Smart Defence
for Greece and Turkey?
Each year brings new threats to face.
But each year,
there is less money to do it with.
How does Smart Defence
work in this situation?
NATO Review looks at how two
NATO members, Greece and Turkey,
could be
candidates for Smart Defence.
Even without the crisis,
Greece would need some kind
of major reform of its defence policy
and its military mechanism.
Perhaps a good term is
what NATO has been trying to do,
which is Smart Defence.
To an extent, and that is
not exclusively a Greek problem,
many militaries
have the same problem:
still thinking
along the terms of the past
and still trying to fight the last war.
I think many things have changed.
In this part of the world
the needs are different,
the means and the technologies
and the doctrines are different.
And with even more limited economic
means, we need a major shift.
Security is not the top priority
in today's Greece.
Up the road,
international lenders are meeting
with the Greek government again
to try to sort out the international
debt crisis affecting this country.
Behind me, protesters
have gathered again to rail
against the cuts that must
be suffered by the people.
It's all about the economy.
However, if how you spend
determines how you defend,
than security will be majorly
affected by this economic turmoil.
All the countries,
all the NATO countries
have to spend at least two per cent
of their national budget.
This is what I believe because
they need strong armed forces,
not only to protect our countries,
but also to control
all the problems all over the world.
NATO now has to care
about the peace
and especially the new threats now
are the biggest problem, not only
for NATO but for the whole world.
You also have new problems:
natural disasters,
population movements,
even problems that used to be
in the field of the police
and the domestic agencies,
like transnational
organised crime or even terrorism.
Al Qaeda may be out of the game,
but terrorism is still
a menace for the Western world.
So, I think we need armed forces
with multiple capabilities
that could easily move
from one issue to the other
and have multiple abilities to deal
with a new security environment.
Turkey doesn’t face the same
economic difficulties as Greece.
It has already thrown
its weight behind Smart Defence.
Smart Defence has been brought to
the agenda by the Secretary General
and Turkey has supported this
from the beginning.
Turkey is supporting about 170
projects and joining many of them.
The purpose is not cutting expenses,
but spending money more efficiently.
Being coordinated
in defence is nothing new.
Countries already benefited from
Smart Intelligence when they joined.
Now, it is time
to apply it to future projects.
Through NATO,
they could have access
to first class
information and intelligence,
which they could not attain
through their national resources.
With joint projects, coordination and
increase cooperation will be required.
We have seen this
and experienced it a lot in the past.
The best example is
building the F-35 CSF aircrafts.
Inside and outside NATO,
with Australia getting involved,
a project that many countries
had a joint interest in.
Using the money more efficiently
is the principle, not spending less.
With Smart Defence,
specialisation is essential.
But a potential obstacle in the way
of smooth Smart Defence
is that it requires countries to be
more comfortable sharing in defence,
an area that is traditionally
national and sovereign.
Could this work here?
In order for the two countries
to come together
and think constructively about
how they can cut
their military spending,
how they can create
some of the joint efforts
with a view
to achieve Smart Defence.
One requirement would be
that the two countries
would also start to solve,
to settle some of
those outstanding disputes.
Because as long as those outstanding
disputes remain at the table,
the type of confidence necessary,
the political confidence necessary
to create a much more ambitious
agenda for Smart Defence
between the two countries,
will not come about.
While security may seem
a lower priority than the economy,
progress in reducing
spending in defence
could improve
economies in the long run.
I don't expect this government,
which is a transitional one,
or even the next one
to come after the elections,
to put much emphasis
on foreign policy, which is a pity
because the world keeps turning,
whatever we do in Greece.
And we might find ourselves
faced with unpleasant surprises
if we neglect
foreign policy for too long.
We don't live in this world alone
and we are not
the epicentre of the world.
Turkey or Greece,
they have to live together,
they have to solve the problems
and find solutions,
and after that
they have to reduce the budget
for the armed forces
and spend less money
and give for the hospitals,
for the children, for their future.