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NATO Headquarters Hosts Defence Ministers Meeting Ahead of Vilnius Summit [1]

['Brian Sostak']

Date: 2023-06-16 18:42:53+00:00

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg hosted Allied Defence Ministers in Brussels, Belgium, ahead of Vilnius Summit to discuss the Alliance’s ongoing support to Ukraine and enhancing its deterrence and defence capabilities.

NATO Defence Ministers concluded two days of meetings on June 16th, 2023, where they discussed a number of measures to improve NATO’s deterrence and defence capabilities as well as increasing the delivery of military equipment to Ukraine. This meeting precedes the Vilnius Summit that will take place July 11-12, 2023 in Lithuania, where Allies will take further steps to strengthen deterrence and defence, including with new regional plans.

Commenting on the developments at the Defence Ministers Meeting, Mr. Stoltenberg noted that Allies are “fully connecting the planning for our collective defence with the planning for our forces, capabilities, and command and control…to defend every inch of Allied territory against any threat” for the first time since the Cold War. He also highlighted his expectation for NATO Allies to make a more ambitious commitment to defence investment in Vilnius that will see 2% of GDP on defence as the floor, rather than the ceiling.

As the Alliance’s Warfare Development Command, Allied Command Transformation is committed to supporting the development and delivery of the defensive and deterrent capabilities required by NATO to maintain a decisive advantage over its adversaries. Since the approval of the Political Guidance for Defence Planning 2023 in February, Allied Command Transformation has been deeply immersed in efforts as part of the NATO Defence Planning Process to translate the guidance from Allies into the Capability Requirements that will enable the Alliance to achieve its revised Level of Ambition. In parallel, Allied Command Transformation, as well as Allied Command Operations and the NATO International Staff, are reviewing the results of the previous Defence Planning cycle. The Command is also preparing to lead and support, respectively, the apportionment of requirements and the setting of Capability Targets in 2024.

Allied Command Transformation is also speeding the delivery of common-funded capabilities required by NATO within agreed upon cost, schedule, and performance constraints. Currently, the Command manages more than 30 Common-Funded Capability Programmes and delivers management products to Allies for their decisions on critical capability areas such as Bi-Strategic Command Automated Information Services, Infrastructures or Complex. Examples of the Command’s efforts in these areas include the modernization of NATO’s Core and Communication Services with the Information Technology-Modernization Programme as well as its efforts to identify and address shortfalls at existing air bases and maritime facilities.

In addition to boosting the Alliance’s defensive capabilities, the Command is helping to bolster NATO’s deterrent capabilities as part of its ongoing Four Square Study. As part of this effort, Allied Command Transformation is examining the interplay of political, military, conventional, and nuclear capabilities and activities to better understand (de-) escalation dynamics and expand deterrence strategies. In doing so, it is improving NATO’s ability to positively shape the environment to the Alliance’s strengths, including by generating options and imposing dilemmas on adversaries. This Study originally began in the fall of 2022, and will conclude in 2024 following comprehensive academic research and analysis, wargaming, and modelling and simulation. Its final report seeks to provide recommendations to NATO leaders about best practices in managing escalation dynamics.

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[1] Url: https://www.act.nato.int/article/nato-hq-hosts-defence-ministers/

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