At NATO Annual Conference Brussels 14 April 2005

National case studies in military transformation Introduction by John Colston, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defence Policy and Planning Transforming NATO – A Political and Military Challenge We now move on to our final panel discussion. In the course of today's discussions, we've addressed transformation from the point of view of NATO's political and military leadership, from the perspective of... for Allied Defence Ministers and from the perspective of parliamentary representatives. I would say that my own reaction to what I've heard today tends towards optimism, rather than pessimism. It does seem that at the very least all parties are speaking the same language in relation to transformation. There is a common recognition of the need to address political will, the development of capable and available forces and the funding of operations. The three factors which have an impact on the availability of national forces for NATO operations. The need to reinforce political dialogue within NATO, to make operational relationship between NATO and the European Union, the need to address the expansion of common funding, the need to maintain and strengthen NATO's capacity for high intensity operations while ensuring that we're properly configured to support reconstruction and stabilization seemed to be common or largely common ground. We now turn to those who have, I think, the really tough job which is to make all of this happen. And let me welcome our three panellists: General Czeslaw Piatas, the chief of the General Staff of Poland, General Sverre Diesen, chief of Defence from Norway and General Hans Jesper Helsø, the chief of Defence from Denmark. Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming to join us and giving us your own national experiences. As we consider these, I think it would be interesting for the conference to consider the principles which have guided the changes made to national armed forces to adapt to the new security environment. The principal tasks of national armed forces over the next 10 to 15 years and how those forces have adapted to the increasing demands of deployed crisis response operations, the challenges which nations have encountered in transforming their forces - particularly in terms of maintaining invulnerability - and the role that NATO procedures and initiatives such as the work of Allied Command Transformation, force planning, armaments planning, the Prague Capabilities and Commitment and more recent work on usability, what role such initiatives can play in helping nations to guide the transformation of their forces.