摘要：The complexity of mounting operations in a multinational context is enormous. Experience in Libya has underlined some of the more obvious problems – coordination of supply chains, compatibility of refuelling systems, and coherence in gathering and communicating intelligence, as examples. But challenges to effective interoperability have existed within NATO from the start. In theory, communications ought to be seamless, and all systems, hard and soft, should be compatible. But in operations, the seemingly irrelevant kinks and crevices become threats to both internal security and the security of non-combatants. At the basic level of language, establishing and maintaining a shared communication system is fundamental. After more than a half-century in being, and given the new memberships and affiliations in the Alliance, NATO is still wrestling with the issue of language itself. This is not surprising, given that language is the most complex of human behaviours. However, there has been steady progress and increasingly positive results after years of coordinated effort and commitment.
