Interview With VADM P. BEDET (RNLN)

[Lex]

VICE ADM. PIM BEDET
Deputy Commander, NATO's Allied Maritime Component Command Northwood

Posted 03/05/07 12:00

NATO's Maritime Component Command (MCC), organized under the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, is building better cooperation and information exchanges between NATO members and non-NATO navies, including Russian naval forces.
The two MCC headquarters — in Northwood, England, and Naples, Italy — direct training, support, deployment and operational commitments of NATO's four standing maritime forces in the Atlantic and Mediterranean theaters, and recently have added capabilities to direct and coordinate international responses to natural disasters and crises.
Dutch Vice Adm. Pim Bedet, a surface warfare officer and the Dutch Navy's former director of equipment procurement and logistics, was appointed deputy commander at MCC Northwood in April. He visited Washington earlier this year to discuss international efforts to build maritime situational awareness.
Q. What does the U.S. Navy's Thousand-Ship Navy concept mean to you?
A. From the NATO perspective, it talks to building an awareness picture of "the other side." And it means better interoperability among units combined in any joint way.
NATO is working on interoperability and we're improving, but it is not easy. Maybe it gets easier than a big country like the United States. But when you are with 26 countries, it's more complicated because you have to get everyone, step-by-step, on track and on board.
Q. A Russian frigate operated last year with NATO's Operation Active Endeavor in the Mediterranean. How did that go?
A. Good. I was not directly involved, but from what I heard, it worked, and that is a big step forward.
Q. What changes would you like to see in NATO operations?
A. We have challenges, we have no problems.
We have a high standard of interoperability, but we can improve that.
By the time you have more countries in place, you have the challenge of some countries going forward with ten times the speed, and you have countries who haven't got the budget to do all that in one, two or five years. So, the coherence of the organization is very, very important and you have to make steps forward with all countries. That is the challenge.
Our headquarters is on one side working on situational awareness, and on the other side we have our maritime staff, who trains with a big connection with NATO'S response forces. That is the aim of the game in our headquarters.
Q. What areas of concern do you see evolving over the next two to three years?
A. You see the discussion on tighter budgets. Getting enough in budgets to achieve what you want to achieve.
Also I see the environmental thing. The relevance of the maritime environment getting more important, particularly in the security environment of the energy supply.
Q. Recently, the Canadian Navy canceled the participation of three of its warships in exercises with your NATO squadron out of Halifax. Are constrained budgets becoming a factor in your operations?
A. They're always a factor. It is a constant fight for budget but that's a fact of life. The issue is to get the arguments right in order to convince people that we need budgets to exercise, to sail, to do operations.
Having said that, it's a constant discussion of getting capabilities in, having exercises somewhere. Is the budget available? Can it be done? How many units can we put in there? What is the ambition level? And what can we achieve? That's a constant struggle.
And I think it's not just the maritime part; it's a question that we have defensewide. It's a question we have in every country. It's the question we have in NATO. We have certain budgets and we have to do many things ... get it right, squeeze it in.
Q. How are the new Baltic members of NATO doing?
A. Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania — I think they do very well. They concentrate on small parts of the whole spectrum; for example, mine warfare.
Q. A number of European countries have been reorganizing their military forces over the past few years — consolidating operations, becoming more joint and becoming more expeditionary. Can you cite examples of nations that are playing different roles today than the were four or five years ago? Are they focusing on particular missions?
A. Difficult question. What we need are capabilities, and there we have to concentrate on one of the areas.
When you look at the Netherlands, you see their reduction in multipurpose frigates. Instead of that, you see coming up craft that are less capable, not multifunctional — but covering a certain area in the spectrum. We have had the first landing platform dock ship in service for ten years, and the second landing platform dock is now on trials and will be in service shortly.
The Netherlands also is a good example of the amphibious part. We have now completely integrated the Marines and the Navy.
Q. Are NATO's standing naval task forces reorganizing to have more joint expeditionary capability?
A. Yes, they are. If you would look at the package of the NATO Response Forces, there is the expeditionary package as you described it. It's in there so that when the button is pushed it's activated and those capabilities will be made available.
Q. Would you like an LPD amphibious ship to be assigned to one of the standing naval forces?
A. No, that is not on the table. But are we ready to do that? Are we exercising that? The answer on that question is yes, we have a number of exercises in order to be prepared for the capability. We exercise with the LPDs in bigger exercises every year to be relevant with that capability.
Q. The Dutch frigate Tromp recently took part in ballistic missile defense tests in the Pacific. What's NATO's part in Europe's sea-based ballistic missile defense effort?
A. Let's take it step by step. NATO is involved in taking steps forward in ballistic missile defense. With the Tromp and the Netherlands, the step that has been taken is feasibility. The answer on that is yes, it is feasible. The second question is: Is it desirable? And that question has not been formally answered.
What has been decided is if we can see and identify the missile with our search radar? Can And that has been done in Hawaii last December. I think we surprised some countries. We were not surprised. We knew she could do it.
Q. So there's a BMD role for non-Aegis ships?
A. Yes. [An idea] that came out of the NATO air defense group was to combine a big volume-search radar with a phased-array radar and get away from the separate radar dishes. So, the next step is the involvement of air defense systems that are now on board the German F124 and the Netherlands' De Zeven Provincien-class frigates.
Q. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer's term as NATO's secretary-general was recently extended. What does it mean for a small country like the Netherlands to continue with that level of leadership in NATO?
A. It's very inspiring and it's good. And it's a message to other countries in NATO.
Q. Does it say something about the quality of the Dutch leadership?
A. You say so. Let other people form an opinion on that. I think he's doing a very good job.
Q. The Netherlands recently downsized and decommissioned two older missile frigates and the six 1990s-era M-class frigates. Four already have gone to Chile and in December an agreement was reached to transfer another two to Belgium. What does that mean for Chile and Belgium?
A. We had to reduce the number of frigates in the Netherlands. One of my [previous] responsibilities was to sell the frigates. It was a very sad process, and it's still very emotional.
On the other hand, it was very positive because Chile is a country with a small but very high-quality navy, and I think the ships are in good hands there. Professionally, it was very rewarding to look at how they handled ships, how they prepared, and I had a very good relationship with my counterpart in Chile.
It's a whole process in which you have to deliver every item on the ship at a certain level, step by step you have to go through the process.
I think Chile is very happy with the way we handled the process on our side. We in the Netherlands are quite happy with the Chilean Navy because we are convinced those ships are in good hands.
We sold two frigates to Belgium and they will be within our task group. We work together all the time. •

By Christopher P. Cavas in Washington.