# Senior NATO officials say incompatible C2 endangers ISAF



## Nemo888 (4 Oct 2007)

Fair use


Senior NATO officials say incompatible C2 endangers ISAF
Brooks Tigner

Key Points
ISAF's lack of interoperable C2 and intelligence equipment has contributed to allied fatalities, say commanders

Logistics and maintenance complications also need addressing


NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan suffers a fatal lack of interoperable command-and-control (C2) equipment and intelligence-sharing networks, according to senior NATO commanders. 

The issues are especially severe in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar district and others where the Taliban's insurgency movement is strongest, and where fatalities involving ISAF soldiers could otherwise have been avoided or minimised, they stated. 

ISAF's interoperability problems "do not paint a very rosy picture", Major General Ton van Loon, NATO's chief of staff, Allied Land Component Command at Heidelberg, told NATO's fourth annual Industry Day on 27 September. 

Gen van Toon completed seven months of ISAF command duty in Afghanistan in May. He stated: "I lost 38 soldiers in Kandahar. C2 and intelligence are NATO's biggest shortfalls in Afghanistan and they need our immediate attention." 

He asserted that the communications nexus that ISAF forces have patched together in Afghanistan "is neither transparent nor seamless. In Kandahar we had to put liaison personnel from each nation in one room, each with a telephone [back to his own HQ]. That's how we created intelligence. 

"For myself, I had to have nine different systems sitting on my desk just to communicate with all my units. All these different national systems are useless and it is unacceptable that we don't have a common operational network and [battlefield] picture." 

Gen van Toon also pointed out issues with ISAF's logistics and support network.

"The handling of containers isn't streamlined, our logistics tail is too long, databases can't exchange info and our RPVs [remotely piloted vehicles], armoured vehicles, logistics and convoy procedures and equipment are incompatible," he declared. 

Helicopter maintenance and spare parts were singled out as a particularly telling example.

"We had four types of Chinooks in theatre, but they were so different from each other that each nation's technical personnel could not service any of the others. Except for the US, which had full [overhaul and maintenance] support, the other three nations had to fly their parts or aircraft back home each time on an Antonov [heavy lift aircraft]." 

Major General Koen Gisbers, a communications specialist attached to NATO's Allied Command Transformation (ACT), asserted that, unusually, cost and product development are not the problem. 

Noting that technology and distributed databases offer cheap and effective interoperability solutions ready for exploitation today, he said: "We want a distributed JISR capability for ISAF in one year. There is no time to lose. Technology is not the issue: it's all there. It's how we put it together and loosen the rules of allies for sharing intelligence with each other." 

The same sense of frustration is apparently felt at senior levels of the ACT, US General Lance Smith, the group's supreme allied commander, remarked to the Warsaw audience. Referring to ISAF's lack of joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (JISR), he said: "Why aren't the allies themselves demanding this? I'm losing troops because we don't have common JISR." 

http://www4.janes.com/subscribe/idr/doc_view.jsp?K2DocKey=/content1/janesdata/mags/idr/history/idr2007/idr10916.htm@current&Prod_Name=IDR&QueryText=*


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## George Wallace (5 Oct 2007)

This is nothing really new.  It is the problem that we have faced in every major war and conflict with all our NATO allies, even before NATO was even dreamed of.  It is the price we pay for having "Free and Democratic Societies".  As we were not under the thumb of Stalin, or some other like minded ruler; unlike the Warsaw Pact, we were able to develop our own directions to take in Communications, Armaments, etc.  

WW I, WW II, Korea, Vietnam, Cyprus, Somalia, etc. are all examples where we have partaken in sending our militaries off with 'National' equipment.  To some extent NATO has forced some commonality in equipment, such as standardized ammunition, but each nation is still relatively free to develop their own equipment and SOPs as best to suit their Region, environment, society, etc.  We are not in a Dictatorship, and as such, will always have differences on all fronts.


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## The Bread Guy (5 Oct 2007)

Just found this tidbit in the Pakistan Times:  





> "The NATO military alliance is so short of helicopters in insurgency-hit Afghanistan that it is now thinking about leasing some, a spokesman conceded the other day.  "We need helicopters everywhere and one of the options being studied is leasing contracts," spokesman James Appathurai told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels.  He said that NATO already had such agreements for fixed wing transport aircraft - another area in which there is a shortage - "with our Ukrainian and Russian friends, which is working well."  The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan has constantly appealed for countries taking part to come up with helicopters, mainly for medical evacuations and transport but also for troop support.  A NATO diplomat said it was a question of "leasing dozens of helicopters." Appathurai said that ISAF has launched a military mission dubbed Operation Pamir, in and around Kabul as well as in east, south and west Afghanistan, which is likely to last a number of months.
> That would make such air support all the more important for the roughly 40,000 personnel from 37 nations which make up ISAF, particularly Britain, Canada and the Netherlands whose troops fight in the restive South and East."



Dopey question here, in hopes of an answer from someone with more NATO experience - can NATO, as a collective, charter helicopters in the same way (they appear to be) chartering fixed wing?  Or would it be individual countries doing it?  If so, wouldn't you have the same "everyone has their own thing" problems?  If there's that much difference between Chinooks from different countries, how close to a "generic" Chinook could you get that could be serviced by anybody?

- edited to add link to NATO Strategic Airlift lease pgm page, & rephrasing question -


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## Loachman (5 Oct 2007)

Each customer will most likely order the latest production version for a start, so there will be variations between nations as a result of that. Few will want to carry the cost of upgrading to that standard.

Secondly, each nation has different requirements. We want to operate from one temperature extreme to the next, for example, so would be willing to pay for any additional modifications that that might entail whereas the Dutch perhaps may not.

Budgets alone may be a significant factor. Some nations may opt for fully-loaded, while others may go for the bare-bones el cheapo version.

Some nations may have political considerations, ie certain industries in certain areas that "must" have business pushed at them (although it's hard to think of any particular example).

Should NATO purchase its own fleet, in a manner similar to the AWACS fleet, common training of crews would be necessary, but this should not be a huge problem.


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## tomahawk6 (5 Oct 2007)

I am more concerned by the lack of interoperability of C4I systems. The whole concept of NATO interoperanility is for everyone to be able to communicate together. Thats why there is a NATO standard for ammunition. While C4I probably works between the various air/sea elements it evidently hasnt been transferred to the ground forces.Lance Smith is actually Supreme Allied Commander for TRANSFORMATION. He must have overlooked this problem. Maybe his successor USMC General Mattis can fix this problem - it wont happen though unless the various NATO members buy common C4I systems. I wont hold my breath.

http://c4i.omg.org/C4I_Work_Plan.htm


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## Edward Campbell (5 Oct 2007)

Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s (when I was involved with Canada, ABCA and NATO C3I (which was sometimes C4 and even C4I2)) there were two major interoperability problems:

1.	The pace of change in four or, far worse, 15 countries – which meant that some countries were moving, rapidly towards e.g. 25 kHz/16KB radio channels and standard _n_ digital systems while others had just moved to 50 kHz analog radios and others were still on 100 kHz channels and none of the members of those two groups were at any digital standard; and

2.	COMSEC. Put simply, while the US and UK were willing to sell some COMSEC to most countries only three NATO nations (CA, UK, and US) could accomplish anything near 90% interoperability.

While I guess most NATO C3 systems are now digital I would be very surprised if there are standard data sets, etc. In other words I suspect members can exchange bit streams at a helluva rate of knots but there is no useful information being exchanged. I would also be surprised if the US and UK are willing to share crypto algorithms with some (maybe even most) NATO allies.

In the ‘80s and ‘90s NATO (Europe) and the ABCA nations adopted several different radio frequency spectrum allocations, some of which did real, measurable harm to NATO interoperability. The differences reflected serious commercial competition enmity between several EU members and the US.

Intelligence sharing was worse. In a major NATO HQ we had several US Eyes Only, CANUS Eyes Only, CANUK Eyes Only, USUK Eyes Only and CANUKUS Eyes Only Systems – with all the incredible physical access barriers, even in the AFCENT War HQ bunker in the Ardennes.

I would be surprised if anything is better; I doubt it can get much better.

Maintaining a reasonable (90%+) level of ABCA+NZ interoperability and intelligence sharing is was hard enough – doing it for 25 NATO members is well nigh impossible and, trying is probably a waste of time and money.

Some high level interoperability is fairly easy to establish and maintain. The _deeper_ one wishes to go (into national corps, divisions and brigades) the less likely one is to succeed.


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## tomahawk6 (5 Oct 2007)

The problem at least from the perspective of the article seems to be between the various national contingents which are operating at the brigade level. I agree that at senior level's there is compartmentalization of information. However for the dutch commander needing 8 different phone lines is absurd. At least there should be commonality enough to talk to one another ? I know during Grenada that the army couldnt talk directly to the air force/navy. That has been corrected.


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## Sig_Des (5 Oct 2007)

This is not a new problem, and it is something that is being worked on. Example, the Multilateral Interoperability Program (MIP).



> The aim of the MIP is to achieve international interoperability of Command and Control Information Systems (C2IS) at all levels from corps to the lowest appropriate level, in order to support multinational, combined and joint operations and the advancement of digitisation in the international arena, including NATO



http://www.mip-site.org/home.htm


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## Jarnhamar (7 Oct 2007)

> logistics and convoy procedures and equipment are incompatible," he declared.



Our convoy procedures are second to none and we were constantly praised by other nations as being the SME's on convoy ops. Americans, British and Dutch all sought out the Canadians on how to run convoys.

I *can* see a need to take a look at comms. We had a dutch (I believe) helicopter hovering over a cordon for what seemed like forever because we couldn't speak dirctly with the helicopter during a medivac situation. They wouldn't land unless they had comms with the troops on the ground and we had to fiddle around with relaying messages through HQ back in KAF.


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## tomahawk6 (7 Oct 2007)

> Our convoy procedures are second to none and we were constantly praised by other nations as being the SME's on convoy ops. Americans, British and Dutch all sought out the Canadians on how to run convoys.



A bit of a stretch dont you think ?


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## GAP (7 Oct 2007)

I can see the different organizations comparing notes and adopting what works in certain circumstances, but I don't think any one country has "the Answer".....


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## edgar (7 Oct 2007)

George Wallace said:
			
		

> This is nothing really new.  It is the problem that we have faced in every major war and conflict with all our NATO allies, even before NATO was even dreamed of.  It is the price we pay for having "Free and Democratic Societies".  As we were not under the thumb of Stalin, or some other like minded ruler; unlike the Warsaw Pact, we were able to develop our own directions to take in Communications, Armaments, etc.
> 
> WW I, WW II, Korea, Vietnam, Cyprus, Somalia, etc. are all examples where we have partaken in sending our militaries off with 'National' equipment.  To some extent NATO has forced some commonality in equipment, such as standardized ammunition, but each nation is still relatively free to develop their own equipment and SOPs as best to suit their Region, environment, society, etc.  We are not in a Dictatorship, and as such, will always have differences on all fronts.


This is true, and it's never gonna change. I bet if we talked to some Russian and Czechoslovakian officers from back in the day, we'd learn that their interoperability was less than they wanted it to be also. A boiler room full of LOs is the simplest and cheapest solution. Compare the cost of a roomful of captains and jimmies to the cost of a new common system (as if that is even politically possible) for even two countries.


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## Jarnhamar (7 Oct 2007)

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> A bit of a stretch dont you think ?



Nope.


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## MG34 (10 Oct 2007)

Flawed Design said:
			
		

> Nope.



Somehow I just don't see it,espescially after seeing these convoys in action.Unless things have changed drastically in a year that is.


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