Allied Command Transformation hosted students from the United Kingdom’s Joint Services Command and Staff College, briefing them on the Command’s key objectives and programmes.
Allied Command Transformation remains committed to engaging, fostering, and raising awareness about the Command’s ongoing warfare development efforts that will enable NATO to retain a decisive military advantage. In doing so, these efforts will help Allied Command Transformation embrace fresh perspectives on trends, opportunities, and threats that will help it to better understand the strategic environment.
Allied Command Transformation welcomed the Advanced Command and Staff Course from the United Kingdom’s Joint Services Command and Staff College on May 25th, 2023, for an overview of the Command and its major programmes of work. Chief of Staff, Vice-Admiral Guy Robinson, outlined the Command's mission to improve interoperability and military effectiveness through warfare development. He also spoke on the Supreme Allied Commander Transformation’s 2023 Strategic Priorities, which include making NATO a Multi-Domain Operations-enabled Alliance, helping NATO adapt its deterrence and defence posture, and ensuring NATO can better understand itself, adversaries, and the strategic environment.
The students received briefs from leadership about the Command’s work on the NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept, Multi-Domain Operations, as well as experimentation and wargaming. Commander Olivier Poullain discussed the Capstone Concept and its implementation mechanism, the Warfare Development Agenda, underscoring that the evolving security environment demands new ways of thinking, organizing, and acting. He also spoke on the importance of Alliance interoperability as well as Partner engagement and alignment to be able to harness cooperative opportunities and enable ‘Day 0’ integration.
Colonel Stephan Pillmeier, the Branch Head of Concept Development, explained the Multi-Domain Operations Concept, which outlines NATO’s common understanding of and future vision for Multi-Domain Operations. He discussed the Alliance’s path to become Multi-Domain Operations-enabled and the common efforts by Nations and NATO entities to get there. He also noted the importance of integrating Cyber and Space as operational domains as opposed to enabling domains, as well as the importance of data centricity enabled by Digital Transformation.
Colonel Nicholas Waldron, Branch Head of Experimentation and Wargaming, highlighted the growing demand for experimentation and wargaming activities in NATO, his Branch’s efforts to build the collective wargaming IQ within the Alliance and enable the development of decision-makers through the exploration of ideas in a safe-to-fail environment.
The United Kingdom’s Joint Services Command and Staff College provides graduate-level training and education to develop critical thinkers, innovative problem-solvers, and ethical leaders for its armed forces, civil servants, and international allies. The Advanced Command and Staff Course prepares mid-ranking military officers and civil servants for senior positions by broadening their professional knowledge on a wide spectrum of military, political and international issues.
