National Armaments Directors focus on multinational cooperation
On 13 October, the Conference of National Armaments Directors (CNAD) convened for its second annual conference at NATO HQ in Brussels, Belgium. Among the major themes discussed were multinational approaches, Agency Reform, Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD), and Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS).
The conference succeeded in covering a variety of critical issues and reaching important decisions. Following up on the 7 April meeting, and in preparation for the 2012 Chicago Summit, Chairman Mr. Patrick Auroy highlighted the need to find solutions through Smart Defence. To achieve this, he emphasized better prioritization, greater specialization, and multinational solutions to achieve economies of scale and redress capability shortages.
The NADs noted the potential for multinational cooperation. The projects and proposals must be realistic, limited in scope, involve a restricted number of nations, and have the ability to deliver military capabilities. Operation Unified Protector in Libya is one successful example of NATO’s multinational cooperation, but bureaucratic obstacles often impede practical exchanges.
For Agency Reform, CNAD has been nominated as the Provisional Agency Supervisory Board (PASB) for the new Procurement Agency. CNAD is also responsible for actively participating in the development of a Charter for the Procurement Agency, as well as selecting and preparing its new Head, the Design Chief Executive (DCE).
On the topic of Missile Defence, the CNAD Chairman noted that MD clearly has potential to become a multinational project.
Alliance Ground Surveillance was discussed in length during the previous week’s Defence Ministerial and NADs reiterated their national positions on the matter. The Council will examine the possibility for broadening participation in the AWACS programme, and report back to Ministers by the time of the Defence Ministerial in February 2012.
CNAD also had a plenary session with Partnership for Peace (PfP) countries to discuss issues such as multinational cooperation, activities of the CNAD subgroups and Defence Against Terrorism.