This also has led to a fusion of nationalities much more deeply in the field architecture. It is one thing to have a French general commanding a mix of Romanian, U.S., or Korean companies, where each needs to understand each other at least at the senior command level. It is quite another to have an Estonian platoon attached to a British company that, in turn, is attached to a German battalion.

Within NATO, such a mix has been supported by the use of common doctrine, TTPs, and terminology. The last is especially important, so any soldier in the field understands what any other soldier means with respect to a specific piece of equipment or maneuver. Beyond terminology, however, a common conversational language greatly enhances communications among soldiers in combat. Both French and English have served NATO administratively throughout its history, with English being the basic language on the ground, in the air, and underwater for NATO forces. Given the large number of languages native to NATO’s 28 members, many consider that to be one of the Alliance’s success stories.

“One of the areas I think NATO will continue to grow a great deal is the ability to work alongside non-NATO partners and actors. That’s an area where we have both terminology issues – not just with military but also with the U.N. or NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] or other international organizations,” Soligan said. “And when you have groups that use different terminology, that requires us to be more flexible in how we communicate.

“So for capacity-building inside nations, peacekeeping, humanitarian relief, NATO takes a comprehensive approach that involves an evolution in how NATO expresses and organizes itself to interact with and work alongside non-NATO and non-military groups. That is a major change within the Alliance, organizationally, procedurally, and process-wise.”

In practice, even within NATO, however, problems still exist. While all members of a group may speak English or French as a second language, heavy accents – which become even more prominent in times of stress – may make interpersonal communication difficult, at best. It also can become apparent in written translations. That was reflected in Afghanistan when a French commander was seen using an English-Bulgarian dictionary to struggle through a liaison report from within his own multinational command.

The technology of information sharing at the classified level still presents a problem for NATO’s transformation specialists. One American general’s desk in Afghanistan is dominated by three computer monitors, one linked to the U.S. SIPRNet (Secret Internet Protocol Router Network), another to NIPRNet (Nonsecure Internet Protocol Router Network), and the third to ISAF’s Mission Secret Network.

SIPRNet is the U.S. military’s primary classified network, so classified that no foreign personnel are allowed access, including British Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, who, as commander of ISAF Regional Command-South, oversees 20,000 U.S. troops with whom he cannot communicate on a classified network. His only option has been to print everything out on a piece of paper and hand it to them.

An intended solution to that problem is the new Afghan Mission Network (AMN). Phase 1 went live in October 2009, linking the Mission Secret Network to another U.S. system called CENTRIX (Combined Enterprise Regional Information Exchange). For the first time, those with AMN access – which eventually will be extended to all ISAF nations – will be able to share e-mail, voice over IP (VoIP), domain chat, and a common Web space. It will not, however, link to SIPRNet.

Even so, AMN will enable the exchange of classified, mission-critical data among all coalition members for the first time. Future phases will integrate databases and applications to permit CENTRIX and ISAF Mission Secret Network to exchange data from functional areas. While NATO and the United States will continue to use separate tools, AMN will enable everyone to see the same information on both.

While a major step forward, officials at the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A), tasked with implementing AMN, told a group of visiting journalists in mid-December the new system still leaves NATO and ISAF commanders linking to multiple systems. Their biggest concern is users may simply continue using their old, incompatible networks unless someone makes AMN use official policy, mandates no unit can deploy into theater unless trained and equipped to plug into the common system, and then enforces that directive “with teeth.”

AMN also brings closer to reality Soligan’s comment at the NC3A annual conference in Brussels in March 2009: “What is important is the data – not the delivery mechanism.”

The “Afghan” part of the new network’s name notwithstanding, the ability of NATO commanders – from headquarters down to the small unit level – to readily and securely communicate with each other, up and down the chain of command, regardless of uniform or flag, is critical to a transformed 21st century NATO. And as the Alliance continues to grow as a global entity, secure information exchange and intelligence fusion with non-NATO partners – even if only for a short time in a limited operation – also will be vital to mission success.

Soligan believes the key drivers of transformation will remain a mix of operational requirements, incorporating individual member-nation capabilities into Alliance capabilities and reaching a common view on how those operations should be conducted.

“If I had one note on transformation, it is largely about changing the way we think about how we have to operate, taking what we have and making it as effective as possible, which is largely about organizational procedure and process changes, plus prioritizing the resources we have for modernization to improve the most important capabilities. It is doing the most with what you have against a thinking, changing adversary who learns, who is going to try to surprise you by focusing on your weaknesses. And on us needing to be agile, adaptable, and capable of operating in ways different from what we had anticipated in order to be effective,” he said.

“If we think the way we operated in the past or how we operate today is how we will operate in the future, I think we will be disappointed. It can inform some of what we do, but we also have to watch what is going on in the world, how other people are adapting, and then anticipating what will happen and being prepared for that future.”

From an overall Alliance perspective, Soligan defines NATO’s near-, mid-, and long-term transformation efforts in terms of how long it takes to implement solutions more than by the nature of the problems themselves. Thus near-term transformation is driven by the immediate requirements of troops in combat, while mid-term typically involves institutional and technological changes that can take longer to implement.

For the latter, the speed at which change occurs in the structure of NATO organization or how member nations interact with it often depends heavily on individual nation policies. In other cases, major change depends on the speed at which cutting-edge technologies mature and can be effectively incorporated into field operations.

“The long term will see some of the most significant changes the organization will have to go through. For example, as we look at operations in Afghanistan, one thing we see is a greater reliance on small unit, multinational operations. We are finding many of these platoons or companies need the ability to call in close air support, so we are adapting them on the ground as they deploy into theater to meet those requirements,” he concluded.

“But changing the small unit construct – medical care, logistics, command and control, information sharing, intelligence operations – and working alongside non-military organizations in counter-drug or -piracy requires a longer time for individual nations to adapt their structures and training in an institutional way. And most of the requirements we are challenged with will change in emphasis as our adversaries continue to adapt. That will require us to continue to balance and ensure a coherence in NATO’s near-, mid-, and long-term transformation.”