“That’s right, Sir,” continued Tom Black, recently captain of a Royal Navy Type 23 frigate and now a key player in Hansen’s team. “The UK is deploying an amphibious task group to the Baltic led by our new carrier, Queen Elizabeth. It’s expected to deploy on Wednesday. That means it could link up with the NRF maritime component in due course. If the UK is prepared to wait for it to catch up, that is.”

“Why would they wait?” asked the Turkish Air Force lieutenant colonel, who had recently joined his team from an operational tour on the Syrian border. He spoke excellent English, unlike his Greek army counterpart, who had so far refused to even accept his arrival. The two men from the traditionally belligerent countries were continuing, in customary NATO style, to score points off each other at every opportunity.

“Good question, Erol. Explain please, Tom.”

“Simple. Command and control. For starters, the NRF is commanded by a French admiral, who happens to be senior to the British admiral on Queen Elizabeth. That means there will be questions to sort out about who will command the Task Group when it joins up. Call that one wrong and you can imagine how that will play with the Brits . . . or the French for that matter.” Black shrugged his shoulders.

The others in the room nodded back in understanding. Anyone who had spent any time at NATO knew that, with certain nations at least, the needs of the “flags to post” plot—which nation had which generals in which job—frequently meant messy compromises that made little operational sense.

“The bigger problem, though, is that we need a command-and-control structure in the Baltic as NATO maritime forces arrive and come online up there, and STRIKFORNATO—Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO—is the obvious HQ to send. Queen Elizabeth may not have its designated fighters on deck, maritime-patrol aircraft, or enough naval escorts running dedicated, integrated defense, but that does not mean there are no NATO assets right on hand in the Baltic. Because there are. Plenty of them. Aircraft out of Germany, Poland and Denmark—to say nothing of our partners, Sweden and Finland. The same for anti-sub maritime-patrol aircraft and naval escorts. The Baltic is a positive hive of NATO activity at this very moment. But unless Queen Elizabeth, or a NATO HQ, is getting and controlling all that information they are sending back, and in real time, it is uncoordinated and may count for little.”