NATO allies must pool funds or face decline: Gates: "European members of NATO need to pool their defense funds to bolster their declining military power, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates says.
The Libya air war has exposed serious shortcomings among NATO allies and European governments will have to agree on joint defense budget priorities to rectify the problem, Gates told AFP in an interview.
The Pentagon chief, who is due to retire this week after more than four years in the post, reiterated views he expressed in a blunt speech in Brussels earlier this month, in which he warned the alliance faced a potentially 'dismal' future.
'The truth is, as I said in Brussels, there is a lot of military capability and a lot of money being spent in Europe,' Gates said on Thursday.
'The problem is, is how it's being spent, and not a sufficient acknowledgement that every nation in NATO can't have a full spectrum capability militarily,' he said."
