Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO.pdf - Program on Strategic ...

cal to the later stages of this campaign. . . . Meanwhile
Italy made valuable contributions to the air-ground
mission <strong>and</strong> served as an indispensable base for Allied
operations. Smaller countries also punched well
above their weight. Denmark, Norway, <strong>and</strong> Belgium
together destroyed as many targets as France . . . Canada,
as always, contributed its fair share—<strong>and</strong> that was
substantial. 6
At the same time, <strong>NATO</strong>’s Libya operation depended
on the United States to provide key enabler
capabilities. The latter included an estimated 80 percent
of Intelligence, Surveillance, <strong>and</strong> Reconnaissance
(ISR) assets; the lion’s share of aerial refueling aircraft;
hundreds of targeting specialists; <strong>and</strong> precision-guided
munitions <strong>and</strong> other supplies for some of the striking
nations whose relatively small stockpiles were
rapidly depleted.
This mismatch of burden-sharing in operations
results, in part, from underlying <strong>and</strong> growing disparities
between U.S. <strong>and</strong> non-U.S. defense spending
within the Alliance. As then-Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates pointed out in June 2011, the U.S. share of
all military spending by <strong>NATO</strong> Allies has gone from
about 50 percent during the Cold War to more than 75
percent today. Put differently, while the United States
spends over 4 percent of gross domestic product
(GDP) for defense, the average for the rest of <strong>NATO</strong>
is barely 1.4 percent. Even allowing for a bulge in U.S.
spending associated with its 2003 invasion of Iraq,
which several Allies opposed, these trends are unsustainable.
As Secretary Gates put it:
The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite
<strong>and</strong> patience in the U.S. Congress—<strong>and</strong> in the
American body politic writ large—to expend increas-
366