The NATO Allied Command Transformation Military Committee will meet here this week to solidify decisions that will ensure training and operations alignment for future effectiveness among its 28 partner nations, senior officials said in a press conference yesterday.
Danish Army Gen. Knud Bartels, NATO Military Committee chairman, and French Air Force Gen. Jean-Paul Paloméros, Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, said they’ll continue to develop and hone the alliance’s strategic policies and concepts to better integrate forces and face ever-changing threats.
The Military Committee is the senior military authority in NATO and the primary source of military advice to the organization’s civilian decision-making bodies: the North Atlantic Council and the Nuclear Planning Group.
“Our visit will ensure we are focused and aligned in our understanding of the issues involved in order to deliver the 28 nations consensus-based military advice from the North Atlantic Council,” Bartels said.
Analyze lessons learned
Paloméros hosted the committee to analyze lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan and how to best implement those lessons for current and future threats in beleaguered regions such as Syria and Ukraine.
The two leaders cited the rapid action plan and the Connected Forces Initiative as worthwhile strategies in preparing people and forces with the expertise and motivation to prevail against burgeoning terrorist networks such as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Paloméros noted even prior to the crisis in Ukraine, connected defense has been a top priority for ACT in addressing the requirements of the readiness action plan.
“We have to foresee, prepare and look forward -- this is the essence of [the Connected Forces Initiative],” he said.
The Joint Warfare Center in Stavanger, Norway, the Joint Force Training Center in Bydgoszcz, Poland, and Joint Analysis in Lisbon, Portugal, Paloméros explained, help answer the calls of operations and prepare exercises with key priorities in line with the Supreme Allied Commander Europe’s vision.
Employ diplomatic, military power
With economic and diplomatic dimensions part of that vision, Bartels noted the imperative to be able to integrate all aspects of state power as well as military power, where younger officers are now shouldering much of the operational requirements.
“We need to make sure that our forces are able to operate at all levels together in any kind of environment and [in] facing any kind of threat,” Bartels said.
Following the September 2014 Wales Summit, Bartels said NATO endorsed as part of the Connected Forces Initiative package an updated NATO education, training, and exercise and evaluation policy.
“It’s a long-term document that provides guidelines for NATO to educate, train, exercise and to evaluate, individuals, units, formations, headquarters, and the NATO command and force structure,” he said.
NATO exercises
According to Bartels, the document also addresses the process for linking national and NATO exercises for partner and non-NATO entity involvement.
“It helps ensure that those units, formations and headquarters can address the full range of alliance missions and meet the challenges NATO faces today and in the future,” he said.
To do this, Bartels said ACT will bolster the NATO response force, enhance both the special operations forces and the interactions among the NATO command structure, the NATO force structure, and where mutually beneficial and affordable, national headquarters.
“ACT represents the pillar of NATO in this country and this is a great demonstration of that,” Paloméros said. “Transformation starts today [and] the last two decades of operations for NATO has been defining the capabilities we will need for the future.”
(Follow Amaani Lyle on Twitter: @LyleDODNews)
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