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NATO’s Two Strategic Commands Help Field SINBAD to Assess Commercial Monitoring for the Alliance [1]

['Paolo Giordano']

Date: 2026-05-12 21:41:32+00:00

ACT’s role in this case has been to help bring the pilot into use quickly and support the Alliance in assessing what the market can already provide. The emphasis is on understanding whether the models, alerts, and monitoring functions are useful in practice and whether they help fill a real capability need in a way that is sustainable and relevant.

Developed with the operational community

Although ACT supported the rapid acquisition and implementation effort, SINBAD has been shaped in close coordination with the operational community from the beginning. Allied Command Operations (ACO), as the owner of the operational requirement, has played a central role in helping guide the effort, lead the user community, and inform how the capability is evaluated in practice.

That collaborative approach is important because it keeps the pilot tied to operational need rather than technology for its own sake. The capability has been introduced across a broad user community so that training, feedback, and practical experience can inform what happens next. That helps ensure that future decisions are based on real user input and not only on technical promise.

A broader lesson for the Alliance

The wider significance of SINBAD is that it shows one way NATO can assess existing commercial solutions in a more practical and timely way. In some cases, the challenge is not inventing something new. It is determining whether an existing capability can contribute meaningfully to Alliance needs and how it might best be used.

This also aligns with NATO’s broader direction in space. The Alliance’s Commercial Space Strategy calls for faster integration of commercial solutions, closer engagement with industry, and better use of commercial capabilities to inform operational and defence planning. In that context, SINBAD provides a practical example of how that approach can begin to take shape through a user-focused pilot.

This kind of monitoring is increasingly important in today’s security environment because visible military activity is often preceded by earlier indicators, including changes in logistics, infrastructure, supply movement, or port activity. Commercial satellite imagery and analytics can help users detect those developments earlier and build a clearer picture of what may be changing over time.

This matters because the commercial sector is moving quickly, especially in areas linked to data, sensing, and analytics. For NATO, that creates an opportunity to learn faster from existing commercial services rather than relying only on lengthy bespoke development. The Alliance must make use of that opportunity in a disciplined way by identifying what exists, testing it against real requirements, and determining whether it deserves a longer-term place in NATO’s approach.

From pilot to informed decision-making

Seen in that light, SINBAD is best understood as a pilot that helps the Alliance learn. It offers a way to examine how commercial monitoring tools might support indications and warning, situational awareness, and broader understanding of activity across areas of interest. Just as importantly, it gives NATO a practical basis for judging what such tools can realistically contribute.

The main point is not simply that a capability was delivered quickly. It is that the Alliance now has a practical means to assess an existing commercial service in a real user environment and use that experience to inform future decisions.

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[1] Url: https://www.act.nato.int/article/act-aco-help-field-sinbad/

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