At the invitation of Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT), General Denis Mercier, the Military Committee (MC) held their annual meeting with Allied Command Transformation (ACT), but this year SACT chose to invite the MC to visit the Joint Analysis and Lessons Learned Centre (JALLC) in Lisbon, Portugal. The meeting was held at both the JALLC's facilities in Lisbon and the facilities of Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO (STRIKFORNATO) Headquarters on the Reduto Gomes Freire base in Oeiras which afforded the MC the opportunity to meet with representatives from both organizations and see the site for the NATO Information and Communications Academy, which is currently being built there.
After receiving full military honours, General Petr Pavel, the Chairman of the MC (CMC) and the Military Committee received warm welcomes from Chief of Staff HQ SACT, Air Marshal Graham Stacey and the Commander of JALLC, Brigadier General Mario Barreto, before embarking on their two-day formal meeting session which began with a briefing on the JALLC and how it has been refocusing its activities to better support NATO's Lessons Learned Process as part of the NATO Lessons Learned Optimization Plan.
The focus of the Military Committee’s two-day meeting was adaptation and innovation, as part of the continuous effort to ensure the Alliance addresses both current challenges and tasks as well as keeps pace with technological and operational changes.
In order to gain deeper understanding and awareness, the Military Representatives received subject matter expert briefings from senior military and civilian officials from ACT, NATO Headquarters Consultation, Command and Control Staff (NHQC3S), NATO Communication and Information (NCI) Agency, NATO Maritime Command (MARCOM) and STRIKFORNATO. Topics of discussion included NATO Command Structure adaptation, long term military strategic considerations, Cyberspace, emergence of disruptive technologies, and Maritime domain. The visit will also assist ongoing work for the 2018 Summit in Brussels.
At the joint press conference with General Mercier, General Pavel stressed: “The Military Committee’s visit to ACT in Portugal is very timely, as our discussions will be reflected in products for the July NATO Summit and beyond. NATO must be prepared as much for the now as for the future. With an ever changing and complex international security environment affecting strategic assumptions, it is essential that we operate and adapt at the same time”.
SACT noted that, bringing the MC to Portugal was important to highlight the way in which the JALLC has worked to very quickly refocus their activities to meet the needs of the Nations in terms of NATO's Lessons Learned Process and that the JALLC and Portugal remain important to ACT and the Alliance as a whole.
In conjunction with the MC visit, General Mercier and General Pavel also met with the Portuguese Minister of Defence, H. E. Mr. Jose Alberto de Azeredo Lopes and the Portuguese Chief of Defence, General Artur Pina Monteiro.