KISSIMMEE, Fla. – NATO is looking to industry for help speeding up intelligence exploitation and understanding.
The 32 NATO allies “bring a wealth of intelligence and security capability to the alliance,” Scott Bray, NATO assistant secretary general for intelligence and security, said May 7 at the 2024 GEOINT Symposium here. “We actually share quite well.”
Given the flood of information on Russia, Ukraine and “so many other issues, ultimately what we need is more capacity for rapid exploitation and sense-making of that intelligence,” Bray said. “We need to do more partnering with industry in order to enhance our ability to share at the speed that we need.”
Bray invited companies with technology that can help to approach NATO through the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) website.
NATO established DIANA in 2022 to provide innovative companies with expertise, training, funding and commercial advice.
In March, NATO announced plans to double the number of DIANA sites. The alliance is expanding to 20 accelerators and 180 test sites in North America and throughout Europe.
Open Conflict
Bray emphasized the importance of NATO allies working closely with industry in light of fighting between Russia and Ukraine.
“The security environment that we are in today is different,” Bray said. “We’re not talking about great power competition right now in Europe. We’re talking about the fact that there is open conflict in Europe.”
In response, Bray called for extensive integration of NATO allies including the United States and “private industry partners to ensure that our defense industrial capacity and our intelligence industrial capacity is well integrated. That is absolutely essential for peace and stability in our era.”