History of NATO’s Land Power
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), also called the (North) Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 04 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party. The Korean War 1950-1953 galvanized the member states and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction of two Allied Supreme Commanders. With the benefit of aid and a security umbrella, political stability was gradually restored to Western Europe and the post-war economic miracle began. New Allies joined NATO: Greece and Turkey in 1952, and West Germany in 1955. The Alliance’s expansion continued to the present day and the number of member nations has reached 28.
Among these members, only two countries, Turkey (Izmir) and Italy (Naples) have hosted NATO headquarters without interruption since 1953. The meaning of this is twofold. First, that NATO is fully aware of Turkey’s strategic importance. When we look at the map, we can see that Turkey was once the Soviet Union’s next door neighbour. Turkey’s geographical situation is unique in the world. It is surrounded by the Balkans, the Middle-East and the Caucasus. One of the world’s most important waterways runs through Turkey. Second, Turkey has always had a strong and efficient military. From a NATO perspective, Turkey has always been important. Given her neighbours and her geostrategic position, Turkey equally needs NATO. Although the negotiations for the Garrison Support Agreement (GSA) have not been finalized, Turkish Army are going beyond their commitment for LANDCOM to reach its target of achieving Full Operational Capability (FOC), which is testimony to the Alliance’s solidarity.
Within all these historic streams NATO reconstructed itself under the pressure of new necessities arising from Prague Summit. On 19 June 2003, a further restructuring of the NATO military commands began as the Headquarters of the Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic was deactivated and a new command, Allied Command Transformation (ACT), was established in Norfolk, Virginia, United States, and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) became the Headquarters of Allied Command Operations (ACO). ACT is responsible for driving transformation (future capabilities) in NATO, whilst ACO is responsible for current operations.
As a result of the NATO review, the number of land forces headquarters was reduced from 11 to 6, and the number of NATO personnel almost by half. The sole land command. Allied Land Command (HQ LC) was activated in Izmir, Turkey on 01 December 2012.
LANDCOM provides expertise in support of Alliance land forces’ readiness, competency and standardization – including their evaluation and certification; delivers a planning capability in support of higher headquarters and the NATO Force Structure (NRF); and when directed by Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), provides the core of the headquarters element responsible for the conduct of land operations and the synchronization of land forces’ command and control (C2) in accordance with the Allied Level of Ambition (LOA).
To accomplish this mission, LANDCOM will provide advocacy for NATO’s land forces and ensure their effectiveness and interoperability in the post-ISAF era. The most important reason for LANDCOM’s creation was to retain the level of cooperation, cohesiveness, tactics, techniques, procedures, competencies and capabilities that the Alliance has developed over the past 12 years as part of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
Although NATO has always protected its communications and information systems, the 2002 Prague Summit placed cyber defence on the Alliance’s agenda for the first time. Since then, securing the communication systems owned and operated by the Alliance against the background of rapidly developing technology has been NATO’s top priority regarding cyber defence.
LANDCOM is fully aware that the best action is a pre-emptive and proactive approach and agrees that the best defence against cyber-attacks is user awareness and prompt reporting of suspicious activity. The initial focus of cyber defence training is to change the mindset of the staff regarding the issue.
In order to fulfill its mission of providing expertise in support of Alliance land forces readiness, competency and standardization, in other words its Land Advocacy role, LANDCOM assumes an advisory/leading role for the Graduated Readiness Forces (Land) (GRF(L)).The integration of cyber defence capabilities both in peacetime and during operations is one of the areas focus. LANDCOM uses a three-step approach to design a program, create the training material, and develop and maintain constant cyber defence awareness.
As the growing sophistication of cyber-attacks makes the protection of the Alliance’s information and communications systems an urgent task for NATO, LANDCOM should be prepared to execute Command and control (C2) in a contested and degraded network environment. To achieve this, LANDCOM maintains a focus on planning and executing cyber defence scenarios and building them into the existing NATO exercise programs to create cyber security awareness among training audiences. This mindset change and awareness will be exercised during contingency planning, proactive and reactive actions.
Cations LANDCOM focuses on increasing the users’ cyber defence awareness against emerging threats. It pursues internal staff training programs as well as courses administered at the NATO Communications and Information Systems (CIS) School (Latina, ITALY) and NATO Defence Against Terrorism Centre of Excellence (Ankara, TURKEY). Moreover, LANDCOM encourages staff to make maximum use of the on-line course opportunities offered by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Center of Excellence (Tallinn, ESTONIA).
