Esteemed Colleagues,

As your moderator once again, it is a privilege to welcome you to what has become one of NATO’s leading forums for discussion on joint air and space power.

The conference has come a very long way since I stood at the podium in a cinema in Kleve in 1998, wearing my slightly too-tight RAF No.1 uniform and welcoming delegates while carefully explaining the luncheon arrangements. At that stage, none of us could really have imagined how significantly the strategic environment, the Alliance and indeed the conference itself would evolve over the decades that followed.

What began as a comparatively modest gathering of air power professionals has grown into a major international event bringing together senior military leaders, operational practitioners, industry representatives, academics, and analysts from across the Alliance and beyond. This year’s integration with EUDEX reflects that evolution particularly well. Modern defence challenges can no longer be viewed through purely operational or technological lenses in isolation. Capability, resilience, industrial capacity, infrastructure, logistics, training and innovation are now tightly interconnected.

That reality sits at the heart of this year’s conference.

Across our four panels, we will examine NATO’s increasingly complex 360-degree security environment, the challenge of operating effectively in the grey zone below the threshold of armed conflict, the resilience required to sustain air power in contested environments and, finally, the enduring importance of the human dimension in an era increasingly shaped by autonomy, artificial intelligence and machine-speed decision-making.

Taken together, the panels reflect the fact that the Alliance now faces pressure simultaneously across multiple fronts and frontiers: geographic, digital, cognitive, and increasingly, vertical, as space becomes ever more central to military operations. Recent conflicts and strategic developments have also challenged many of the assumptions that shaped Western military thinking during the post-Cold War period. Readiness, resilience, integration, sustainment and the ability to adapt rapidly are once again central themes in discussions about deterrence and collective defence.

At the same time, one message remains consistent throughout all these debates: however advanced technology becomes, the decisive factor is still people. Judgement, leadership, training, adaptability, and the ability to work together across nations and domains remain fundamental to operational effectiveness.

Conferences such as this play an important role in that process. They allow us not only to exchange ideas and challenge assumptions but also to strengthen the professional relationships and shared understanding upon which Alliance cohesion ultimately depends.

As always, I encourage delegates to stay engaged throughout all four panels. One of the strengths of the JAPCC Conference has always been that the discussions build progressively across the event, with later conversations often shaped by ideas raised much earlier in the programme.

I hope you enjoy the conference, the discussions and the opportunities that this year’s partnership with EUDEX brings alongside them. Most importantly, I hope you leave with new perspectives, useful connections and ideas that remain with you long after the final panel concludes.

Bruce Hargrave
Moderator