AS A YOUNGnaval fighter pilot operating from a French carrier during the Kosovo war in 1999, Lieutenant Pierre Vandier would pore over surveillance photographs developed from celluloid film. Now an admiral, the French officer isNATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, one of the alliance’s two most senior commanders. His job is to work out, among other things, how to useartificial intelligenceand human skill to make sense of the mass of surveillance imagery and data that the alliance collects. He is, in effect, in charge of bringingNATOinto the 21st century.
This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “NATO’s race against Russia”
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