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  • Nov 2006 - NATO
    Riga Summit Media Guide - Section 10 : Capabilities (PDF/6740kb)
  • Oct. 2006 - NATO
    NATO Briefing: Improving capabilities to meet new threats (.PDF/924Kb)
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Improving NATO’s capabilities

NATO has been engaged in a continuous and systematic transformation for many years to ensure that it has the capabilities, policies and structures required in the changing international security environment and to pre-empt future challenges. With Allied forces engaged in operations and missions across several continents, the Alliance also needs to ensure that Allied armed forces remain modern, deployable and sustainable.

The Comprehensive Political Guidance (CPG) provides an analysis of the strategic environment and a framework for all Alliance capability issues, planning discipline and intelligence for the next 10 to 15 years. It sets out the kinds of operations the Alliance must be able to perform and the kind of capabilities it will need.

It considers terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction to be the principal threats to the Alliance over this period.

What does this mean in practice?

To meet immediate and potential challenges, NATO continues to work on a broad and multifaceted set of activities: from long-term, broad strategic thinking down to practical planning involving military and civilian structural adjustments, personnel issues, equipment procurement and the development of new technologies.

It is taking a series of measures to:

  • optimize operational capabilities, including through the NATO Response Force and the improvement of air and sealift capabilities;
  • protect troops on the ground, for example, through information superiority and the Alliance Ground Surveillance system;
  • review existing processes and structures to increase efficiency, including through reform of the defence planning process and streamlining of the military command structure;
  • complement military efforts with civil emergency planning and consequence management initiatives;
  • develop capabilities in new areas, such as cyber defence, missile defence and energy security.

NATO has also been focusing on means to fight terrorism and address the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

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How did it evolve?

Since 1999, NATO Allies have made firm commitments and taken a range of initiatives to strengthen capabilities in key areas.

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Which NATO bodies have a central role?

Efforts to improve NATO capabilities touch on a wide range of activities. While the North Atlantic Council -- NATO’s principal political decision-making body – has overall authority, many different committees are involved in decision making for their specific areas of expertise.

These include:

  • the Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) Steering Committee, the focal point for the AGS programme;
    the Senior Civil Emergency Planning Committee (SCEPC), the principal body in the area of civil emergency planning;
  • the NATO Defence Review Committee, responsible for streamlining the Alliance’s defence planning process to assist in the transformation of NATO's military capabilities;
  • Allied Command Transformation (ACT), responsible for the transformation of NATO’s military capabilities; and
  • the Conference of National Armaments Directors (CNAD), the senior NATO committee responsible for Alliance armaments co-operation, material standardization and defence procurement.