NATO was formed in 1949, in the aftermath of World War II, to ensure peace in Europe. Under article 5 of the treaty, an attack on one member nation is considered an attack on all – and therefore a military response is required. Since 2006, NATO countries have committed to spend a minimum of 2 percent of their GDP on the military – a promise most have not upheld.
Now there is a proposal to standardize military equipment across countries. The hope is that this will make battlefield coordination easier and simpler. In practice, however, it would lead to far more negative consequences – cancelled contracts, broken supplier relationships, and unhealthy national interdependencies – than they realize.
In this episode of Dial P, Kelly Barner reviews the classic dilemma presented by multi-stakeholder strategic sourcing projects and the unintended consequences they can have:
You don’t get something for nothing… what would NATO have to trade to get military standardization?
What are the geopolitical implications of causing over concentration in the global industrial military complex?
How detrimental is it to this effort that so many of NATO’s members do not live up to their spending commitments?
