NATO ramps up development of Future Surveillance Capability
On Wednesday (25 February), Allies agreed to move to the next stage in NATO’s ambitious project that will deliver its future-fit surveillance capabilities.
The Alliance Future Surveillance and Control (AFSC) was launched at NATO’s Warsaw Summit in 2016, triggered by the announced retirement of the NATO AWACS in 2035. The initiative aims at redefining how NATO will continue to effectively conduct multi-domain surveillance and tactical control.
The new approach, which was developed after thorough consultations with NATO Allies, the Strategic Commands and industry, consists of a “system of systems”, where NATO, multinational, and national ground, air, maritime and space assets are connected to one another to provide a collaborative, multi-domain surveillance and control capability. AFSC was renamed Alliance Federated Surveillance and Control to reflect this concept.
The first step will focus on the incremental integration of NATO-owned and operated assets – such as the Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) fleet and the successor to the AWACS – as well as multinational and national systems – such as the Alliance Persistent Surveillance from Space (APSS) – into the new AFSC System of Systems. Both legacy and new assets – including unmanned technologies – will be integrated into AFSC. NATO and Allies will work closely with industry to tailor future national and multinational capability developments to the AFSC specific needs in Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) and tactical control.
The AFSC initiative is a NATO-wide effort, governed by the Conference of National Armaments Directors (CNAD). The NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) is responsible for programme management and technical interoperability. NATO’s Strategic Commands provide guidance on military requirements and operational aspects and the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) delivers additional technical expertise.
More detailed information:
Alliance Federated Surveillance and Control (AFSC)
The Alliance Federated Surveillance and Control Complex Armaments Programme will realise an integrated, interoperable, multi-generational System of Systems to meet the Alliance’s surveillance and control challenges in multi-domain operations.
AFSC Evolution
The AFSC Concept Stage was initiated by NATO Heads of State and Government in 2017 to define options for future NATO surveillance and control capabilities. This stage brought together inputs from transatlantic Industry, the Nations and a range of NATO bodies, leading to the establishment of a System of Systems approach to federating NATO and the Nations’ surveillance and tactical control capabilities.
At the beginning of 2026, the Alliance Future Surveillance and Control initiative transitioned into the Realisation Stage. At the same time, the initiative was renamed to the Alliance Federated Surveillance and Control Programme, highlighting that the future AFSC Technical Concept has been agreed by the Allies, and the initiative is now focused on bringing it into realisation to meet NATO’s needs starting from today.
The Realisation Stage encompasses the incremental integration of NATO-owned and operated, as well as multi-national and national systems into one AFSC System of Systems providing a collaborative multi-domain tactical surveillance and control capability, enabled by a mixture of new and legacy assets and a robust tactical data exchange and interoperability architecture.
The AFSC Technical Concept
The AFSC Technical Concept describes an integrated and interoperable System of Systems to support a wide range of operational needs in multiple configurations. AFSC capabilities will be realized incrementally through several NATO, national and multi-national processes.
Approved by the North Atlantic Council in early 2024, the AFSC Technical Concept includes:
- Enhancement and modernization of existing and planned NATO and National AEW&C capabilities.
- Development of Air Surveillance UAVs, Penetrating UAVs, ISR Pods, Communication Pods, and Advanced Autonomy and MUM-T.
- Space-based surveillance services and tactical use of Space.
- Implementation of multi-orbit/multi-band resilient SATCOM services, advanced tactical communications and cloud computing functions.
- Distribution of wide-area surveillance and BMC2 functions over multiple systems integrated through a robust and adaptive ‘Digital Fabric’.
NATO maintains control of the technical baseline and architectures to support the creation of an integrated and interoperable System of Systems (SoS). The definition of a NATO Technical Concept and Architecture for a multi-domain System of Systems represents a significant change in the way the Alliance develops future capabilities. Supported by its technical artefacts and a dedicated systems engineering team, the Technical Concept allows monitoring of baselines and interactions between implementation programmes, supports programme governance and decision making in a wider perspective, supports requirements management and prioritization, avoids duplication of efforts, and facilitates a higher degree of standardization and interoperability.
What’s next?
Realising the full value of a federated surveillance and control capability for NATO means that national and multi-national capability developments in ISR and tactical control will need to consider NATO integration from the outset. Industry and the Nations will be guided by NATO’s dedicated teams to achieve this. New capability developments are also being initiated by NATO to respond to specific requirements.
AFSC CAP Governance, the AFSC Systems Integration Office and NATO’s Strategic Commands will ensure integration and interoperability of new capabilities through requirements, architectures and standards implementation.
AFSC Organisation
A truly NATO-wide effort, governed under NATO’s Complex Armaments Programme Framework, the AFSC Programme will be led by a Steering Board subordinate to the Conference of National Armaments Directors (CNAD) which will be supported by the AFSC SIO hosted at the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) for programme management and technical interoperability, and by NATO’s Strategic Commands for military requirements and operational aspects, both further reinforced by the expertise of the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA).
OCD | 25 February 2026
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