When I was asked to write this article for Defense Nationale, I accepted gladly. However, asking an Admiral to write a maritime article is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, with the end result often a foregone conclusion. If you are expecting an exposé on advanced ship design, high-tech weaponry or blue-water naval warfare, you will most certainly be disappointed. Rather, I have written this article, which some will find challenges received wisdom, with the purple ink of the joint and combined⁽¹⁾ perspective essential to my role as NATO’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Transformation.

          At no time since the formation of the NATO Alliance in 1949 has the shape and future of international alignments been in such a state of flux. The end of the Cold War shifted the balance of power in the world, resulting in a strategic realignment that is still unfolding, as well as in the creation of a much more complex security environment. Within this setting, NATO will continue to face a broad array of challenges. Future operations will most likely be more intricate and multi-dimensional, placing an increased premium on a joint and integrated approach across the spectrum of potential operations. The scenario of the Cold War, predicated on relatively static, pre-planned operations, with significant host nation support, has been supplanted by a requirement to conduct expeditionary crisis response operations, often outside NATO’s traditional boundaries. Many such crises could occur in the heavily populated littoral regions of the developing world. The Alliance must possess a broad set of capabilities that will project stability, reassure member nations and partners, support humanitarian efforts, coerce adversaries, deter aggression and, if necessary, defeat an opponent across the full spectrum of conflict with timeliness, precision and flexibility. The nature of such diverse operational demands re-emphasises the necessity for NATO to push forward in its adaptation and transformation of forces, concepts and capabilities–the focus of our work at Headquarters, Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, in Norfolk, Virginia.

Strategic Landscape

Representing only a small proportion of the world’s surface, littoral or coastal regions are, however, home to more than three-quarters of the world’s population, the location of more than 80 per cent of the world’s capital cities and nearly all of the major market places for international trade. They represent the areas of greatest economic and population growth, much of which is occurring in developing regions. As the impacts of globalisation increasingly intertwine societies and economies, the safety, security and stability of these regions will become ever more important. Additionally, the focus of military operations to ensure this security will increasingly centre upon the comprehensive application of all instruments of national power to create the conditions and effects that will be necessary to underpin the resolution of any crisis. NATO forces will therefore increasingly find themselves employed as part of an overall multi-agency, effects-based strategy in future operations. Within this strategic landscape, an important future factor for NATO will be its ability to conduct and sustain joint operations from the sea.