Speech on NATO’s Smart Defence Initiative

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure for me to address such a distinguished audience here in Sofia today to discuss with you NATO’s Smart Defence Initiative.

Please allow me to take the opportunity to thank Deputy Minister Tzvetkova and Deputy Minister Dimitrov.

The rationale for Smart Defence

Last month marked the end to our mission in Libya. A mission that is remarkable for number of reasons. The clear mandate from the United Nations, the ability of NATO to act faster than ever before, and the regional support which proved critical.

Furthermore, in Libya, European Allies and Canada provided most of the assets.

But the success of that operation depended on unique and essential capabilities in key areas which only the United States could offer. Capabilities such as surveillance drones, air-to-air refueling and intelligence assets.

We need to develop, deliver, and deploy modern capabilities in key areas. And strike a better balance of what is available on both sides of the Altantic. But I know that, in an age of austerity, NATO nations need to make savings in their national expenditure. And in many countries, expenditure on defence seems to be taking a disproportionate hit.

These dwindling defence budgets are also being increasingly consumed by the costs of our operational commitments. Fighting for freedom does not come for free. NATO nations are involved in many operations. Costs are considerable. Consequently, there is even less money left for new equipment.

This could have serious consequences. Interoperability could decline. Working together, as an Alliance, could become increasingly difficult as the capability gap grows across the Atlantic.

Smart Defence

We need to change our approach. The answer is to spend better. To get better value for money. To help nations to preserve capabilities and to deliver new ones.

This means we must prioritise. We must specialise.  And we must seek multinational solutions. This is the underlying rationale behind what we call NATO’s new Smart Defence initiative.

Smart Defence will help the Alliance to have the right capabilities. Nations will be able to provide capabilities together that they can’t afford to provide alone.

They will benefit from greater efficiency by working together. From economies of scale. And by building these capabilities together, operating them together will also become easier.

And NATO will benefit too. The key is not for NATO to own capabilities. The key for NATO is to have national or multinational capabilities available when the need arises.

Today NATO can rely on AWACS airplanes to conduct air surveillance and control missions over Afghanistan. This is because 17 Allied nations agreed - years ago - to operate and maintain these airplanes together.

I hope that in the future we will also have an Alliance Ground Surveillance capability.

And I welcome Bulgaria’s active support as one of the 13 participants in this key acquisition programme.

These are just two examples. Many nations are considering the replacement of aging armoured vehicles, or the acquisition of new fighter jets.

And it has become clear that multinational cooperation is the only viable option for the replacement of major equipment. More multinational cooperation in these areas is something that all Allies, including Bulgaria, should consider very seriously.

But Smart Defence is not only about acquiring new equipment. And combining our efforts in other areas such as training and education, logistics, mainteance, as well as science and technology.

At NATO we have established - in cooperation with Allied Command Transformation - a detailed overview of possible projects that would benefit greatly from multinational cooperation. These proposals include potential collaboration in the field of logistics, training, sharing of existing equipment, and so on.

Bulgaria has shown interest in a number of these projects. NATO is ready to help identify projects of interest, that is why we are here today. But, of course, the ultimate decision remains with the nations.

Smart Defence does not impose a one-size-fits-all solution. It is not a straight jacket. On the contrary, it allows for tremendous flexibility. It can cover any, or every, phase of capability development. From Research and Development, to production, procurement, maintenance and training. It can cover small projects, or big ones. Complicated projects, simple ones.

But let me be clear: Smart Defence can only work if it is done together. And it can only work if the savings achieved through cooperation are re-invested in new high-priority capabilities. Smart Defence should not be an excuse for decreasing defence budgets.

NATO – EU and partners

Working together also means that we look for cooperation outside NATO. We are seeking a coordinated approach with the “Pooling and Sharing” initiative undertaken by European Union. The key is to deliver capabilities that build on the strengths of each organization and avoid any overlap. Careful coordination with the EU staffs, and with the European Defence Agency in particular, within the agreed framework, is key to facilitate coherence and complementarity and avoid any undue competition.

We need to be pragmatic, even more than we have been in the past. The Strategic Airlift Capability in which Bulgaria participates, includes both NATO Allies and EU Member States. This is a good example of a pragmatic approach going beyond organisational boundaries.

What is important, at the end of the day, is that this capability can be made available to both organisations. A strategic capability that individual nations could not possibly acquire, but which – operating jointly – they can procure and operate.

We must continue to harmonise our efforts with the European Union. And encourage cross-participation of non-EU Allies and non-NATO EU Member States in multinational projects. And we must encourage NATO Allies to engage willing and able partner nations for participation in multinational projects.

Let me conclude with some words on the way ahead on Smart Defence as we look at the Chicago Summit.

Because, now is the time to draw the right conclusions from the economic crisis.

We must prioritise our requirements and focus our attention, and money, on these key requirements. That is the “what”, of our Smart Defence agenda.

We need to seek economies of scale wherever possible, so that we can re-invest savings on key priorities. We must work together in flexible multinational formats to deliver these key capabilities and achieve genuine economies of scale. That is the “how” of Smart Defence.

The Chicago Summit in May 2012 will be an important milestone. We aim at presenting at the Summit an ambitious and credible package of multinational projects.

But let me stress one important point. he Smart Defence initiative is not purely “project-driven”; it is also driven by guiding principles. At the Summit we will invite Allied leaders to sign up for a long-term commitment on Smart Defence.

A strong commitment to a profound change in our mindset to fundamentally redesign the way nations design, develop, operate, maintain and eventually discard capabilities.

A strong political commitment to transatlantic solidarity and cooperation, with the strategic objective of providing security at an affordable cost.

I am convinced that Smart Defence turns the economic crisis into an opportunity. An opportunity that we must all seize together.

Thank you for your attention.