NATO Gets Smarter—or Smaller?

When compared with the plans and pledges of recent summits, NATO’s goals for its upcoming summit in Chicago seem small, even trivial. Let’s start with this year’s summit agenda. The over-arching theme is NATO’s new “Smart Defense” program.

NATO describes Smart Defense as “a renewed culture of cooperation that encourages Allies to cooperate in developing, acquiring and maintaining military capabilities” by “pooling and sharing capabilities, setting priorities and coordinating efforts better.”

Under Smart Defense, alliance members will identify a goal and then designate a member to take the lead in shepherding other interested members toward that goal.

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