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NATO to prioritise joint ISR capabilities

NATO is putting a priority on the development of joint intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, senior alliance officials have said.

Speaking at the NATO Industry Forum in Istanbul on 14 November, NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow said that ISR capabilities "will be high on the agenda" at the 2014 alliance summit in the United Kingdom. The alliance will also be looking at precision-guided weapons, air-to-air refueling assets and heavy transport aircraft, he added.

NATO has experienced a decade of high operational tempo in Afghanistan and "as a result, some of the capabilities we have now in NATO are no longer needed, and some of the capabilities we desperately need we don't have enough of", Vershbow said.

In the short term, NATO will look at ways to better integrate the assets of individual member nations, General Jean-Paul Paloméros, the alliance's Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, told IHS Jane's on the sidelines of the forum. "We need to take all available sensors - reconnaissance aircraft, satellite, maritime patrol, AWACS (airborne warning and control systems) - to build a network," he said. "We really see that as a major feature for the next summit, it is so crucial."

NATO's new airborne ground surveillance (AGS) system will be part of this, but it will be expanded, Gen Paloméros said. "It's a wider perspective. AGS is part of the answer, but what we are looking for is a full-spectrum ISR capability," he explained, adding that maritime surveillance and target identification would be among the areas focused on.

NATO then hopes to integrate newer sensors into the system, such as the new European Union programme to develop unmanned aerial vehicle surveillance. Turkish medium-altitude long-endurance UAVs, and new German and UK maritime patrol aircraft could be part of the system in the future, Paloméros said.

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