ISAF was created by the United Nations Security Council in December 2001, shortly after U.S.-led military operations began in Afghanistan against al Qaeda and its Taliban hosts. The goal then was to help secure the Afghan capital of Kabul, which remained its sole focus for nearly five years, even after NATO assumed political and operational control of ISAF in August 2003. By July 2006, however, ISAF had extended its operations into the country’s southern sectors and, a few months later, to the east, as well.

Today, ISAF is the proving ground not only for NATO’s internal transformation, but also its new goal of working as seamlessly as possible with non-NATO nations and international organizations. It also is a major test of NATO’s new view of itself.

“The Alliance is having discussions to identify and gain consensus on the main threats to the security of the population and interests of Alliance members, NATO’s role in responding to those threats and challenges, with whom do you partner and where do you do it?” Soligan said. “Is this a regional organization responding in a globalized world to challenges that emanate outside its territorial boundaries, able to contribute when and where the member nations deem appropriate in support of international requirements and responsibilities? And is that defined regionally or broader?

“It is very important that the Alliance accurately convey to the public and its member nations what NATO’s mission is and will be, and how NATO contributes to their security.  Clearly we have territorial defense, responsibilities in Afghanistan and Kosovo, counter-piracy, operating both inside and outside territorial areas. So the question of how best to describe NATO’s contribution to security is an important one for the Alliance.”

Elements NATO implemented for the first time in Kosovo that were not part of its Cold War mandate also have come to life in Afghanistan. Under NATO leadership, ISAF operations extend far beyond combat to the building of a modern nation from the rubble of a geographic area that has seen little semblance of national government through centuries of war.

For thousands of years, a succession of invaders – including the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great, the Mongol Empire, the British, the Soviet Union, and many others – have attempted, with little to no success, to conquer Afghanistan. A land-locked blend of rugged mountains and arid plains, with untapped mineral resources never accurately determined, Afghanistan’s importance has always been geostrategic.

From its ancient status as a focal point on the Silk Road linking Asia and Europe in trade, Afghanistan became one of the world’s top suppliers of opium and heroin, as well as a safe-haven training and operations center for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Bordering Iran, Pakistan, China, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, Afghanistan also remains a strategic connector between East and West Asia.

As a result, ISAF has attracted volunteer units from around the globe – most non-combat, working instead on building infrastructure where none has ever existed and training the first true Afghan National Army and professional police force. While the United States provides more than half of ISAF’s manpower and equipment – and the rest of NATO most of the remainder – it nonetheless has benefited from the contributions of nations from South Korea and Mongolia to Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore and from Colombia to such traditionally neutral nations as Ireland and Switzerland.

This mix also has placed considerable operational strain on NATO, which retains overall command, especially with respect to perhaps the single most important military component – communications. In a 21st century battlespace, that also means interoperable networking, which has been a focal point of NATO transformation.

NATO spent 50 years bringing its original 16 members to a point where most equipment and procedures were common or at least interoperable. Nearly doubling that number with nations that had spent that same half-century attempting to do the same under a decidedly different leadership, from language, culture, and technology to goals, politics, and economics, increased the difficulty factor significantly, especially given only a fraction of the time in which to accomplish the goal. And whatever success NATO may have been having internally, every problem increased exponentially with the addition of non-NATO coalition partners, many in their first – perhaps only – interaction with NATO or each other.

In the simplest of terms, the goal was to ensure there were not 28 individual “stovepipes,” but a single interoperable, cooperative mix of military planning, spending, acquisition, training, and command and control in which the collective capability exceeded individual or even group potential. With the change of focus from defending Western Europe from the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact to defending all NATO members – and, as determined necessary, other nations, geographic areas or resources – globally, transformation itself was transformed, as was the nature of interoperability as it moved from concept to immediate combat necessity.

“Interoperability really is more than equipment. In my view, the mindset, procedures, and training that allow nations to work together, even if their equipment is not the same nor even in and of itself interoperable, is very, very important,” Soligan said. “That is one of the ways non-NATO nations can work alongside NATO. We have had Russian ships operating alongside NATO in Operation Active Endeavor and the interoperability has been in procedures and a common understanding of how to do business and what we are trying to do.

“In ground operations today, we often see small units, more multinational in nature and requiring interoperability at a much lower tactical level than we had commonly worked toward during the Cold War. So where the emphasis was at the corps level in major combat operations, what you see today are companies and platoons working together with a greater need for interoperability of procedures, information exchange, command and control in a joint, multinational way.”