NATO HQ 13 June 2003

Video-interview with Admiral Edmund P. Giambastiani, Jr., US Navy, Supreme Allied Commander, Transformation Video-interview Q: Admiral Giambastiani, hello. Admiral Giambastiani: Good morning. Q: You have recently taken up your new post of Supreme Allied Commander Transformation. Can you explain what will you do in this function? Admiral Giambastiani: Yes, I can and thank you. At Supreme Allied Commander Transformation and at the command itself, we'll be taking our roles and missions, that are described by the NATO Atlantic Council and the Defence Planning Committee, to conduct transforming activities that will help change the way we operate across the entire Alliance with regard to structures, organizations, military formations. It's a broad spectrum but they're as designed in the Strategic Objectives for Allied Command Transformation. These operate across doctrine, organization, training, material, leadership, personnel, culture. It's a directive to in fact improve overall military capabilities through a transforming process. Q: I see. And what goals will you set for the new Command to accomplish in the coming years? Admiral Giambastiani: There is a series of very important goals that we have. The first and foremost is obviously to continue the organization and stand-up of Allied Command Transformation as early as possible. The second one is to immediately work with the Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Allied Command Operations to put together a very robust and comprehensive training package for the NATO Response Force. This will be our first real important focus and we will do that as soon as possible, including working training packages for Operations this fall and through the course of the following year 2004. In addition, we'll be standing up the Joint War Fighting Centre. We will continue to man properly Allied Command Transformation as various member nations bring in manning for our staff. And finally, to resource the organization properly so that we, in fact, can conduct the type of training, concept development, and experimentation needed. Q: Right. And how would you actually define transformation? Admiral Giambastiani: Transformation is a process. It is an unending process. There is no beginning and no end. In fact, a better way to talk about transformation is actually to use a slightly different description of it. We are transforming in NATO, which really means there's no beginning and no end. It's a continuous process. And as I mentioned earlier, it focuses on changing doctrines within an organization. It changes how you organisationally put yourself together, how your military formations and headquarters structures operate, how you train and how you train in a joint and combined fashion. In other words, how do we put these various disparate elements, conventional forces, from the various allied nations, conventional and special operations forces, how they integrate together etc. How you, in fact, change personnel procedures and policies within the Alliance to employ officers. For example, at Allied Command Transformation, we, before at SACLANT, were primarily a Maritime organization. We're shifting over to a joint organization where we are manning with Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps officers from throughout the Alliance. This includes also moving to facilities, line-ups, headquarters structures, and the rest. So it's pretty comprehensive, it's broad. And it's across the full range of what we work on. Q: It's very interesting. And what would you say are the principal elements of transformation in NATO? Admiral Giambastiani: One of the principal elements in NATO of course is the NATO Response Forces, I already mentioned. I think that's a key element of transforming NATO early on. Another one is to work on the defence planning process. One of the strengths of NATO is its planning process. But because it's useful and strong, we need to change it also, frankly, in the future to make it more responsive because NATO will be performing missions potentially out-of-area, as the NATO Atlantic Council has described, and we need to be responsive to those needs in a planning way. Q: I see. And one of the greatest changes to NATO's command structure has been the creation of a Strategic Command... Allied Command Transformation in place of the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic. What would you say is the significance of this change and how will the new Command be actually structured? Admiral Giambastiani: The significance of the changes, I look at it as an alliance that has been operating for 50 plus years. We've had one significant command structure change that has occurred over these 50 plus years. That command structure change took four and a half years to execute. What NATO has done this time around is create two Supreme Commands. One for Operations, so it's all centred in Operations. And one is a functional command that supports Operations to transform NATO across the broad spectrum of functions. What I think is significant about that is that we've done it in eight months, number one. That's not lost on anyone; it's given a great vibrancy and energy to NATO and it provides an organization that thinks about, spends every day worrying about how to provide additional combat capability and capability overall to the NATO Alliance and how it supports the Allied Command Operations and how it does business every day. Q: Right. And I just have one last question for you, Admiral. How do you see your role as Commander at U.S. Joint Forces Command interacting with your new role as Supreme Allied Commander Transformation? Admiral Giambastiani: I think there's a very good synergy bringing these two organizations together and the way we've done it. Essentially, Joint Forces Command is a functional command. It worries about transformation in the United States' sense and Allied Command Transformation has similar responsibilities now for the NATO Alliance. Being dual-hatted in this role and having the staff's co-located and working together, I think will bring great power to the Alliance and also will bring great benefit to the United States. So I think that having both of these commands working day-to-day together will be a significant windfall for both the United States and for the NATO Alliance. Q: Admiral, thank you very much for taking time to answer all these questions. Admiral Giambastiani: It's my pleasure.