Smart Defence for Greece and Turkey?

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.