Ministry Of Defence
Its a huge pleasure and a privilege to be with you, in order to just give you some context from NATO, as NATOs Deputy Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, about how NATO is changing the drivers of change, and how we are adapting as we move forward in the context, of course, of a very disturbing and unsettling situation here in Europe.
To that end, I will talk about NATOs shifting strategic context, the adaptation of NATO. But I will close by talking a little bit about the fundamental importance of industry to the alliance, and theres no better place to do it than here, and if Im completely frank, theres no better time to do it than now.
So the shifting strategic context of NATO is one that was catalysed most purposefully I would suggest in 2014, when Crimea was invaded by Russia and we in the Alliance were perhaps doing a little bit of looking at ourselves rather than looking at the situation as to how that possibly could have occurred and how we must be better prepared for any similar event in future.
And it was from that moment that a number of things started to fall into place, and we saw NATOs adaptation continue through a series of summits, and, of course, through the approach to Ukraine. But there were some fundamental things that happened within the Alliance in the period between 2014 and Russias illegal invasion of Ukraine.
It has taken us from the time at the end of the Cold War, when NATO shifted strategically, of course, through a period of operations out of area in Afghanistan as an example, conducting missions like counter piracy, ocean shield, through to a return to great power competition, and a real Euro-Atlantic focus.
So, in the Madrid communique, that was not this summit, but the one that preceded it, NATO identified head on the most pervasive, challenging threats that the Alliance faces.
It would be of no surprise to you that Russia features in that, and Im sure of little surprise also, that the other threat identified has been that of terror groups. Both of those threats remain now. There is naturally a focus on Ukraine and on Russia, because it is the immediate threat. It is the one that is governing the geopolitical and strategic situation within the Alliance, and of course its nations, but we never take our eye off the threat from terror groups in all of its forms.
Its also important though, to recognise that NATO has also identified China as a competitor, and of course when China and Russia come together, talk together, act together we have a compounding challenge. So the Madrid communique identifies that challenge. And I quote from a conversation that was clearly choreographed and staged just earlier this year when Putin and Xi got together and there are changes happening the likes of of which we have not seen for 100 years, and lets drive those changes together, to which Putin agreed.
And of course we see a increasing numbers of exercises between those two nations, and we see increasing complexity in the way in which those exercises are conducted. And there are other changing dynamics within the Euro Atlantic area, such as climate change, and the Northern Sea Route and its access, that naturally lends itself to a more contiguous link between the Euro Atlantic and the Far East. I dont want to over stress this, but I do want to make the point that NATO is not blind to it.
And of course, the other thing we are seeing in all of its forms, state and non state, is hybridisation. The shift in the way in which mischief in the grey zone, activities that fall short of trigger points in terms of Article 5, or direct military response, are now happening more frequently, and in more different and diverse ways.
Now, when I went through my classical military education, I was taught to identify and remember the diplomatic information, military, and economic dimensions, in which instruments of power could be executed. Now we have a new acronym that extends well beyond four letters. One that I have not even had the time to assemble into anything that could be remembered, because almost every time I give this presentation or presentations like it, I just add another circle. But these are the tactics identifiable with Russia in the Black Sea right now.
So this challenge is a biggie and therefore the way in which NATO reacts to it and adapts to be ready, ultimately to deter, defend and if necessary fight and win, has been catalysed, and the changes have been significant. Ill add climate change as the end. Its a threat multiplier. You can apply climate change to almost anything that I have said previously and it doesnt make anything easier. So its another one of those changes that has to be recognised, identified and ultimately acted upon, and NATO has acted upon that as well.
So how has NATO adapted? Firstly, of course, we have seen the accession of new members recently, of course, Finland, and Sweden is not far behind, we hope. They are two significant military powers with a significant economic back drop to everything that they do that enjoy influence within Europe, and will definitely enjoy influence in the Alliance.
Putin should have been very careful what he wished for. Because Im absolutely convinced what he thought he would do was fracture the Alliance, not unite it, and not see it build further. Build further, with big nations with big military capabilities.
We now have a military strategy. You could be excused for thinking that NATO always had a military strategy, but actually achieving consensus across more than 30 nations around something as fundamental as a military strategy, is perhaps harder than you would have thought. But we have achieved it, and for the first time in decades, we can now start to dock concepts and plans with a strategy that gives meaning to activity from the strategic, through the operational, to the tactical levels.
So that is the way the strategy looks at the top of the tree. And it has led to two very important totemic concepts. One of them is owned by Allied Command Transformation on the other side of the Atlantic in Norfolk, and one of them is owned by Allied Command operations in Belgium. But the NATO Warfighting Capstone concept is the capstone concept that will shape NATOs capability future, over the horizon, out to the 20 to 30 year point. It is the one that identifies the type of capabilities we will need to face the threats that I have already identified. And it has a campaign plan, if you will, to support it called the Warfare Development Agenda.
On the other side of the house, we have the concept for deterrence and defence of the Euro Atlantic area. This is the document that captures Russia and terror groups as threats and starts to map out the concept with which we would deal with them. And it leads to a family of plans. And I can be excused, Im afraid, in this audience at this level of classification, for not revealing what those plans are but be assured they are more granular, sophisticated, detailed, and ultimately credible than anything the Alliance has had since the end of the Cold War. They replace other plans and they are far, far better.
The family of plans as identified here in the Vilnius communique are very much 360 in their nature, and we use 360 in every single way. So its 360 across the AOR north, south, east and west and its 360 upwards and downwards. And of course it also looks to NATOs boundaries and what lays beyond.
We have a new force model. In the past we have aligned NATOs capabilities in tiers of readiness, but in a way that has been complicated and tricky for nations to populate with their own capabilities.
So we have gone through a process of modernisation and simplification, in order that now we have a very straightforward way of approaching those tiers of readiness, and a very straightforward way of asking nations to contribute to them.
This is directly out of the Vilnius communique. The numbers are wrong, so if you write them down, dont hold me to them, because they were published in an unclassified document, but the principle is that we now just have three tiers of readiness, cunningly named tiers one, two, and three, in order to avoid confusion with tier one, the highest readiness forces, and tier three, the forces at far lower levels of readiness.
And you can see the readiness scales there, and we are doing lots of very detailed work, in order that we can identify the relationships between notice to move, notice to effect, when the commanders require the forces to be in the right place, and we are solving these as we go along.
And of course, we recognise that we need to get closer to industry. We recognise that industry is a fundamental partner of the Alliance. And perhaps more importantly than that, we recognise that this is an area that I think we, collectively, can improve upon. And that is one of the reasons Im spending time at DSEI to promote that message and to encourage you to become part of it.
Part of the way were doing that is by constructing new exercises, or building on old ones in a way that changes them to be more relevant to NATOs current situation, and the more strategic situation in which the Alliance operates. So CWIX ACT so an Allied Command Transformation exercise, that basically gets after CIS at scale. It gets after interoperability at scale, and it allows industry and military partners to ultimately come together in order to describe and start to shape the Alliances future. 36 nations in that exercise of this year.
And CWIX is part of what we would describe as the interoperability continuum, because we recognise that what is interoperable today may not be interoperable tomorrow. And therefore its constantly about testing, refining, challenging ou