HQ NRDC-ESP

Palacio de Colomina (Cardenal Herrera-CEU University)

Welcome adress by LTG Fernando García-Vaquero

NIEATT 2024 conference

The event was attended by more than 100 participants, including civilians and military personnel from 27 countries, all of them professionals in the information environment. It is worth mentioning the presence of personnel from NATO, the European External Action Service, the European Union, the United States Command in Europe, the United Nations, military personnel from various countries, as well as representatives from the academic and business worlds.

From May 6 to 10, the NATO Meeting on the Information Environment Assessment and Strategic Communication activities took place at the Palacio de Colomina, headquarters of the Business School of the Cardenal Herrera-CEU University.

This type of meeting is held annually, and for Valencia it is the third of its kind in recent years.

The event was organized by NATO Headquarters, based in Brussels, the Supreme Allied Command Europe (SHAPE), located in Mons (Belgium) and the Allied Command Transformation, based in Norfolk (Virginia, United States). The NATO Rapid Deployable Corps Headquarters Spain (HQ NRDC-ESP) based in Bétera (Valencia, Spain) hosted the event, which was also supported by the Spanish Army General Staff.

The event consisted of two parts. In the first part, a working group formed by different specialists developed the ideas on how to transmit and give relevance to Strategic Communication, within the framework of NATO military operations. The procedures and tools available to carry out the assessment of the information environment were also presented.

The second part was dedicated to the capabilities and procedures at the tactical level, presenting the model being developed by the HQ NRDC-ESP in collaboration with the Valencian Universities.

The opening day was attended by Lieutenant General Fernando García-Vaquero Pradal, commander of HQ NRDC-ESP, and Ms. Marie-Doha Besancenot, Assistant Secretary General, Public Diplomacy Division, NATO HQ. Both welcomed all participants.

Those attending the event had the opportunity to make a cultural visit to the most emblematic monuments of the city, such as the Serranos Towers, Roman ruins of the Archaeological Center of the Almoina or the Lonja de la Seda (monument declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site). All this, sponsored by the City Council of Valencia.

Spain, a benchmark in innovation in the field of information for Alliance members.

In current contexts, strategic communication plays a fundamental role, highlighting the crucial importance of the cognitive domain, since it allows us to understand what really exists in the minds of all the actors involved in the operations, how they react and how they behave according to their perception of reality, which does not always coincide with the objective reality.

The HQ NRDC-ESP is one of the ten corps entity headquarters of the NATO Force Structure, being a reference in everything related to the assessment of the information environment. This requires constant adaptation to new security challenges within the Alliance.