Smart Defence. A new Planning Approach of National and Regional Defence Capabilities

Essay from the year 2018 in the subject Politics - Topic: Peace and Conflict, Security, grade: PhD, language: English, abstract: There are different perceptions about "Smart Defence". Some are very ambitious, some others are sceptical. Many say that our Balkan region is still immature for such smart projects, and that it is practical for more developed regions with a happy history. The authors of this article open this food for thoughts debate for the research community of defence and security in the Balkans.They promote open discussions on what could be smart defense areas at national, multinational and regional level. The authors try to give answers to several questions: how to develop more capabilities with less resources? How to further prioritize the priorities? How to specialize in niche capabilities we can afford? How to promote multinational approaches and develop regional capabilities to face regional threats, and how to share and pool many of capabilities at regional level? One thing is sure: the idea of going smart in this time of austerity is in the agenda of all defence organizations of all allied countries, and nobody can avoid that easily. On the other side, the idea of going smart is to be difficult especially when we go from theory to practice, so it will face time, energy and decision making difficulties. The smart defence was one of the pillars in the agenda of Chicago summit and is expected to be one of the hot topics for the next years to come. The authors encourage independent experts and other civil and military researchers to provide their for and against positions about smart defence in the Balkan region.