In September, the chapter's guest speaker, Rear Adm. Nick Wheeler, director of the NATO Digital Staff, discussed his staff's role in the NATO Headquarters, with particular reference to digital transformation and the critical element that a Digital Backbone will play in the future vision for how the alliance will fight, also known as multidomain operations.
The ultimate goal of the NATO Digital Backbone is one single and globally-accessible environment for information sharing, from the political realm through all three levels of command, and spanning across multiple participants, multiple operational domains and all the COIs within. The NATO Digital Backbone integrates various data sources and services, enabling large-scale data sharing and exploitation, thus transforming NATO into a data-centric alliance and enhancing military effectiveness and political decision-making.
Adm. Wheeler provided the latest view on how the NATO Digital Backbone will be defined. What it is and what it is not with an emphasis of the key role that the alliance member nations have in facilitating the backbone and their own connectivity to it.
The presentation explored how the Digital Backbone is linked to other critical initiatives such as: Federated Mission Networking; Allied Federated Services/Networks; data-centricity; and zero trust.
Adm. Wheeler stayed on for a lively Q&A session, followed by a networking curry supper. It was a splendid evening all round. The chapter would also like to formally acknowledge and thank James Gavin, director of the Future Capability Group, and his staff, who so kindly hosted the chapter at the Defence, Equipment & Support offices at Abbey Wood in Bristol. |
