Military

Efforts to Coordinate
Allied Support

We determined that several other NATO members -- including Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, and Canada -- are providing bilateral assistance in support of PFP objectives in one or more of the six countries that we reviewed. For example, data provided by German officials reveals that Germany's 1996-97 program is heavily focused on these six countries. About two-thirds of the partner participation of German-sponsored events -- including ministerial visits, defense staff talks, expert talks, armed forces personnel exchanges, and military training and language assistance -- involved the countries that we reviewed.

According to DOD officials, Denmark is leading NATO efforts to engage its Baltic neighbors in PFP. Danish officials told us that Denmark is focusing its efforts on Poland and other states in the Baltic region. They informed us that Denmark is allocating almost 10 percent of its $10.8 million 1997 military assistance budget to help reorient Polish forces to NATO standards.

To facilitate the sharing of information on such efforts, NATO has organized a voluntary PFP data-sharing process, known as the clearinghouse. The clearinghouse involves periodic exchanges of data by member states regarding their PFP-related bilateral programs. NATO has not charged this forum with the task of organizing bilateral assistance efforts, however, and the clearinghouse's ability to gather and disseminate complete data about the full range of bilateral programs has been hampered by certain members' sensitivities regarding disclosure of data about their programs. These members initially presented only general information about their programs. DOD officials informed us that -- despite these difficulties -- clearinghouse sessions are becoming increasingly useful and that NATO hopes to work through the clearinghouse to encourage donors to collaborate in a given region (e.g., joint English language training programs).

DOD officials have coped with the clearinghouse's limitations by meeting outside of the clearinghouse with several other donor states. Officials from the United States, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom meet after clearinghouse sessions to exchange more detailed information. DOD officials hope to increase the size of this group. Clearinghouse limitations also prompted SHAPE's PFP unit to develop its own database to help ensure that participating units are not inadvertently scheduled to take part in multiple events at once. In addition, the defense attaches of some NATO member donor states work to coordinate their nations' efforts in the countries that we visited. However, their data is not necessarily official or complete, according to one U.S. defense attaché.

Although data on other nations' programs is limited, according to DOD, NATO has not identified cases in which a nation is wastefully duplicating aid provided by another. In some cases -- such as English language training--nations are working separately to address what NATO and U.S. officials believe is a very large need.