Breaking news
Two more members in NATO’s PGM Smart Defence effort.
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World Defense & Security News - Belgium and Netherlands
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| Two more members in NATO’s PGM Smart Defence effort | |||
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Two more countries have signed the Letter of Intent for NATO’s Smart Defence effort in the field of precision-guided munitions. The project was developed with Denmark in the lead, based on the lessons learned from the latest air campaigns. Many countries ran out of guided munitions and for that reason they decided to tackle the problem through a series of multinational arrangements.
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 Belgian and Dutch Defense Ministers, Mr Steven Vandeput (L) and Mrs Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert (R) signed the LOI for NATO's Smart Defence effort in the field of precision-guided munitions |
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In the first instance and during the NATO Wales Summit in December 2014, Denmark, Greece, Norway, Portugal, Spain and the Czech Republic, signed an LOI that set the framework towards the provision of air-to-ground PGMs so as to avoid running out of stocks during operations.
This Smart Defence effort includes mutual loan arrangements, common warehousing, multinational procurement and the creation of multinational stocks of weapons. That ensures an efficient way for the European states to contribute to future air operations. The United States is not a member of the initiative but supports it in addressing US export control issues for US-made PGMs. On Thursday 8 October, Belgium and the Netherlands were the two new members that signed the LOI. Their participation will further enhance the value of the initiative and NATO’s Smart Defence concept. |
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