Future of Operations

Final Report of the Working Group

Rome, Center for High Defense Studies

27th September 2006

 

The guiding principle for the operations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is a commitment to collective defence and collective security. To maintain this commitment, NATO must remain a regional organisation with global reach, willing to co-operate with international partners.
 
Experiences have shown the importance of preventative strategies in order to avoid the escalation of conflict. Vital to this concept of prevention is the high degree of pro-active political initiatives and confidence-building measures. The Alliance should continue to strengthen its efforts in the area of conflict prevention by considering all available tools and mechanisms when formulating initiatives.
 
NATO must have the ability to perform operations that fulfil the Alliance's strategic interests. This includes threats to individual member states, in addition to threats against the core values of the Alliance.
 
In the forthcoming five to ten years, the Alliance must perform a wide range of operations, involving different tasks and missions, to enforce the strategic interests. It is imperative that the Alliance remain able to engage in major combat operations; however, NATO should also develop and refine their capability to respond to other, more likely, operational circumstances. These include anti-terrorism, disaster relief, humanitarian relief, peacekeeping, stabilisation, and state building. All member states must realise the diversity of future operations and provide firm and credible support to them. Participation in these different operations requires long-term commitments in order to develop sufficient capability.
 
While there are limits to nuclear deterrence, future operations may require other elements of deterrence. This could be applicable in missions where power projection is critical.
 
Future operations will often involve non-state actors, of hostile and non-hostile persuasion. It is crucial to maintain legitimacy for these missions amongst those in the conflict area and within the Alliance itself. Public diplomacy thus becomes an integral tool that can improve the effectiveness of such operations. This demands operational planning with recourse to public support in the conflict area. Operational routines should remain flexible, able to continuously develop to meet these demands.
 
Co-operation between the Alliance and friendly actors, military and non-military, will thus be a requisite condition of future operations. This necessitates the inclusion of enhanced civil-military co-operation within operational planning. This process requires the serious and continuous transformation of each member state's military forces and capabilities. Evaluating and improving upon training programmes and joint force exercises, while also investigating new approaches to force composition and development, is critical and should remain on the agenda at Allied Command Transformation. This growth will be further enhanced and made more effective if undertaken in concert with other international actors. The degree of interoperability will be a decisive factor in the effectiveness and success of operations involving not only Alliance members, but with any number of co-operating actors as well.
 
This report suggests a revision of the Alliance's Strategic Concept – a necessary process that will help NATO adapt to the diverse operating requirements of the 21st century.

 

 
 
 

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