Military budget cuts in the United States and Europe will require more shared use and purchase of weapon systems in the cross-Atlantic partnerships, Obama administration officials said yesterday.
Defense and State department officials told reporters the new defense strategy review unveiled last week–which calls for reducing military personnel at U.S. bases in Europe and no longer sizing forces for two large wars–seeks to maintain cooperation with European allies and partners.
The U.S. strategy guidance is the result of a comprehensive military examination intended to identify $487 billion in reductions to planning defense spending over the next decade. It will guide forthcoming budget proposals to strengthen the U.S. presence in the Asia Pacific, shrink the size of conventional ground forces, and cut weapon systems.
Julianne Smith, deputy assistant defense secretary for Europe and NATO policy, said yesterday at the State Department Foreign Press Center that the “U.S. commitment to NATO remains firm, and we will ensure that we can meet all of our Article 5 commitments.”
Still, she added: “But I think the budget cuts that we’re seeing on the other side to the Atlantic and the budget cuts that we will be facing here when it comes to defense will put added pressure on all of us collectively to come up with some innovative ideas under the rubric of smart defense, where we’ll have to look at pooling, sharing, multinational procurement, and come up with some innovative approaches on doing more with less in some ways.”
Phillip Gordon, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, at the briefing pointed to NATO allies’ shared use of Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) reconnaissance aircraft in the Libya operation. He noted NATO allies are working together on a ground-surveillance capability, saying that “putting our assets together and providing this capability for the alliance would be another way in which we can economize.” In additional, allies are working together to police Baltic airspace in a way that works around the fact that each nation does not have an advanced air force, he said.
“These are the types of things in the modern world that we’ll be looking at and supporting to make sure that NATO collectively is defended as cost-efficiently as possible,” Gordon said.
Asked about U.S. and European partners moving at different speeds on common efforts, such as the ground surveillance, Smith said such “smart defense” efforts to do not necessarily have to be supported by all of the allied nations. She pointed, as an example, to bilateral agreements such as a U.K.-French treaty on defense matters.
“Obviously, depending on where you sit in Europe and the United States, we have different views on what’s required, where we can get the biggest bang for our Euro or our dollar, or another currency, and what makes sense for us in terms of the threats that are at the top of our list,” she said. “The Nordics and the Baltics view things, obviously, in a collective light…when it comes to their security. But all of these can carry the NATO brand and the NATO stamp.”
President Barack Obama plans to host NATO allies in Chicago in May. Administration officials hope to “package a collection of new smart-defense initiatives that can be presented and endorsed by heads of state and government” at that summit, Smith said.
Regarding the specific ground-surveillance effort, Gordon said there is “intense diplomacy going on…to figure out precisely how it would work.”
“You can’t expect every single ally to have…exactly the same view about the utility of different programs,” he said. “That’s why we have an alliance, and that’s why the diplomacy needs to take place.”
With the ground-surveillance effort, countries that do not actually procure the assets may still benefit from it, he said.
Officials are examining “if a way can be found that it can be put to alliance use and everybody participates in an agreed way, it’s something whereby every member of the alliance for an allied operation gets to benefit from this very badly needed intelligence and surveillance, without every single ally having to buy drones and radar stations and the infrastructure that’s necessary to use it.”
“That’s why it’s smart, and that’s just the type of thing that we’re going to have to be doing more of moving forward” he added.