The Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Vasko Gjurchinovski, today, gave an address at the closing of the NATO Communicators Conference, which was held for four days in Skopje and was attended by more than 300 participants from the field of strategic NATO communications.
During the address at the final part of the conference, General Gjurchinovski emphasized that as the newest member of NATO, he, as the Chief of the General Staff, as well as the other army leaders, understand and support the importance of strategic communications in the modern security environment.
“NATO’s deterrence and defense strategy must be accompanied by adequate communication within and outside the operational area. Each of us has a role in conducting communication to the domestic public and to allies.
The next thing I want to mention here is the huge importance of something that has changed the picture of the battlefield, and that picture is blurred and cannot be easily recognized, compared to the conventional military operations of the past, in the field of communications. Today, we can elaborate how the information environment is changing as a result of hybrid operations exclusively through lessons from the war in Ukraine,” said General Gjurchinovski, while emphasizing that this is a turning point in this decade in improving the strategic concept of communications, which will highlight the importance of unity in NATO in the achievement of strategic goals.
Addressing the participants of the conference, he emphasized that holding the conference in the Republic of North Macedonia is significant for us not only for acquiring new knowledge and sharing experiences, but also for the opportunity given through this activity as an ally country to present our capacity and readiness for this type of activities.
In addition to General Gjurchinovski, the following also gave an address: Leonora Russell, Public Affairs and Strategic Communication Adviser, who thanked for the excellent organization and successful realization of the conference, Jay Paxton, Chief of the Public Affairs Department at the NATO Operations Command, who gave a brief overview of the activities of the past four days and Jay Jensen, Director of the Communications Division at the NATO High Command in SHAPE, who gave the final conclusions of the conference.
During the conference, activities, challenges and perspectives in this sphere were discussed through several panels and working groups under the leadership of the key persons in the field of strategic communications in NATO.
In recent years, the Ministry of Defense and the Army of the Republic of North Macedonia have been intensively working on developing and improving the capabilities in the field of strategic communications in order to fulfil the requirements according to NATO standards.
The Communicators Conference is the largest communicators’ conference in NATO. It is extremely important for us that this year we were the host country.