NATO and EU need better defence technology cooperation

NATO and the European Union need to work more effectively toward defense technology cooperation because current military committee meetings aren't producing "much added value to the capability process," Norwegian Rear Adm. Jorgen Berrgrav of NATO's Allied Command Transformation said May 5.

Berrgrav spoke as part of a trans-Atlantic teleconference in Washington and Brussels on the future of defense cooperation between the European Union and NATO.

Berrgrav's statements were echoed by Geoffrey van Orden, a member of the European Parliament.

"EU involvement … in defense matters, including defense industry and technology, contributes very little in terms of defense capabilities; this is detrimental to NATO and is merely part of a wider political ambition for European political integration," van Orden said. "What the European Union has done is to merely create another set of channels of decision-making and it doesn't actually add to the capabilities."

Berrgrav said the way to forge a better working relationship between the two groups is to meet the political challenges to the NATO-EU relationship, increase cooperation in developing and acquiring technology, and avoid unnecessary duplication.

The speakers also said Europe spends much less on defense than the United States, which could make cooperation more difficult.

"The EU is under-investing across the board," said Jim Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

But many innovations that will become increasingly important - robotics, new power sources, sensor developments - come from European companies, he said. There is therefore a possibility for Europe "to speed up itself."

On both sides of the Atlantic, there is a need for innovation and technology development to move faster, which can be done through cooperation, Lewis said. "But if cooperation doesn't work, I don't think you'll see an incentive in the U.S. to wait."

Speakers noted that the Iraq War has emphasized the U.S. reliance on allies.

"Certainly there's a political awareness in Washington of the importance of the trans-Atlantic relationship," Lewis said. But that sentiment might not be shared by industry, he said.

Speaking about trans-Atlantic joint ventures, Lewis said "You can see how that might be uncomfortable for some here to think about. At the same time, the U.S. and Europe each are faced with how to pay for future technology. We do have a problem here and it's a shared problem," he said. "We may not be able to afford, by ourselves, the next generation of technology."

"Having come through a very difficult period in the alliance over the last six or seven years, I think there is a renewed consensus in Washington [that] we need our allies more than ever," said Hans Binnendijk of National Defense University. "The question is, how does that translate into the area of research and development, technology [and] joint ventures."

Industry is already moving ahead of policy in terms of cooperation in some cases. Referring to recent trans-Atlantic partnerships, such as the EADS-Northrop Grumman team that won the contract to build refueling tankers for the Air Force, Terry Pudas of National Defense University said, "There'll be more and more of these collaborative kinds of relationships. Left to their own devices, industry is going to do that whether the policy-makers decide to do it or not."

Source: A. Boessenkool - Defense News

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