NATO Military Committee in Chiefs of Defence Session in Brussels

At the highest-level military forum of NATO, the Hungarian delegation is headed by Chief of Defence Gen. Dr. Tibor Benkő. The members of the delegation include Maj.-Gen. László Domján, the military representative at the Office of the Military Representative of Hungary, and the designated staff of the office.

Gen. Dr. Tibor Benkő arrived in Belgium on the day preceding the Military Committee meeting in order to receive reports from the heads of the Office of the Military Representative of Hungary and the national military representative, and to hold discussions with Hungary’s ambassador to NATO and the leaders at Mons and Brussels. In what followed, he held a staff meeting focusing on current issues for the soldiers serving at the NATO Headquarters and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE).

The meeting of the Military Committee is being held in preparation for the Warsaw Summit. Accordingly, an important item on the agenda is the discussion of professional and military issues concerning NATO’s Future Strategy, Posture and Adaptation so that the organization can give quick and decisive responses to the new types of security challenges. The NATO Chiefs of Defence and the partners participating in the Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan are reviewing the tasks carried out so far and set the further directions of mission planning.

In a subsequent session with the Chiefs of Defence from countries of the Mediterranean Dialogue – Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania and Tunisia – the Military Committee will be briefed about the regional security situation and will explore the further possibilities of strengthening military-to-military cooperation. The nations of the region are making significant efforts to contain the terrorist organization called Islamic State that is active in the region, and many of these nations are starting points of the migration pressure on Europe.

Another important topic of the meeting concerns how NATO as an Alliance can be involved in responding to these challenges, and the roles it may assume in the fight against the Islamic State, the migration crisis and terrorism. The Chiefs of Defence will review the operational challenges of the current strategic environment, exchange views and formulate guidelines for increasing the availability and effectiveness of forces. The Military Committee will end its meeting with analyzing the lessons learned in NATO-led operations over the last 20 years.

Photo: General Staff