NATO's Open Source Intelligence Exploration in 2023

Following the 2019 Crisis Management Exercise (CMX) and the North Atlantic Council’s (NAC) 2019 Away Day event, Political Guidance was issued that the Alliance can benefit from leveraging emerging technologies to assist decision making, acknowledging the complex relationships between the Political, Military, Economic, Social, Information and Infrastructure (PMESII) instruments of power.

Responding to this challenge, the Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT), after consulting with the Secretary General, took on the task to explore the viability of a capability to assist decision making at the strategic political-military level for the NAC to reach consensus in less time than seen in the CMX 2019.

Today, enhancing NATO’s capacity for Political and Military Assisted Decision Making (PM-ADM) embodies the SACT’s purpose to continue to improve the Alliance’s ability to better understand the strategic situation, recognize developing risks sooner, and decide faster than adversaries in mitigating the situation prior to conflict.

PM-ADM seeks to support the NAC in reaching data-driven decisions on crises faster than currently possible. To do this, PM-ADM breaks down the decision-making process into three well-defined phases: Scenario Awareness, Scenario Understanding, and Cognitive Strengths + Predictive Trends.

PM-ADM Proof of concept/demonstrator User Story