• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Nato faces huge cuts amid questioning about its role

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Nov 18, IRNA -- British Prime Minister David Cameron was reported Thursday to be backing proposals for radical changes to Nato's command structure which could see huge cuts in the numbers of staff and command bases.

UK ministers believe reform of the transatlantic military organisation is long-overdue and is supporting plans to cut the number of personnel from 13,000 to 9,000 that could save Britain’s Ministry of Defence tens of millions of pounds, according to the BBC.

The restructuring, which is expected to be tackled at Nato’s summit in Lisbon starting Friday, could see the number of its agencies looking after areas such as logistics, communications, research and training cut from 14 to three.

Professor Michael Clarke, a leading British security expert, said that apart from Afghanistan, the 28-member group also faces the issue of whether Nato was about European security or promoting Western and US-led interests in the rest of the world.

'It used to say at the end of the Cold War, that Nato goes global. Well, it went global in Afghanistan and it hasn't been a howling success,' said Clarke, who is the director of Royal United Services Institute in London.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme Thursday that with officials expected to endorse a new Strategic Concept, the first in 11 years, the issue now is “where is Nato's real role in the world?'

On the divisions, Clarke said the US, UK and France wanted Nato to be a global organisation, while the Germans and most of the central European countries tended not to.

'Ultimately they know that Nato is their link to America,' he said. 'That's a problem, though, because if Nato goes out of area it loses consensus. Nato is 28 nations now and the further away from Europe you go the harder that consensus is to get.'

Clarke said Nato has 11 headquarters with 20 different installations all over Europe that were no longer appropriate. The restructuring would mean fewer senior jobs for officers from different countries, but it would also send an 'important signal that Nato was really serious about reforming itself', he said.