NATO and the New Technologies

NATO has traditionally relied on its technological superiority to offset the Warsaw Pact's numerical advantage. This equation, however, is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. Despite NATO's considerably greater outlays for defense, the numerical balance continues to favor the Warsaw Pact and the technological 'gap' between East and West is narrowing. To rectify this situation NATO has two courses of action-embrace a spectrum of new technologies which offer the prospect of dramatic improvements in capability, or extract better value for the money from its defense allocations. These two possibilities need not be mutually exclusive, although historically they have been. Clearly, NATO must reform its approach to weapons procurement if it is to exploit new technology as effectively as possible in periods of budgetary stringency. The need for reform is evident: The Warsaw Pact spends less than NATO on defense but outproduces NATO in virtually every weapons category. This volume examines these problems and shows that in order to exploit available technologies at an affordable cost, NATO clearly must organize its defense procurement more efficiently. Co-published with the Atlantic Council of the United States.