NATO HQ 7 Apr . 2005

Video interview with Dag Wilhelmsen, General Manager of the NATO C3 Agency Multimedia Audio file .MP3/1549Kb Video interview Q: Today we're interview the general manager of the NATO C3 Agency, Mr. Dag Wilhelmsen. Welcome. Can you tell us about the NATO C3 Agency, what it does, what its mission is, and how it's used to support NATO objectives? DAG WILHELMSEN (General Manager, NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A)): Thank you very much. The NATO C3 Agency is based on a foundation that was made 50 years ago with the establishment of the SHAPE Air Defence Technical Centre. Today we are an agency supporting NATO Transformation, and NATO transforming to its new roles. We are supporting that with the provision of unbiased scientific and technological advice, and unbiased multinational acquisition of C4ISR capabilities for NATO. Q: Now could you give us an idea of some of the key activities of the agency. The key activities your agency is engaged in at the moment? WILHELMSEN: We are involved with, from the beginning, with the Defence Requirement Review which looks at NATO's requirements for capabilities, and we're supporting the Allied Command Transformation in providing this analysis. On these analyses we analyse the requirements for new capabilities and we experiment and develop concepts and prototypes to support that. We develop architecture, we define interoperability and we look for coherence for the NATO capabilities to operate in the mission spectrum that NATO is responsible for. And then we provide, as a host nation as it's called, the capability to acquire a lot of NATO equipment and systems such as satellite communications, automated information systems, communication networks and deployable capabilities for NATO's operations. Q: You've mentioned coherence, could you expand just a little bit on that concept and what does it really mean? WILHELMSEN: What it means is that NATO when it operates will use a combination of NATO funded equipment and nationally funded capabilities that are provided by the nations. These systems have to operate together as one system of systems that can provide a coherent capability. We are just now developing a concept with is called NATO Network Enabled Capabilities that is looking to provide this coherence and this coherence is what will make NATO operations in the future a success. And we have the role as an architect in this environment to provide this coherence for NATO. Q: Why couldn't national industries do the same tasks as the NC3 Agency? WILHELMSEN: We are the place where an unbiased approach is focused. We are multinational; we do not have any other agenda than NATO success. We support industry and nations developing equipment but we provide a top cover over that, a capstone over that, by being an international unbiased entity. We have unique capabilities, we are looking at this from an Alliance perspective and we are establishing in this process strategic partnership with national agencies and industry to make sure that this becomes an overall success. Q: One last question Mr. Wilhelmsen, can you give us a glimpse, your glimpse, of the future of the NC3 Agency? WILHELMSEN: We are in the move now towards big successes in the future for the Alliance and we are contributing to that; and the Alliance is moving into new areas such as Alliance Ground Surveillance and Theatre Missile Defence, and our role in this is going to be a growing role of providing a capability across the spectrum of C4ISR; and C4ISR I've mentioned a few times, what it means is the consultation, command and control functions of NATO, the use of computers and communications plus the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance functions that are needed for providing military operations. Thank you.