NATO Enhanced Funding

Resolution 337 on Enhanced Common Funding of NATO Operations

US Ambassador to NATO Nuland raises the issue of the Alliance Funding

In the words of the new U.S. ambassador at NATO, Victoria Nuland, the U.S. wants the alliance “retooled for the 21st century.”
In her speech released in Bruxelles on September 22, 2005, Ambassador Nuland noted that funding also remains a “real problem” in transforming NATO.
“We’re also convinced that our great alliance is woefully underfunded," Nuland said.
"Too few allies have met the call for a 2 percent floor in defense spending. Meanwhile, our level of ambition as allies has never been greater. Over the coming year the United States wants to work with allies on many creative, new ideas, including increasing common funding, building more common assets, to put struts of steel into NATO’s transformation and ensure we can meet the commitments that we’ve made.” Read More

US general says NATO wants cargo planes despite tight budgets
By Rebecca Christie
March 6, 2006

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The North Atlantic Treaty Organization still wants its own cargo planes despite their expense, a top military officer said Monday.
Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, commander of U.S. European Command and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, said the alliance needs medium- and long-range planes to carry out its growing workload. Candidates include the Airbus (ABI.YY) A400M and Boeing Co.'s (BA) C-17.
But NATO member nations will have to come to terms with the cost of their ambition, he said at a Pentagon press briefing. NATO military missions now span Afghanistan and Africa as well as ongoing operations in the Balkans.
"One of the interesting realities of the alliance is that there is great political will to do more," Jones said. "But unfortunately, the other side of that coin is that we haven't seen an equal political will to resource more, and that has to be corrected." Read More

Solving NATO's cash crisis
By Gareth Harding
Feb 8, 2006

BRUSSELS, Belgium (UPI) -- How to carry out more missions with less money -- that is the conjuring trick NATO defense ministers will attempt to perform Thursday and Friday when they meet in Sicily to discuss ways of reforming the alliance`s antiquated funding system.NATO is currently active in more global hot-spots than at any time in its 57-year history. It is leading the international community`s stabilization force in Afghanistan, helping move African Union peacekeepers to Darfur, keeping a fragile peace in Kosovo, training Iraqi officers outside Baghdad, deterring terrorist attacks in the Mediterranean Sea and airlifting vital supplies to earthquake victims in northern Pakistan. The world`s most powerful military alliance also plays a leading role in clamping down on global terrorist networks and preventing rogue states getting their hands on weapons of mass destruction.
Yet it is having to do all this against the backdrop of dwindling national defense expenditures and a NATO funding system that one senior U.S. diplomat describes as designed for a different era. Read More

Global War on Terror and Future of NATO
by Sebestyén L. v. Gorka, Posted Jan, 2006
Interview with Gen. Jim Jones, who serves both as the highest ranking military officer at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), NATO’s HQ, and as the commander of the United States European Command (EUCOM).
(...)The process of transformation involves on-going evaluation and there are still problems.
NATO’s political appetite to be more global is much greater than its inherent capability to act globally. At Prague, the then NATO 19 committed themselves to spending at least 2% of their GDPs on defence. Today, less than half of the 26 members of the expanded Alliance spend close to that figure. Read More

European Defense Reform: The Beginning of the Beginning
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Radek Sikorski

Sikorski suggests, among others, that the way in which NATO is funded is a crucial step in reinvigorating the body." Currently, a central fund to which members contribute on the basis of an agreed formula relative to their wealth pays for NATO’s central institutions. Countries pay for military deployments from their own treasuries." If the central fund were to cover all costs, Sikorski suggests, this would reward the most active members, while also promoting NATO involvement in less visible, more distant operations. " Funding NATO-agreed operations from the central fund as well would at last channel resources to those willing to take their alliance obligations seriously. A virtuous circle would ensue: the more robust a country is in pursuing NATO objectives, the more money it would have for modernizing its military." This would make agreements easier to achieve, as the question of cost would not longer be a factor in the decision of whether to deploy in a particular operation or not. Read More