Intelligence Cooperation among European Nations Future Challenges for the Allied Intelligence Community in a War against Terrorism

and the Threat of Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction The gathering of intelligence in all forms will remain a purely national prerogative for the time to come in the near and medium term timeframe. However, in light of the US National Security Strategy, the European Nations have developed recently the Idea of A secure Europe in a better World along with the Helsinki Headline Goal. In conjunction with the decisions made in this strategy, the European Capability Action Plan (ECAP) calls for a force of 50.000 to 60.000 troops which should be on disposition within a 60 day timeframe. Meanwhile, NATO has based upon decisions made during the occasion of the NATO Washington Summit in 1999 and the Prague Summit in 2002 as well as findings made during the meetings of the NATO Ministers and Chiefs of Defence at Colorado Springs in 2003 and the Meeting ALLIED REACH 2004, made some inadequacies in the NATO Intelligence Architecture and resources apparent. Remedial action in respect to current procedures within NATO and the national Intelligence Organizations seemed required with urgency on the political and military level within NATO and its members to cope with future challenges in light of the ongoing struggle against international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction worldwide. The recent development of the NATO Response Force (NRF) and its implications to the future course of action require action among the EU. Moreover, the initial operational capability of the NRF , which could be expected in the near term, once the implementation measures among participating nations have been concluded, calling for similar actions among the European Nations in order to cope with the requirements, stated in the NATO Defence Capabilities Initiative. Additionally the European battle Group Concept requires a prepared and trained framework of a staff organization which must be able to transform political decisions in military action abroad, supported by adequate means of Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence.

The Transformation of Intelligence, Command & Control within NATO and the European Union
In discussions, all allied Nations have confirmed their commitment to lighter and swiftly moveable forces, which must be more technically advanced in order to meet challenges of a worldwide engagement to fight international terrorism and other threats, which may appear anytime without explicit pre-warning. Such multilateral forces must be able to operate and cooperate in a challenging environment of allies and befriended nations or groups of nations with a variation of different political intentions, military and administrative procedures, equipment, political and cultural background as well. The employment of such forces require precise and timely data on friendly and other forces, possible targets and the development of hostile capabilities which may threaten NATO/EU and its allies during such operations. Of very special complexity is the timely gaining of information on hostile forces or other adversary groups to minimize collateral damage during the course of employment of highly sophisticated weapon systems in order to avoid

unnecessary harassment to civil populace and loss of own manpower that could have grave implications on the political targeting of the action itself. The NATO strategic vision is now being influenced by the opinion that future military operations will be highly dominated by effects-based operations, mostly in underdeveloped countries and areas worldwide. This will require Decision - and Information Superiority on all commandlevels during a multilateral operation under NATO or EU auspices .In order to meet such future requirements. NATO has begun to transform its structure to provide the deployable operational focus to meet the new Level Of Ambition (LOA). Therefore, the overall intelligence requirements in timely sequence, sufficient quality and quantity may be derived from the overall Level of Ambition and it political and military intent. Recent experience during multinational and multilateral operations has indicated significant shortfalls against quality and quantity to meet such operational and strategic requirements within NATO. The European Union on its part must develop similar strategies in order to cooperate during the course of action and to gain and hold political and military momentum. Additionally, therefore, the European Union requires an established body of Intelligence oversight and political guidance in order to early determine threats and assess the capabilities of a possible adversary that must be supported by all Nations of the European Union.

Proposed Future EU Intelligence Policy

In order to meet the future requirements driven intelligence related tasks of multinational operations, EU in conjunction with NATO should commonly address the dynamic threat facing the allied nations. EU - and NATO Intelligence together must be able to identify emerging instability risks and support preventive political, diplomatic and military measures initiated by NATO and EU or both, to contain such crises not only abroad on a global level as well as near EU borders. Therefore, effective intelligence on the strategic and operational level must be able to support sustained operations on political and military levels in order to regain momentum on the allied side to solve such a crisis. Political leaders, strategic planners, operational commanders and intelligence staffs must continuously state their needs for intelligence information on various aspects during such action within EU and NATO. To be effective, the strategic and operational intelligence support for EU military or peacekeeping operations should include the following measures to be implemented in the future: Creation of a EU Intelligence Agency with a status, similar to EUROPOL but without any function influencing national law enforcement or justice. The manning of the posts within this organization should reflect the contributions made by the sending nation to the overall efforts. Whenever possible, high visible posts should rotate among the nations. However, for the working level, long-term appointments should be taken in consideration for the incumbent in order to keep the level of experience high. This agency should operate under a EU Charter and determining strategic and operational areas of interest to the European Union. This Agency should not collect Intelligence within the confines of the EU member states, however, if required, participating nations should contribute information

of their own as far as threats emerging along determined guidelines e.g. Information concerning International Organised Crime, Drug Trafficking or similar offences, which might have impact on EU/NATO Operations. This agency should cooperate with the pertinent NATO body to ensure compliance with already existing NATO Rules, Regulations and Procedures, which have to be adjusted by NATO accordingly in order to harmonize the exchange of Intelligence Information between EU and NATO and vice versa. Of special value are the following areas:

Early warning of proliferation of military relevant technology which may threaten the allies, Enhanced Focus on transnational, geopolitical, political, economic and military factors, Monitoring of developments beyond Alliances area of interest to analyse military and other potential which may pose threat to EU and NATO and its allies, Monitoring of NATO strategic Intelligence Estimate to meet current and ad-hoc requirements which might appear suddenly without pre-warning, Sharing of Intelligence Information in the politico - military area and law enforcement among EU/NATO member-nations and their allies,

EUintelligence and its efficiency will depend entirely on the willingness of cooperating nations to share their intelligence information with EU/NATO and/or other nations. This has and is continued to be one of the important factors of effective intelligence within EU/NATO and may hamper future operations severely. The collection of intelligence, its validation as well as analysis and production are functions that remain largely in the hands of participating nations. Unfortunately, NATO staffs presently will only be able to state their requirements and wait whether the nations will provide sufficient intelligence information to the best of their ability in a timely manner or not. Therefore, the policy of nations in regard of dissemination of intelligence to NATO and in the future to EU must be more proactive and streamlined in order to avoid time constraints before and during military and political operations. Additionally, participating nations must commit their national procedures, rules and regulations concerning the production and dissemination of finished intelligence to EU/NATO standards. A problem area additionally seemed to the sharing of intelligence between NATO and Non NATO Nations (OSCE, PfP, UN and others) while preparing for or during common operations, therefore, appropriate rules and regulations

must be established in an expedious fashion to counter such administrative bottlenecks among the future EU Intelligence Organization. Presently, NATO does not have their own Intelligence gathering means on their disposal. In this context, again, NATO will remain dependent on national Intelligence gathering assets in the hands of participating nations which are not in any case will be interoperable and able to be integrated in existing and future EU/ NATO wide national intelligence gathering structures. Presently it not clear, which nation may make commitments to future intelligence systems or contributions. Of specific interest, in future operations are the requirement for human intelligence resources (HUMINT) for intelligence and counterintelligence (CI) purposes in the area of operations. This area has been in the past mainly reserved to national resources and assets that have mostly not been declared to the responsible NATO Commander on scene by the nation concerned. One of the important factors for the dissemination of raw and finished intelligence is a common Intelligence Systems Architecture which will greatly enhance the distribution of intelligence to all participants. Therefore, participating nations must take action in order to solve the problems. This also will include a common EU/NATO Database to which, all participating nations must have unlimited access, unless operational or security concerns require limited access. This specifically also will include the employment of SIGINT and IMINT - resources from contributing nations and the intelligence gathered from such sources. Common standards in hindsight of distribution of such SPECIAL intelligenceinformation into the EU Intelligence channels and organization must developed in order to ensure timely distribution to the EU intelligence staff elements concerned in the event of planning and conducting operations. This also will influence the capabilities of EU for NetworkCentricWarfare in cooperation with the NATO and the United States of America.

Conclusions
In order to meet future challenges in the field of intelligence, EU and EU - nations will develop and enhance its capabilities concerning:

Overall Concept of gaining strategic and operational intelligence, Creation of a EU Intelligence Agency, determination of its function and responsibilities, introduction of a EU Common Intelligence Architecture based upon revised NATO requirements, Divide the responsibilities among participating EU/NATO-bodies, EU/NATOstaffs and nations in regard of responsibilities and functions and possibly , areas of interest,

EU/NATO and participation nations will take appropriate action to enhance the timely distribution of intelligence information within the organization in respect to information-sharing among participating nations during the planning process and operations, EU/NATO and participating nations will fuse all relevant and available intelligence information in order to create the Common Operational Picture of EU/NATO in an accurate and timely fashion. Development of own capabilities in the field of NetworkCentricWarfare.

Once, the measures have been implemented completely, EU in cooperation with NATO will be able to operate in a all aspect covering intelligence environment which might save the lives of innocent civilians and minimize own casualties and political risks to the extend possible.