATO,
being an organization that strives for a collaborative effort between states, has issued various
collaborative task forces and peacekeeping missions in the past. NATO is widely known for
combining nations together to execute a specific international goal through a diverse range of
task forces. A cooperative task NATO has initiated is the International Security Assistance Force
Afghanistan since August 11th , 2003. NATO plans and directs the political direction of all tasks
in this organization specially targeted in Afghanistan. The ISAF has expanded into Afghan in
2006 and increased its global strength from 19,600 to 60,000, resulting in an increased need for
more sustainable cooperation in Afghan. The ISAF includes task forces such as Task Force
Pegasus which strives to enable freedom of movement and sustain combat operations and
thereby contribute to the legitimacy of the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan by
utilizing the cooperation of the United States. Also the Task Force Helmand that conducts
counter-insurgency (COIN) operations and to provide security to local Afghans in Helmand
Provence with the United Kingdom7 . This has been NATOs biggest operation and is projected to
end in 2014. Another task force is the Operation Enduring Freedom. This task force was started
initially right after September 11th , 2001 to overthrow Afghanistans Taliban government and to
destroy al-Qaeda. The operation began with night strikes on thirty-one targets. When concerning
collaborative peacekeeping missions, NATO and ten other nations engage in a Strategic Airlift

Capability where they carry 169,776 pounds of cargo for humanitarian relief and peacekeeping
around the world. After looking at the numbers of the military size of the ten participating
NATO nations (Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland,
Romania, Slovenia and the United States) the US is at least three times larger in size compared to
most of the other nations. This proves that sustainable cooperation is maintained with the help of
the US. The US boasts the credibility and strength of NATO due to its global hegemon status.
When the US contributes to a mission, its super power status solicits aid from other nations due
to its influence.
The US has always been looked upon as a world police. But with recent financial crises
and foreign conflicts ranging from Libya, Syria, Iran and North Korea, the United States seems
to be stretching itself almost too thin. It has already reduced the size of its military and cut part of
the defense budget and yet it is still engaged in foreign conflicts. A strategic NATO plan like this
seems to be an excellent opportunity for the US to bridge cooperation between other nations,
while lessening the overall burden on the USs involvement in foreign affairs. After the World
Wars and Vietnam, the American public wanted the United States to limit its foreign affairs
involvement significantly and stay out of all foreign affairs. Even after the US demobilized its
military, rejected membership into the League of Nations, and placed restrictions on a
presidents overseas operations must Americans feel that the US is too involved in international
affairs. However with the US withdrawing forces from foreign regions, it has spawned attacks
against the US, placing their national security at risk. As the world becomes more dangerous and
unpredictable, the American public continues to move toward an isolationist stance .
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Nonetheless, the US has a very unique role and status making it "the indispensable nation"
according to Secretary Madeleine Albright. The United States is the only nation qualified for the

position of a world policeman due to its impeccable economy, devotion to liberty and equality,
and having the most powerful military5 .
Though there are several initiatives proposed to help Europe re-build itself militarily, not
every European nation is on board with this agenda. Several French senators believe NATOs
Smart Defence Initiative is a war machine of the American defense industry. Statements
similar to this can severely undermine US and France relations. The whole Smart Defence plan
relies on Alliances not only cooperating together but trusting each other enough to work
efficiently to promote the general welfare of global nations. By France signaling that the United
States is only here to benefit itself simply suggests that they favor no collaboration with this
super power. In reality this is just not the case because the Smart Defence plan is not a US
program; it is in fact primarily run by NATO. There are twenty-four Tier I projects where
fifteen of them are led by Europe and only five are led by the US and Canada . But who can
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blame France for their opinions about the US monopolizing the agenda? But submitting to this
initiative some nations feel as though they are submitting part of their sovereignty over.
With the US known as a global hegemon and the world super power with a previous
isolationist stance, it makes nations wonder what the US is really getting out of this Smart
Defence plan. The Smart Defence initiative does not require participation from all states; in fact,
it is mostly financed by the participating states and not the Alliances as a whole. This opens the
issue of states freeloading off other states. States want to feel as though they arent getting duped
by other states that are not doing their full part of the deal, or are exploited by states that dont
put forth effort to accomplish the goals of the initiative but still reap the benefits. For instance,
states ideally want to see progress being made while having transparency to view the work and
progress other nations are contributing to the overall success. Comparing France to the US in

terms of military size, the US continues to trump Frances military size. Just looking recently at
the army personnel of 2012 the US had 641,000 whereas France had only 130,600. The US
already has the worlds strongest military and is fit to engage in any competition against any ally,
so why the cooperation?
Through the course of this research I have learned a lot about NATOs transformation
and Smart Defense. Through several hours plugging in data, I got to see firsthand several
patterns that occurred amongst various countries and deciphered their military components and
items. When I first viewed the excel spreadsheet after I completed it, it was pretty nerve racking
to see a long dispersion of numbers and lists of countries. It was even more puzzling to track the
changing numbers of the army, navy, air force, and deployment. Through careful observation, I
viewed how patterns of severe reduction in some countries may have been caused by NATOs
arm ban, or how certain increases were used to aid peacekeeping missions in the Middle East.
Such countries, such as Bulgaria, had excessive population fluctuations in their army and navy
leading me to question where this much disparity is coming from. Looking at the contributions to
peacekeeping operations, I wondered if this altered the number of populations due to their
cooperation in certain missions. When I first started logging in the data, I noticed a steady
decline as time went on. For instance, the United States started out with 16,529 tanks in 1992
and has only 5,855 tanks in 2012. That was only a twenty year difference that resulted in the
reduction of 35.4% of tanks. Back then the US economy was booming with surpluses under the
Clinton administration in 1992. The United States did not encounter any real restraints
concerning their military budget such as the sequester we are facing today. It is hard to imagine
the size of the United States military during World War II when there were no real financial
restraints and the whole economy was primarily focused on defense. 35% is still a big jump

especially if you look at the Foreign Policy situation for the US. While looking at foreign policy
we must also direct or attention to our own national security. I was surprised to see that there was
no significant change, concerning an increase in the US military during the year 2001. This
created several questions such as Did the military already see themselves as prepared enough to
handle al-Qaeda?, Did the US not see al-Qaeda as a strong threat? and Did the military
already face pre-existing restrictions on their budget that year? With the Iraq war over and the
United States pulling out of Afghanistan, there is less emphasis on a military presence overseas.
When concerning NATO military as a whole, the World Military Balance 2013 reported that
total defense spending fell in 2012 for a second year running. The Air force personnel decreased
between 2000 and 2002 across most of the regions; 2009 specifically had a lot of record lows for
the Air Force personnel. The economy seems to still be taking a toll on NATOs range of defense
spending through recent cuts. I believe these cuts are in place to level off the defense spending
and gain some reprieve from the tough financial crisis. However, these cuts seem to be coming
at a wrong time due to turmoil in Syria and North Korea. It will be interesting to see how the US
handles this down size during the conflict between North Korea.
All in all, NATO continues to enact its Smart Defence Initiative while cooperatively
engaging NATO nations in task forces and missions to fulfill its mission statement. The US is
still and has always been the World Police, but this initiative steps in and ensures that the US
is not the only involved on these international matters and enlists collected help from other
states. This initiative will help provide the means to reduce the gap between the United States
and its Allies by equipping critical, deployable, and sustainable measures to share an equitable
amount of the burden1 . NATO aims to specialize in what they do best by requiring the Alliances
to cater certain abilities that NATO needs the most. The nations in the Alliance will produce

these capabilities in the most cost effective. NATO continues to trump other international
organizations such as the European Union or the United Nations due to NATOs active
relationship and involvement with the United States and its continuous global collaboration.
Through my logging of data and research I find NATO and its initiatives like, Smart Defence, to
be particularly useful in this global world because it places all nations involved on the same
page. If the financial tow allows, I can see NATO remaining fairly relevant in the future and
expanding its operations. A comprehensive plan like Smart Defence would be excellent in
countries like Africa who have the political and military potential but just lack the economic
funds. It would teach African nations how to be sustainable while working collectively to ensure
global safety and security. Looking at the United States and Europe, I predict a continuation of
the reduction size of their military due to their fiscal constraints. Europe is already facing a
budget crisis and the US has just been hit by the sequester resulting in cuts of $487 billion over
five years. This will impede on efforts for global cooperation due to economic limitations. I
believe the US will continue to maintain its global hegemon status and NATO will continue to
enrich the world with its global initiatives.
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