concept aims to facilitate efficient information sharing in NATO
operations. In 2012, a NNEC assessment of a NATO Response
Force (NRF1) rotation during Exercise Steadfast Cobalt (SFCT)
2012 was performed. The outcome of the assessment showed a
number of constraints that prevent seamless information sharing
and exploitation across the various mission partners. Two issues
were identified as critical to enable information sharing in NRF:
(a) the need to implement a more strict approach to Information
Management, along a proper set of processes and tools, and (b) the
requirement to enable automatic or semi-automatic transfer of
information between different security domains, therefore
enabling a single information domain where partners can access
and share the vast majority of mission information. The solution
should ideally also enable information sharing with Non-
Traditional Partners (NTPs 2 ) in compliance with the NATO
Comprehensive Approach to operations [1].
This paper summarizes the findings of the NNEC assessment
performed during 2012 Steadfast Cobalt NRF exercise, and the
solution proposed to resolve the identified information
management and information sharing constraints. The proposed
solution, in line with NNEC recommendations for the Future
Mission Network (FMN) concept is based on an information
clearinghouse function and a release gateway. The clearinghouse
maintains a tightly configuration-controlled catalog of mission
relevant information, to ensure users easily find and access the
latest approved version of any information product. In addition,
the clearinghouse provides support to a release authority and to a
release gateway, which allow semi-automatic transfer of releasable
products between different security domains. The combination of
the three elements creates the perception of a single information
domain. The paper describes the impact of the solution on
information sharing by repeating the NNEC assessment, and
provides a number of recommendations on how to achieve those
benefits in current or future NATO operations.