With the upcoming seminar on Pooling & Consolidating Demand, EDA has been highlighting other perspectives on this vital issue. One major contribution to the debate comes from Christian Mölling of the German think tank SWP.
In a June 2012 article title 'Pooling and Sharing in the EU and NATO', he lays out the opportunities and challenges that defence cooperation faces today. Ultimately he highlights a crucial point: that Pooling & Sharing is not a technocratic process, but requires real political will to be truly effective; Dr Mölling provides a useful framework for this debate, terming it Sovereignty vs Effectiveness. He also calls for a push in three neglected areas of defence cooperation: role specialisation, the arms industry and additional investments.
The full article is available here: Moelling Article: Pooling and Sharing
For more on this topic, see our interview with Frank Haun, the CEO of Krauss-Maffei Wegmann.
Note: These are the views of Dr. Mölling. EDA welcomes the contribution to the debate, without officially endorsing any of his conclusions.