NATO Leaders in DC for Transformation Summit

NATO must think creatively about how it’s going to develop the tools necessary to counter numerous challenges and threats, the head of the Alliance’s transformation command said Wednesday during the annual NATO Transformation Seminar in Washington, D.C. Outgoing ACT boss, French Air Force Gen. Jean-Paul Palomeros, said NATO must expand initiatives first laid out in its strategic plan announced in 2010 and adapt them to a post-Crimea security landscape. NATO is now facing a “hardened security environment,” both in Europe and beyond, said Palomeros. In addition, the “Russian model” of hybrid warfare in eastern Ukraine has shown how state and non-state actors can use innovation, destruction, and “higher ambiguity” to achieve their goals. The Alliance, as a result, is facing a need to improve its “strategic awareness” broadly, and improve tools and techniques for information sharing, joint intelligence gathering, and real-time intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, he noted, especially as potential opponents develop new technology and anti-access, area-denial tools and weapons. In any context, from crisis response to common defense, NATO must be able to regain the “battle of the narrative,” which relies on effective awareness and communication.