One of the greatest changes
to NATO's command structure has been the creation of Allied Command Transformation
in place of Allied Command Atlantic. What is the significance of this change
and how is the new Command structured?
The
change to NATO's Command Structure is the most significant in the last 50 plus
years and has proven to be a catalyst for the historic changes that have followed
the Prague Summit in November 2002. This historic Summit resulted in an agreement
providing for a truly remarkable set of changes for the Alliance, transforming
the 50-year-old organisation to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The
key to understanding these changes is to concentrate on the goal of NATO's leaders
to create two new Strategic Commands, one focused on the daily operations of
NATO's military, Allied Command Operations, and one focused on the future of
NATO's military and how to get there, Allied Command Transformation.
Allied
Command Transformation is to be the forcing agent for change within the Alliance
and to act as the focus and motivating force to bring intellectual rigour to
the change process. We also stimulate transformation in national forces, and
those of NATO's Partners. We believe we have two key sets of customers – Allied
Command Operations and the member nations of the Alliance. As a functional Command,
we look at long-term developmental issues from a military perspective. We articulate
the future context for Alliance forces so that nations are in a better-informed
position to provide the military capabilities the Alliance will need in the future.
Our transformation efforts provide a framework for national efforts so that we
are able to deploy coherently joint forces in an integrated battle-space capable
of dealing with the new security challenges. Our framework also brings together
NATO agencies and national centres of excellence and adds coherence to their
programmes, allowing us to leverage their efforts. We ensure the infusion of
research and technology to address long-term capability shortfalls. We experiment
to test and develop new concepts and capabilities. We develop doctrine to take
advantage of new technologies and capabilities to fight better as a combined
and joint force. We influence the curriculums of NATO schools to reflect the
latest in doctrine and tactics and conduct realistic training that reflects the
latest lessons learned in Allied and coalition operations – a close harmony
of doctrine, education and training. While much has happened in a very short
period of time, the work of transforming NATO continues as we now focus on product,
process and the culture of transformation.
What
role will Allied Command Transformation's regional centres in Europe play?
While
we have our Headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, working closely with my US Command – Joint
Forces Command – and completing the very important transatlantic bridge
between North America and Europe, we also have several key elements situated
throughout Europe. The Joint Warfare Centre in Stavanger, Norway, was established
in October 2003 and serves as Allied Command Transformation's implementing agent.
It trains NATO Response Force (NRF) commanders and other NATO operational headquarters
staffs in the latest warfighting and operational techniques while incorporating
innovative concepts from our experimentation efforts and lessons learned from
ongoing operations. On this basis, the Joint Warfare Centre can begin to respond
to the full range of military operations with tailored mission rehearsals and
training for operational commanders and their staffs – in effect fighting
the battle before likely operations ever begin.
The newly opened Joint
Force Training Centre (JFTC) located in Bydgoszcz, Poland, will have a distinct
and unique role in focusing on joint and combined training at the tactical level.
In particular, it will conduct joint tactical training to achieve joint interoperability
at the key tactical interfaces – a key area for improvement identified
in all of our lessons-learned activities in both my US and my NATO Commands.
The
Joint Analysis Lessons Learned Centre (JALLC) located in Monsanto, Portugal,
is NATO's central agency for conducting the analysis of real-world military operations,
training, exercises and experiments, and for establishing and maintaining an
interactive managed lessons-learned database. Members of JALLC have been deployed
with NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, as well as
assisting NATO forces operating in Kosovo. Creating this real-time dynamic lessons-learned
process will yield key dividends in our effort to rapidly improve the quality
of our operational training while identifying material capability shortfalls
that require rapid prototyping solutions.
The NATO Undersea Research
Centre (NURC) located in La Spezia, Italy, conducts research and integrates national
efforts to support NATO's undersea operational and transformational requirements.
NURC is actively engaged in the delivery of transformational products for naval
mine counter-measures, rapid environmental assessment, military oceanography
and littoral anti-submarine warfare.
In addition, Allied Command Transformation
interacts closely with many NATO agencies and national/multinational centres
of excellence to develop concepts and capabilities, develop doctrine, conduct
experiments and support research and acquisition of new capabilities to deliver
improved interoperability, standardisation and qualitatively transformed capabilities.
Allied Command Transformation coordinates with the various NATO education institutions
and Allied Command Operations to design, develop, evaluate, and approve new and
improved courses for NATO. By working with our educational partners and influencing
course content, Allied Command Transformation avoids duplication in training
and provides the most efficient form of training to Alliance leaders, specialists,
and key headquarters staffs, enabling them to operate effectively in a combined/joint
environment.
What are your current priorities?
Our
number one priority is to improve the military capability of the Alliance. Paramount
in this is to embrace transformation, taking the strategic vision of NATO, determining
requirements, looking to concepts, developing and experimenting with solutions,
and turning proven ideas into a fielded capability. Secondly, we must never lose
sight of the present as we look to the future by preparing today's forces to
meet the challenges they face in ongoing NATO operations. Thirdly, the NRF will
be the transformation engine that drives much of the transformation NATO will
realise in the coming years. Allied Command Transformation will work with Allied
Command Operations and NRF commanders to ensure they get the support needed to
implement the capabilities outlined in their charter. Fourth, in order to realise
the full transformational potential of Allied Command Transformation, NATO must
remain committed to fully resource the Command, both with people and money. Lastly,
Allied Command Transformation is committed to working with all nations who wish
to partner with the Alliance to develop their individual military capabilities.
Military
transformation is a complex concept. What do you understand by it?
The
biggest challenge of transformation is cultural and takes place in the minds
of people. Intellectually, transformation requires adopting an attitude that
seeks to continuously innovate and experiment – in order to deliver usable
capability to the front line – and to act quickly on the lessons learned.
Culturally, it means rewarding risk-taking, identifying processes and individuals
capable of implementing change and working to inject a joint culture down to
the lowest practical level. Many Allies have been engaged in this process for
many years. The United States, for example, began what I consider to be its modern
transformation with the adoption of the all-volunteer force in 1973 and the passage
of the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Act in 1986. Transformation has accelerated
here over the past decade with the organic development of US Joint Forces Command – now
fully committed to its functional role as the forcing agent for change for the
US Armed Forces.
As we begin our work, it's important to recognise that
transformation doesn't have a beginning or an end. It is a continuous process – driven
by and responsive to the accelerating changes in the global security environment.
In working through this process, Allied Command Transformation has fairly rapidly
established a coherent way ahead. This begins with a military assessment of the
future nature of Allied operations, which we've captured in what we call a strategic
vision. This strategic vision is a keystone document that seeks to align all
of our transformation activities. Working with Allied Command Operations, the
nations and a host of partners, we're addressing force interoperability concepts,
policies, doctrine and procedures by determining the future operating environment.
This overarching strategic vision will drive the transformation process throughout
the organisation and will directly influence defence planning for the Alliance.
Determining
the future capabilities needed to accomplish the strategic vision through the
defence-planning process is very important. As capabilities are identified, the
concept development and experimentation process will explore the means to achieve
them. This goes beyond new weapons systems – platforms like ships, tanks
and aircraft – to include doctrine, procedures, organisational prototypes
and collaborative mechanisms. This approach provides for an open forum of ideas,
some of which will prove worthy of further study through experiments and prototypes
in existing exercise and training events, as well as new, "purpose-built" events.
A
key part of the transformation process is education and training, ensuring that
the war fighter is educated and trained in the new concepts or processes. The
focus of our immediate training efforts is the Joint Task Force commander and
his staff. Getting them trained and ready for real world operations – such
as NATO's mission in Afghanistan – not only adds value to Allied Command
Operations right now, but is a key driver for injecting transformational thinking
in Allied military leaders. This will ensure success for the Alliance in ongoing
operations as well as planting the seeds for future success in transforming our
capabilities.
The final piece of this transformational puzzle is to
evaluate ongoing operations. As mentioned previously, Allied Command Transformation's
Joint Centre for Lessons Learned is embedded in ongoing operations to ensure
that there will be constant feedback to help further define the vision, defence
planning and future capabilities, thus achieving full integration and understanding
throughout the Alliance. Although I've described the transformation process as
a series of steps, they are in fact interconnected and work in parallel in real
time as we continually assess our requirements, revise our vision as necessary,
develop new concepts, test and evaluate through prototyping and exercises and
deliver even better capability in the future. As I said, transformation has no
beginning or end.
How are NATO's Transformational
and Operational Commands working together in practice?
General
Jones, SACEUR, and I are old personal friends and professional comrades. We are
completely in step, both in the direction we want to take and how we want to
get there. We talk often and our two staffs meet regularly to address a wide
range of issues worked on by both Strategic Commands. As we like to say in the
United States, there is little daylight between our two Commands and the day-to-day
working relationship is very strong. The differing roles of Allied Command Transformation
and Allied Command Operations is well understood between the two staffs. Allied
Command Transformation is responsible for promoting and overseeing the continuing
transformation of Alliance forces and capabilities. Allied Command Operations
is responsible for all Alliance operations. I view Allied Command Operations
as one of our two main customers and we are going to do our best to provide General
Jones and his staff with the tools and training they need to run NATO's operations.
I see the nations themselves as our other customer and we will assist them in
their transformational activities at their request and in the manner most useful
to them.
How is Allied Command Transformation
contributing to the creation of the NATO Response Force?
The
NATO Response Force is both the product and the process for transformation. What
I mean is that the NRF provides for a rapidly deployable, coherently joint trained
and equipped force that is expeditionary and self-sustainable and can act across
the full spectrum of military missions from low-intensity operations up to and
including major combat. The NRF will also provide a means to implement new and
emerging concepts and so is the process of transformation.
Allied Command
Transformation was charged with developing a leader education and training programme
for NRF commanders and their staffs and we have developed a dynamic and comprehensive
programme at the Joint Warfare Centre that will deliver all the necessary training
to certify commanders and their staffs to assume the responsibility of leading
an NRF. We are also working closely with Allied Command Operations to develop
training and certification criteria for the NRF. These criteria will be updated
frequently to reflect our growing body of knowledge and will be key drivers for
transforming national forces, which will be trained to these standards. Finally,
our concept, development and experimentation efforts will focus on ways to improve
the capabilities of the NRF. Here we will be able to test new concepts, new technologies
and evaluate them in qualitative and quantitative ways never before available
to NATO.
Given the differences in military spending
between the United States and its NATO Allies, is it possible to bridge the capabilities
gap? And, if it is, how will the new Allied Command Transformation seek to achieve
this?
There is a clear recognition throughout
NATO that this gap as you describe it cannot afford to grow and must, in fact,
be bridged. We have seen in coalition efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq the overwhelming
power of joint and combined military operations. One of the key lessons the United
States has taken away from these campaigns is the need for capable allies with
whom we can operate across the spectrum of military tasks, from major combat
operations to transition, stability and reconstruction operations. It has taken
a focused and dedicated effort within the US Department of Defense to achieve
the level of jointness displayed in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Much
has been made of the military spending gap between Europe and the United States.
I prefer to focus instead on what Allies are spending their hard-earned defence
funds on, rather than just the magnitude of their spending. This is why our defence-planning
efforts, led by my planning staff at Mons, Belgium, are so critical to bridging
the gap. We have engaged in a very detailed analysis of NATO requirements and
have identified to the nations both the capability gaps that need to be filled
and the national capabilities that are now surplus to NATO requirements. A sensible
programme of defence reinvestment, focused principally on key enabling capabilities
such as command and control, combat support and combat service support, will
go a long way to bridging the perceived gaps between the United States and our
NATO Allies.
In addition, the military success witnessed in Afghanistan
and Iraq was in part, the result of a dedicated concept development and experimentation
programme at US Joint Forces Command. We found that by introducing new ideas
and rapidly moving them from concept to experimentation to prototyping and, when
proven, a fielded capability, this process led to success on the battlefield.
NATO's civilian and military leadership fully understand this and have supported
the creation of a nascent experimentation programme at Allied Command Transformation
that will help NATO close the "intellectual capital" gap. Through the NRF, we
will seek solutions that make sense for NATO. In time, with prudent defence reinvestment
and robust experimentation, we will bridge the capability gaps that exist between
member nations and ultimately allow all Alliance militaries to work together
effectively in the modern battle-space.
In what
ways might technology help the Alliance combat the threat posed by terrorism?
We
now envision the future from an information-age perspective where operations
are conducted in a battle-space, not a battlefield. We are eliminating the artificial
boundaries that were established to de-conflict areas of responsibility between
services and are transforming to a seamless battle-space to create a coherently
joint force – massing effects when and where we choose rather than massing
personnel and equipment as dictated by geography and boundaries. In my view,
information and the means to collect, analyse and distribute it to make decisive
decisions within this multi-dimensional battle-space will serve as the greatest
technological weapon in the global war on terrorism.
You
head both Allied Command Transformation and US Joint Forces Command. How do the
two Commands interact in practice?
I am fortunate
to be part of two great Commands that are dealing with the threats and complexities
of the 21st century. I am also fortunate to have two staffs who are made up of
the best in the business and who wake up every day asking themselves how they
can work to better their respective organisations. Allied Command Transformation
was established and organised using the lessons learned over the past decade
by US Joint Forces Command. This huge transfer of intellectual capital was just
the first step in building a transatlantic bridge of ideas that will be the foundation
of success for Allied Command Transformation.
The ACT-USJFCOM relationship
is a vibrant and powerful linkage, which is output-oriented and forms the foundation
for common understanding and synchronisation of transformation across the Alliance.
A fully functional, transparent relationship is the cornerstone of vital engagement
with the United States, other Alliance nations and Partners for NATO's transformation
and for the imperative of multinational interoperability in the future. An institutionalised
unity of effort between the two evolving, co-equal Commands is the common goal
with the synergy of efforts benefiting both Commands by taking advantage of the
unique strengths that each brings to the process, sustained by numerous direct,
cooperative, reciprocal links.
How might NATO
improve its defence-planning and force-generation processes to ensure that the
Alliance has the right capabilities available when they are needed?
As
I've mentioned before, Allied Command Transformation is now responsible for the
defence-planning process of the Alliance. Our planning challenge is to deliver
capabilities-focused requirements rather than a traditional threats-based set
of requirements. Furthermore, we must seek to integrate long-term force-planning
processes with shorter-term force-generation processes. In both of these endeavours,
Allied Command Transformation's defence planners have made remarkable progress
in the past two years.
First, the Defense Requirements Review 2003 – the
essential product of our defence planners – went a long way towards a capabilities-based
approach from a threats-based approach. It identified key Alliance capabilities
needed for the expeditionary, sustainable force we are looking to build for the
future and mapped national capabilities to Alliance requirements while identifying
shortfalls. This has been a very effective round of defence planning, with lots
of good news in the arena of combat forces, with key shortfalls identified in
enabling capabilities.
Second, we are working with NATO's International
Staff, NATO's International Military Staff and the nations on expanding the Defence
Requirements Review to include other NATO planning disciplines beyond the
force-panning efforts we are responsible for at Allied Command Transformation.
Including command and control, logistics and armaments planning will help eliminate
duplication and allow Alliance leaders to better assess risk against the stated
level of ambition for our forces. This will allow the Alliance and the nations
to better spend their defence resources and understand how to mitigate risk.
Finally,
we are working right now to find a mechanism to link force planning and force
generation to make both processes relevant, predictable and useful for both Allied
commanders and for national resource planners. This is a challenging task, but
we think we are making good progress. I think that defence planning and force
generation are key "business tasks" of the Alliance and spend a great deal of
effort working with General Jones and the Allied Chiefs of Defence on these issues.
With effective processes in these two areas, we can succeed in delivering the
right capabilities at the right time to our NATO soldiers, sailors, airmen and
marines. And that's the bottom line measure of success for an Alliance that is
increasingly called upon to meet security challenges around the globe.