NORFOLK, VA – With 31 member nations, NATO is the strongest and most successful Alliance in history: this builds upon a resilient foundation of national, multinational, and international processes as the baseline of military deterrence and defence. NATO continues to address security threats, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and challenges posed by China; Allied Command Transformation works to ensure NATO-wide cohesion and adaptation to future requirements, which includes better defence planning, a multi-domain operation enabled force, and increased understanding of transformational requirements.
For 20 years, Allied Command Transformation has improved military effectiveness and interoperability throughout the Alliance, anticipating security needs, designing capabilities, and educating talents to maintain and refine NATO’s edge. Highlights include the NATO Defence Planning Process, the NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept, and the Warfare Development Agenda, all of which are part of Allied Command Transformation’s deliverables to the Alliance.
Allied Command Transformation also includes Joint Warfare Centre (Norway), Joint Force Training Centre (Poland), and Joint Analysis and Lessons Learned Centre (Portugal). Headquarters Supreme Allied Commander Transformation leads NATO-wide warfare development through several directorates:
- Capability Development. The Directorate facilitates all aspects of new capability development for the Alliance: an example includes the Military Vision and Strategy for Cyberspace Domain, implemented as an entirely new Domain of Operations. Additionally, this directorate integrates and synchronizes industry, concept development, experimentation, and multinational solutions: an example includes the Innovation Hub, where experts collaborate to design innovative solutions in fields such as medical, civil-military integration, and cybersecurity.
- Strategic Plans and Policy. Responsible for military concepts, frameworks, and strategy, the Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate also provides guidance for shaping the future: from early frameworks like the Multiple Futures Project, to Emerging Disruptive Technologies analysis, the Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate continues to provide practical foresight into the emergent security challenges of the future.
- Resources and Management. To meet the demands of Allied Command Transformation, the Resources and Management Directorate provides direct support on issues relating to human capital, budget and finance, protocols, and resource management. These managerial tasks range from coordinating Presidential visits, to ensuring local civilian and military personnel are administratively supported at NATO’s home in North America and throughout the Alliance.
- Joint Force Development. The Joint Force Development Directorate plans, executes, educates, and evaluates; this includes Global Programming, which is NATO’s management of all training needs and solutions, collaborative experimentation and war gaming, as well as Alliance-wide development and adaptation of Centres of Excellence, which enable NATO Allies and Partners receive transformational expertise. Accession and Integration is another key function of the Joint Force Development Directorate, which has been a vital process for the 12 member nations that have joined in the past 20 years.
Allied Command Transformation also supports a variety of additional developments such as diversity and inclusion, gender initiatives, medical innovation, as well as interoperability and resilience events. “Allied Command Transformation will be at the forefront of ensuring that NATO can continue to provide the collective defence of one billion people,” shared Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, General Philippe Lavigne.