Ahead of ACT’s Strategic Dialogue on Space, Allied Command Transformation is helping focus Allied attention on a domain of growing strategic importance. Bringing together NATO’s Permanent Representatives, Military Representatives, and other senior NATO leaders, the dialogue is intended to build a common understanding of adversary space capabilities and identify actionable ways to strengthen NATO’s ability to deter and defend in, through, and from the space domain.
Space domain challenges: adversarial threats and strategic implications
Space is essential to modern security and daily life, supporting everything from navigation and communications to intelligence, surveillance, and missile warning. As a result, disruption in space can have rapid effects on military operations, economic activity, and the services people rely on every day. At the same time, Russia and China are developing capabilities intended to challenge space-based systems, making the domain more contested and more uncertain. For NATO, that necessitates building a shared and credible approach that can strengthen resilience, deter hostile action, and ensure the Alliance can continue to operate through disruption.
Allied Command Transformation initiatives and capabilities: driving transformation
Allied Command Transformation (ACT) helps turn NATO’s space ambitions into practical capabilities the Alliance can use. That depends, in part, on common technical standards that allow systems to work together, as well as the NATO Defence Planning Process, which helps convert shared needs into priorities that nations can deliver. Another example is support to the Enhanced Vigilance Activity Arctic Sentry, where ACT has helped connect Joint Force Command Norfolk with relevant space-based information and services, in coordination with key NATO Allies and Partner Nations. Early results include a clearer picture of the support available, a more regular coordination rhythm, and further improvements (such as monitoring GPS jamming) using a mix of NATO tools, national contributions, and commercial services through the Joint Commercial Operations catalogue.
At the same time, ACT is also exploring how to make space readiness more testable and operational through a “Space Range” concept. The idea is to provide an integrated, multi-domain live/virtual/constructive environment that simulates a contested space and electromagnetic spectrum battlespace, allowing operators to train and validate tactics for conditions such as GPS denial, satellite communications jamming, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance disruption, and adversary space control actions.
Beyond training and experimentation, ACT is also helping NATO translate space threat scenarios into practical response options. THOR (Space THreats Operational Response) turns high-probability space threat scenarios into ready-to-use playbooks, helping Allied Command Operations respond quickly and consistently. These playbooks include response options as well as guidance and technical means to execute them. THOR also surfaces the capabilities that may need to be developed, procured, or fielded, so those plans are truly executable. Through defensive and offensive space operations, NATO applies active and passive measures across any segment of a space system to preserve friendly freedom of action, counter interference, and, when authorized, limit an adversary’s ability to operate.
Together, these efforts strengthen space deterrence and defence and help NATO prepare for adversarial interferences that often sit below the Article 5 threshold.
The role of nations and the commercial sector: a call for collective action
None of these efforts can succeed without sustained support from Allied nations and industry. ACT can help drive coherence across the Alliance, but nations still need to contribute funding, personnel, capabilities and operational contributions that make daily operations possible, including foundations such as robust ground infrastructure, cyber defence, and integration with electronic warfare. At the same time, commercial providers increasingly deliver the constellations, launch services, and communications capabilities on which the Alliance increasingly depends. That makes smart, secure cooperation with industry (guided by NATO’s Commercial Space Strategy) an essential part of the Alliance’s broader approach.
Preparing for Future Challenges
As space becomes more contested, NATO’s challenge is not simply to recognize the risks, but to turn that understanding into practical resilience and credible deterrence. That means improving interoperability, accelerating information sharing, and building decision-ready processes that can hold up under pressure. For Allied Command Transformation, the task is to help ensure the Alliance is not only discussing the future of the space domain but preparing to operate effectively within it.