NATO’s efforts to transform its military capabilities need to be accompanied by a fresh look at whether it has the right staff structures at its Headquarters to support the current demands on it.  It makes sense, inter alia, to look again at other elements of NATO’s business processes, such as the decision-making procedures (including the structure of committees supporting the North Atlantic Council (NAC) and Military Committee (MC) and the systems for allocating NATO’s resources in accordance with Alliance objectives. The Secretary General was charged at the Bucharest Summit to make proposals by the time of the next Summit on the way forward. In parallel, work is under way to update the basis on which NATO conducts its collective force planning.

The efforts to transform military capabilities and update business processes need to be set within a broader political context. At the 2004 Istanbul Summit, NATO agreed to seek to develop its political outreach programme, enhancing its network of partnerships into the Middle East, Central Asia and further afield. This needs to be accompanied by a strengthening of NATO’s links with other international organisations, primarily the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN). The Secretary-General is also pursuing proposals to enhance political dialogue between Allies, not least so that they can set issues relating to current operations in a broader political perspective.

A further impulse towards reform is provided by NATO’s need to move to a new Headquarters building. As work on the design for the new building goes forward, it is important to ensure that it will be fit to accommodate the organisation NATO is becoming, not what it currently is.