General Philippe Lavigne, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, met with Major General Ivica Kinder, the current NATO Military Intelligence Committee Chair, October 13th 2021.
Major General Kinder has already visited NATO’s Allied Command Operations in Mons, Belgium; the NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance Force in Sigonella Airbase, Italy; as well as the NATO Intelligence Fusion Centre and the Centralized Targeting Capacity in RAF Airbase Molesworth, United Kingdom, as part of the national Campaign plan in order to promote and facilitate the implementation of the Alliance’s Intelligence Strategy. The visit to NATO’s Allied Command Transformation represents a final endeavor of the Croatian Military Intelligence Committee Chairship, with the intention to expand NATO Intelligence perspective, and to actively include all the relevant strategic components of the Alliance in the ongoing intelligence efforts, in order to build up the capabilities for the efficient response to the contemporary global challenges imposed on the member states and partners.
The NATO Military Intelligence Committee is the Alliance’s primary governance entity for matters of military Intelligence. It directly supports the NATO Military Committee and ensures that proper and timely advice is given on issues that pertain to all aspects of military Intelligence. Members of the Military Intelligence Committee are heads of national military Intelligence Services.
As of 2017, the Military Intelligence Committee is chaired by Nations on a rotational basis, with Croatian Military Security and Intelligence Service chairing the Committee in 2021.
Allied Command Transformation’s integration in the regular issues that pertain to NATO Intelligence, as well as the inclusion in the issues on the agenda of the Military Intelligence Committee meetings, bears crucial importance for the NATO Intelligence Enterprise.
During his visit, Major General Kinder said “the Military Intelligence Committee is the strategic governance body of Alliance and it directly supports the Military Committee on all matters of Military Intelligence. The Strategic political-military decision-making process relies heavily on inputs from the Alliance’s senior Commands, among which Allied Command Transformation is of superior importance in terms of capability development. This capacity brings the Alliance to a whole different level and it immensely supports the long term processes, with the intention to keep the technological and organizational edge on NATO’s side. We, the members of the Military Intelligence Committee and heads of NATO military Intelligence Services, need to learn how to support this capacity even better, and in parallel, to learn in which domains the Alliance and Nations can further benefit from this powerful capability.”
Allied Command Transformation harnesses innovative principles to enhance NATO’s ability to respond to threats with a speedy and agile military instrument of power. It ensures that NATO’s war fighting capabilities remain relevant, provides an indispensable understanding of current and future security challenges, and contributes to the development of NATO doctrine, concepts and interoperability standards. The Command is also responsible for NATO’s training and education programmes.