NATO HQ 2 Feb. 2005

Video interview with Admiral Bartoli, Coordinator of NATO's Counter-Terrorism Technologies Programme Multimedia Audio file .MP3/3933Kb Video interview Q: Admiral Bartoli, you have been appointed the Coordinator of NATO's Counter-Terrorism Technologies Programme. Thank you for taking the time today to talk to us about your work and the programme. In May 2004 NATO launched a programme to develop cutting edge technologies to help defend against terrorist attacks. Can you tell us what technologies have been developed? ADMIRAL BARTOLI: Yes, what I can tell you is the decision taken by the CNAD in May 2004 was related to the development of new technologies in nine different areas. The areas are: the protection of large-body helicopters; the protection of harbours and vessels; protection of helicopters from rocket-propelled grenades; countering improvised explosive devices; precision air drop for special forces; detection protection and defeat of chemical, biological and radiological nuclear weapons; intelligence surveillance, reconnaissance and target acquisition of terrorists; explosive ordinance devices... excuse me, explosive ordinance disposal; and mortar attack counter action technologies, which has been proposed and approved by the CNAD, proposed by Netherlands and approved by the CNAD during the last meeting in October 2004. Those technologies, or those areas, have been selected because we verified that they are corresponding to the areas where terrorists are at present more active. Q: So why is NATO placing such an emphasis on counter-terrorism in these specific areas? ADMIRAL BARTOLI: The reason why we are putting particular attention to counter-terrorism is derived by the fact that the political guidance we got is indicating that. I would like just to mention that there has been a Minister of Foreign Affairs decision taken after the bombing attack in Madrid, March last year, where the Ministers indicated defence against terrorists as one of the highest priorities for NATO. And that decision has been endorsed at the level of Heads of State and Heads of Governments during the Istanbul Summit in June 2004. So we have a clear indication that that is one of the highest priority of NATO and one of the highest priority for the armaments community. Why this area? Because as I mentioned before, it is quite clear that in the last years terrorists could make a lot of progress in mastering difficult means to be utilized, like missile, rocket, and we are... they are able to utilize sophisticated communication network, and so we have to react with the same level of sophistication in technologies. Q: Will these technologies be used to protect civilians, as well as troops in mission areas? ADMIRAL BARTOLI: We should say that the answer is a little bit more articulated. There are... for sure there are technologies which could have, I should say, a double use, civilian and military. Just to make a practical example, protection of large-body aircraft, as I mentioned. We are talking not only about technical solution, but also about procedural application or way to be sure that there will be no attack during takeoff and landing. And this kind of solution could be applied to civilian aircraft as well as military one. The same is valid for protection of harbour and vessel. If you are protecting ships into a harbour you can protect military or civilian and so on. So there are four or five areas which have a double application. There are other, like precision air drop for special forces, or EOD, or even protection against mortar attack, that you can consider more of military application. But even in those area you can envisage that some other paramilitary force, like police, could be interested in our developed techniques. So my answer is a little bit more elaborated than yes or no. Q: These nine projects are quite complex and broad. How will they be managed and developed, and what is your role as the coordinator and the role of your unit? ADMIRAL BARTOLI: Yes, as you say it is complex and broad, but I would like also to add that there is a larger participation of different NATO bodies and nations. I would like just to mention as NATO bodies, beside the CNAD, ACT, RTO, the Science Committee, the NATO Standardization Committee, and CTO and other groups are participating in our activities. And in the nine areas, as I mentioned before, have a lot of activities done and for each of those activities we individuated a leading body which could be a NATO nation or a NATO CNAD group. In both cases nations and groups are cooperating. So finally we will have a large list of activities under way or to be done in the future. For that reason the CNAD decided that there was the need for a Coordinator. And because I'm responsible for the Armaments Directorate, I have been indicated as the coordinator for DAT Technologies inside the CNAD unit. And to help me in doing that during the restructuring process of my directorate, we created a special unit called Counter-Terrorism Technology Unit, dealing specifically with these activities. And the unit is composed at present by two international staff officers, and three so-called voluntary national contribution, which means three gentlemen coming from Norway, Slovakia and in a few days, from Bulgaria. Q: What is the process in these nine areas, and when do you expect to have these technologies used in real-life situations? ADMIRAL BARTOLI: We should say that there is no common process for all the different nine areas. It depends a lot from the different maturity of the project available in that specific area. It depends of the kind of activities required for developing the area. We can go from a standardization activity to procedural activities, as I mentioned before, but on the other side we can arrive to the necessity to to go through research and development process now and in the future a procurement process. So that means that it depends really from the specific area we are talking about. Consequently, what I can say is that even the results should be in a certain way divided in different groups. We can envisage rapid or short time results, like, as I mentioned before, to come up with new procedure for large body aircraft protection or new standards to be utilized for precision air drop. But we can also envisage, let's say, medium-term result which could be the starting of training people, which could happen in less than one year from now. But the last part, as I mentioned before, will be devoted to R&D activities and that could take more than few months. Q: Looking ahead to 2005, can we expect any major events regarding the development of these technologies? ADMIRAL BARTOLI: Yes, for sure. There will be a lot of what we consider major events, especially there will be many trials, many exercises and many training activities in... I should say in this year, in 2005, between now, something is already underway, and during the spring and then in autumn we have a complete list of more than ten major activities we are envisaging. I could just mention a very complete programme Bulgaria is proposing for the protection of helicopters. There will be some kind of trials in La Spezia port and Rotterdam for harbour protection, and there will be EOD extensive programme proposed by Slovakia and Ukraine. There will be also of importance a lot of activities in area of IED with trials and exercises and so on. So any area has a lot of, what we consider, major events in terms of this kind of activity. Beside that, we launched last year, five NIAG studies devoted to five different areas, and we are expecting the result by the end of this year. So that is what I should mention on this specific point. Q: Thank you very much for your time.