On Wednesday (25 February), Allies agreed to move to the next stage in NATO's ambitious project that will deliver its future-fit surveillance capabilities.
The Alliance Future Surveillance and Control (AFSC) was launched at NATO's Warsaw Summit in 2016, triggered by the announced retirement of the NATO AWACS in 2035. The initiative aims at redefining how NATO will continue to effectively conduct multi-domain surveillance and tactical control.
The new approach, which was developed after thorough consultations with NATO Allies, the Strategic Commands and industry, consists of a "system of systems", where NATO, multinational, and national ground, air, maritime and space assets are connected to one another to provide a collaborative, multi-domain surveillance and control capability. AFSC was renamed Alliance Federated Surveillance and Control to reflect this concept.
The first step will focus on the incremental integration of NATO-owned and operated assets - such as the Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) fleet and the successor to the AWACS - as well as multinational and national systems - such as the Alliance Persistent Surveillance from Space (APSS) - into the new AFSC System of Systems. Both legacy and new assets - including unmanned technologies - will be integrated into AFSC. NATO and Allies will work closely with industry to tailor future national and multinational capability developments to the AFSC specific needs in Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) and tactical control.
The AFSC initiative is a NATO-wide effort, governed by the Conference of National Armaments Directors (CNAD). The NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) is responsible for programme management and technical interoperability. NATO's Strategic Commands provide guidance on military requirements and operational aspects and the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) delivers additional technical expertise.
