NATO is Crucial to U.S. Security, Panetta Tells Senators

WASHINGTON, June 13, 2012 — Defense Sec­re­tary Leon E. Panet­ta told a Sen­ate pan­el today the NATO alliance is cru­cial to Amer­i­can secu­ri­ty, but that NATO coun­tries need to spend more on defense.

“We can’t do it alone. We’ve got to be able to have alliances like NATO be able to work with us in con­fronting the many chal­lenges that we face in the world,” he said, dur­ing tes­ti­mo­ny on the 2013 defense bud­get request at the Sen­ate Appro­pri­a­tions sub­com­mit­tee on defense. 

U.S. defense offi­cials have repeat­ed­ly raised con­cerns that some NATO nations are not invest­ing enough in their mil­i­taries. NATO’s goal is for mem­bers to spend rough­ly 2 per­cent of their gross domes­tic prod­uct on defense. Most have not met that goal. NATO nations must con­tin­ue devel­op­ing their capa­bil­i­ties and improv­ing their defense pos­tures, the sec­re­tary said. 

At NATO’s sum­mit in Chica­go last month, lead­ers agreed to devel­op greater capa­bil­i­ties in mis­sile defense, in intel­li­gence, sur­veil­lance and recon­nais­sance, and in air-to-air refu­el­ing, among oth­er things. 

But with Europe going through an eco­nom­ic down­turn, the Unit­ed States has con­cerns that many Euro­pean nations will “con­stant­ly go back to defense and seek fur­ther sav­ings there, which I think would be dan­ger­ous,” Panet­ta said. 

This has already erod­ed some capa­bil­i­ties. Panet­ta said that dur­ing last year’s Libya oper­a­tion, the Unit­ed States pro­vid­ed rough­ly 60 per­cent of the sup­port, and that NATO offi­cials told him if the mis­sion were today, the Unit­ed States would have to pick up about 80 percent. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →