National Armaments Directors discuss support to defence planning priorities

  • 27 Mar. 2015 -
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  • Last updated: 27 Mar. 2015 11:08

How can multinational cooperation and enhanced engagement with industry help develop the capabilities required to meet current security challenges? This was the focus of discussions at the biannual Conference of National Armaments Directors (CNAD) on 26 March in Brussels, Belgium.

“CNAD is the ideal platform to discuss national plans and reach concrete results on multinational armaments projects,” said Patrick Auroy, Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment and Permanent Chairman of the Conference.

The top national defence procurement officials from NATO countries were briefed on the state of play of the major programmes within the scope of the CNAD’s mandate, including:

  • Joint Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance
  • Alliance Ground Surveillance
  • NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control
  • Alliance Future Surveillance and Control
  • Ballistic Missile Defence.

Discussions also focused on optimising the CNAD’s contribution to current Alliance priorities, in particular through multinational cooperation efforts. Several nations briefed on national activities under way, including under the umbrella of ‘Smart Defence’, to address NATO’s capability needs.

The CNAD was informed of plans to increase the Alliance’s readiness. They agreed to undertake follow-on work to identify potential contributions from the armaments community to some of the measures outlined in the Readiness Action Plan.

Earlier engagement with industry

Participants had an interactive and fruitful exchange of views on options to allow industry to contribute to the quality of NATO capability requirements and on what could be done to facilitate the contribution of industry. The recommendations arising from the discussion will guide the ongoing work on implementing the Framework for NATO-Industry Engagement.

“Our work will identify potential ways by which to improve NATO’s relationship with suppliers in order to pursue the ‘spend better’ philosophy,” said Mr Auroy.

Defence Investment Pledge

The CNAD welcomed the Wales Defence Investment Pledge made by Allied leaders at their summit in September 2014.

In particular, the undertaking to spend at least 20 per cent of annual defence expenditure on major new equipment, including related research and development, was seen as an opportunity to meet capability shortfalls and make smarter defence investment decisions.

The next meeting of the CNAD will be held in Autumn 2015.