ARRC JOURNAL
MULTINATIONALITY –
HARNESSING ITS STRENGTHS
AND MINIMISING ITS FRICTIONS
Maj Gen Roberto D’Alessandro (ITA-A)
“Working in international organisations and living in foreign countries is not only an
adventure and experience for life, but it also generates issues. Some issues you can
prepare yourself for during the phase prior to posting, and others will come at a later date
and unexpectedly, but, that is why it is called an adventure.”
NATO is a multi-national organisation.
It gets its strength through being an
alliance of 29 nations behind a common
goal - Peace in Europe. However,
that very strength can easily become
weakness without careful management
and understanding and nowhere is this
truer than within the military headquarters
of the NATO Command Structure (NCS)
and NATO Force Structure (NFS).
The NCS and NFS bring together the
best and brightest of NATO’s military
personnel. Selected by their nations for
their abilities as soldiers, sailors and
airmen, they are sent as ambassadors for
their Nation and their Service. As military
professionals they are often at the top of
their game, trained and educated to a
high level, and destined for promotion.
But the challenges they face once in post
are numerous and, if not understood and
managed, potentially damaging.
Language
The most obvious challenge is language.
Inter-operability is a phrase frequently
used in conjunction with multi-national
operations, and usually refers to non-
compatible
equipment.
But
inter-
operability is much more than that; it starts
with people understanding each other.
Within the NCS/NFS it is the people not
equipment that are the critical capability.
A ‘non-compatibility’ of understanding
makes command and control harder and
can endanger our rate of success.
In ancient history a story was written
about the Tower of Babel; the people who
were building it were able to do so initially
because they spoke the same language
but when language failed the task failed.
This principle counts for international
organisations as well. Without a
common and clear understanding of our
doctrine, processes and tasks, a NATO
headquarters can easily become a box
of expensive but incompatible parts
rather than a finely-tuned engine.
While language is a beautiful thing
and our ability to integrate 29 nations
something to be proud of, how do we
minimise the friction of language? Here
are three thoughts:
• As nations, we must prepare our
people in a good and sufficient way
so they can maintain themselves.
Language classes before posting
help to overcome the most common
communication problems, but they do
not teach dialect or colloquialisms.
• As Headquarters, we must stick to one
Italian Army Major General Roberto D’Allesandro, deputy commander for the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps,
speaks with an ARRC British Army officer during Exercise ARRCADE Fusion 2015
6
ALLIED RAPID REACTION CORPS
operational language, write down most
of our procedures and practices and
stick to them.