This week, the Italian Defence General Staff and NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT) launched Task Force X-Central Mediterranean, which is the Alliance’s first Task Force X initiative to simultaneously integrate capabilities across land, maritime, air, cyber, and space domains.
Running from 22 June to 10 July 2026 across the Puglia region in southern Italy, Task Force X-Central Mediterranean brings together five contributing Nations (Croatia, Italy, Latvia, Slovenia, and the United States) to test how emerging and dual-use technologies, operating under ultimate human control, can strengthen NATO’s multi-domain awareness and presence along NATO’s Southern Flank. Activities are being conducted under Italian operational leadership and in coordination with the relevant authorities.
More than 100 uncrewed air, surface, subsurface and ground systems are participating, alongside counter-uncrewed aircraft and radar capabilities. Participants will test intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; crewed-uncrewed teaming; interoperable command and control; and the sharing of data across domains.
Why the Southern Flank matters
The Central Mediterranean is a strategically important crossroads between Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, where critical infrastructure vulnerabilities and increasingly complex security challenges require persistent awareness and effective coordination. Task Force X Central Mediterranean will demonstrate how traditional forces and uncrewed systems can operate together within a single operational framework.
Senior NATO and Italian defence leaders emphasized both the Alliance-wide significance of the initiative and Italy’s leadership role.
Task Force X-Central Mediterranean is a significant step for the Alliance. For the first time, we are bringing the Task Force X model to bear across all domains simultaneously, on NATO’s Southern Flank, with Italy leading and Allies contributing. This is how NATO learns and adapts: by testing emerging technologies in realistic operational conditions, integrating crewed and uncrewed systems, and turning what works into capabilities that Allies can adopt and scale at speed.
Admiral Pierre Vandier
Supreme Allied Commander Transformation
General Luciano Portolano, Italy’s Chief of Defence, highlighted the initiative’s contribution to NATO innovation and multinational cooperation.
“Italy promotes Task Force X-Central Mediterranean as a concrete contribution to the Alliance’s innovation and technological transformation. Through this initiative, we seek to advance multidomain integration, strengthen cooperation among Allied nations, and enhance NATO’s complementarity, redundancy, resilience and overall operational effectiveness.”
Task Force X-Central Mediterranean is an initiative [HS4.1][HL4.2][HS4.3][HS4.4]led by the Italian Defence General Staff under NATO’s Rapid Adoption Action Plan which aims to help Allies acquire, integrate, and deploy new technological capabilities more rapidly. It builds on Allied Command Transformation’s Task Force X-Baltic and Task Force X-Arctic by extending the model to NATO’s Southern Flank and, for the first time, across all five operational domains.