A delegation of NRDC-ITA Officers visited the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium on Wednesday, 20 May 2015. The main purposes of the visit were to enhance Staff linkages with the Higher HQ and to witness a peculiar capability at SHAPE; the Comprehensive Crisis and Operations Management Centre, or CCOMC.
The CCOMC can be seen as the heart of the Alliance's approach to crisis operations management, organised in five task groups focusing on Crisis Identification, Current Operations, Estimations and Options, Response Direction and Crisis Review. The centre collaborates and cooperates in a fully-integrated manner, bringing together military and civilian expertise, and connects SHAPE Headquarters to the networked world.
NRDC-ITA has recently concluded the process to provide a deployable Joint Command and Control capability required to meet the Alliance's level of ambition of commanding a small joint operation, across the full range of NATO missions. Much has been done in the last two years to reach this goal and the final certification, just achieved, is a clear sign of it. Within such an effort and in preparation of NRDC-ITA "stand-by period", establishing permanent relationship with SHAPE, and the CCOMC in particular, is paramount