Defence
Planning
Committee

Brussels
16th Jan. 1969

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Synopsis

The Defence Planning Committee of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization met in Ministerial Session on 16th January, 1969, in Brussels.

2. Ministers re-affirmed that the NATO countries must maintain a firm basis of military strength to support their constant search for a just and durable peace and to meet their common responsibilities under the North Atlantic Treaty. In November 1968, faced with the uncertainties resulting from the Warsaw Pact's armed intervention in Czechoslovakia, Ministers re-assessed the state of their defences and announced numerous measures for strengthening the conventional capability of NATO's forces and improving their quality, effectiveness, and deployment. They recognized the need for the provision of budgetary resources to the extent necessary to support these measures and for co-operation to alleviate burdens arising from balance of payments deficits resulting specifically from military expenditures for the collective defence. At their present meeting they noted the force commitments to NATO that nations have undertaken for 1969 and adopted a NATO force plan for 1969-1973, incorporating the measures announced in November last, and providing for additional improvements in NATO forces

3. As one of the measures envisaged at the Ministerial meeting in Reykjavik in June 1968 to safeguard the security interests of NATO members in the Mediterranean area, Ministers to-day approved the concept of an Allied naval force capable of being assembled on call. The force will be designed to demonstrate Allied solidarity and to carry out surveillance in the Mediterranean. It would be called together periodically for exercises and visits.

4. Ministers also noted certain modifications in the working of the NATO Infrastructure Program, now in its twentieth year. These modifications are designed to ensure, in the future evolution of NATO's defence system, that common funds will continue to be used to the greatest effectiveness in support of planned forces and approved strategy.

5. As items kept under constant scrutiny, Ministers reviewed the status of planning for improved defence of the flanks, and of various defence planning studies. In accordance with regular procedures for the development of NATO force plans on a five-year basis, they gave instructions for the initiation of a review directed towards the preparation of a force plan extending up to 1975 and the improvement of the quality and effectiveness of NATO's forces.

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