Robert Steele @ Amazon: NATO 2040 – Intelligence (Decision-Support) as Root for Transformation (Trump Revolution Book 50)

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Steele, Robert, NATO 2040: Intelligence (Decision-Support) as Root for Transformation (Amazon CreateSpace, Earth Intelligence Network, 2020)

It may be counterintuitive, but the Presidency of Donald J. Trump is potentially the best thing that could have happened if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is to “rebalance” and transform, reaching 2040 with four major force configurations, having four times more impact.

NATO benefits from President Trump’s demand for rebalancing in two substantial ways:

First, each of the other Member States is now being held to their obligations with respect to percentages of their national budget that should be allocated to military needs, inclusive of NATO.

Second, but not yet understood by most, and certainly not codified into any kind of formula that could lead to the transformation – and the expansion of NATO – is the matter of adapting to a complex world in which most of the threats are not military, and all of the threats require Whole of Government (WoG) planning, programming, budgeting, and execution (PPBE) both within and among each of its Member States.

This white paper outlines how Intelligence (Decision-Support) can help the NATO transform itself from a reactive conventional military instrument of the Member States; and instead become a central unifying strategic force for waging peace, achieving prosperity, and ending war in all its forms. NATO can be greater than the sum of its parts.

While focusing on intelligence – the assigned topic – the paper’s greatest value to NATO is in making the case for the need to diversify the NATO force structure. By recognizing that there are four threat classes, each of which needs a different NATO type command (Big War, Special Operations / Low Intensity Conflict, Peace including Diplomacy & Development, Homeland including Cyber), this paper shows how NATO can achieve four times more impact by 2040.

Transformation is achievable – both politically and financially – if all stakeholders hold fast to one fundamental precept: that it should be job and revenue neutral across all sub-state political boundaries. Each legislator in each Parliament or Congress will retain their current share of jobs and revenue. Each major corporation across the NATO military-industrial complex can – if they adapt – retain their current share of jobs and revenue.

Transformation can be job and revenue neutral across all stakeholder elements.

NATO must first come to grips with its lack of organic intelligence capabilities, particularly access to Open Source Information (OSIF) and its inability to produce Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) sufficiently compelling to impact on strategy, operations, tactics, and technical acquisition.

$2 billion a year is on the table with the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (USDI) for an Open Source Agency (OSA) that both creates the modern OSINT discipline, and provides a context for radical improvement in classified collection, processing, and all-source analysis. It is within NATO’s power to qualify for up to $400M per year Final Operating Capability (FOC) in Dam Neck, with access to another $1.6B per year in OSINT and Human Intelligence (HUMINT) capabilities – including private sector investigative and analytic capabilities – world-wide.

Three appendices are provided to illustrate the implications for NATO of doing intelligence right.

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