Alliances should share costs, not conceal force gaps

How do organisations such as NATO affect a nation’s defence planning?

They can help spread development costs, but become dangerous when politicians use them to excuse gaps in their own force structure.

Alliances can pool research and development costs across several national budgets. That arrangement may buy more capability for the same money. Risk grows when politicians treat allied forces as guaranteed replacements for capabilities their own state has abandoned. Cost sharing can support a coherent national force structure. It does not fill national force gaps by itself.