JAPCC Annual Report 2007

By Lieutenant General Friedrich Wilhelm Ploeger, DEU AF, Executive Director, JAPCC

Introduction

In 2007, JAPCC continued to play a leading role in advocacy for transformation of NATO’s Joint Air and Space Power. We provided support to Allied Command Transformation as our primary customer in numerous joint key projects and fora, also taking the chair in many key working groups and sub-groups, along with custodianship of multiple Air Power related standards. In keeping with our transformational mandate, some of these leadership and custodianship positions will be highlighted in different areas of our new Annual Report format. Highlights of the year included the publishing of both a NATO Air C4ISR Roadmap and a Flight Plan for Unmanned Aircraft Systems in NATO. This latter document helped the JAPCC earn nomination and subsequent award, by one of the most prestigious consulting firms, as The Outstanding NATO Centre of Excellence in Europe. We intend to continue at the forefront of Allied Command Transformation’s Centre of Excellence effort; we have co-located our OF-5 liaison in its Transformation Net cell and are working with it on a daily basis to assist and consolidate its work with all CoEs.

The level of sponsoring nation support continued to be sufficient to accomplish our mission, with our nations ensuring a reasonably stable manning level around 85%, with all major leadership positions filled. The financial support provided through our Senior Resource Committee continued to provide nearly full funding of our operations, travel, and support needs to accomplish our mandates. However, continued emphasis is needed for all the sponsoring nations to fully fund the travel requirements of their bid positions. In addition, we completed renovation and acceptance of the state of the art Joint Air Power Conference Centre which has proven invaluable in hosting critical symposia and working group meetings. Nevertheless, it was with regret that we formally received Hungary’s notice of withdrawal from the JAPCC MOU; whilst this should not affect on-going JAPCC plans, we intend to revisit the potential for membership with those NATO nations outside the MOU in the coming year.

Our recurring projects, namely the Annual Air and Space Power Conference and the bi-annual publication of the JAPCC Journal, continued to grow in prominence with distribution of our Journal and attendance at our Conference growing both in numbers and level of senior interest and participation. Copies of past Journals and information on our Conference are always available on our website, (http://www.japcc.org).

We are very proud to support the transformational priorities of Allied Command Transformation and all of our customers. In concert with our sponsoring Nations and partner organizations, 2007 was a very successful year, albeit in December we said goodbye to one of the driving forces behind our success over the last two years, our Director, Gen Hobbins. In 2008, we welcome a transformation in our leadership team, with our new Director Gen Brady, and a new Assistant Director for Capabilities, Cmdre van Hoof, who replaces Brig Gen Baldazziafter a very successful three year tenure. I hope you will enjoy reading this annual report giving you a summary of our key activities in 2007 and an outlook on our 2008 program. If you have any questions or remarks, please do not hesitate to contact me or my staff.

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