Allies and armaments

One, often neglected, way to measure the health of the NATO alliance is through an exploration of European weapons-procurement policy. To be sure, weapons-procurement decisions only provide a single case study with respect to alliance relations - hardly a complete view of the political landscape. But neither should transatlantic efforts to shape the defence acquisition environment be dismissed as tangential to security policy. Ever since its inception, NATO has striven to promote the 'rationalisation, standardisation and inter-operability' of alliance weaponry. From this defence-industrial perspective, the alliance has made great strides over the past decade. For its part, the United States has undertaken a major reform of its technology-transfer bureaucracy, with the aim of promoting more transatlantic weapons collaboration. Alongside that development, the Europeans have engaged in a radical restructuring of their defence industries, making them bigger and more competitive. These changes suggest continuing efforts on each side of the Atlantic to maintain if not strengthen their security relationship.