NATO’s Land Command Headquarters in İzmir passed a critical milestone over the weekend. With its 350 personnel from 23 different countries LANDCOM reached its initial operational capability almost three months ahead of its schedule. During our visit to the headquarters in the western province of İzmir, Lt. Gen. Frederick Ben Hodges, the Commander of LANDCOM told CNN Türk exclusively what will the face of the new NATO be, and why NATO would not allow Chinese missiles into its system.

“Think of the new NATO as software 3.0” Hodges said. “The 1.0 version was the cold war version. After the Soviet Union collapsed, with the 2.0 version NATO for the first time in its history went out of its traditional area to places like Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan and somewhat Libya. Now with the 3.0 version we are talking about a much smaller, much leaner organization. . . .”

When in full capability, the İzmir Headquarters will be able to connect all other Land forces, training areas, schools and exercises from one central Command on a communications infrastructure, making it one of the three main Command Headquarters of NATO, with AIRCOM in Germany and MARCOM in Great Britain.

Image: SACEUR General Phil Breedlove at LANDCOM, July 9, 2013 (photo: Adj. Edouard Bocquet/NATO)