Chapter 7. Interoperability Standards Guidance

59. The NISP references Standards from different standardization bodies[5]. In the case of a ratified STANAG, NATO standardization procedures apply. The NISP only references these STANAG’s without displaying the country-specific reservations. The country-specific reservations can be found in the NATO Standardization Office's NATO Standardization Document Database.

60. The Combined Communications Electronics Board (CCEB) nations will use NISP Volume 2 to publish the interoperability standards for the CCEB under the provisions of the NATO-CCEB List of Understandings (LoU)[6].

61. The NISP organizes the standards using the structure of baseline 5.0 of NATO's C3 Taxonomy, as endorsed by the NATO C3 Board per AC/322-D(2021)0021 on “C3 Taxonomy Baseline 5.0” dated 23 September 2021. A graphical representation of this taxonomy is given in the following figure and a description of it can be obtained at: https://tide.act.nato.int/mediawiki/tidepedia/index.php/C3_Taxonomy_Baseline_5. Currently, the standards only address a subset of the services in the taxonomy, mainly services in the group Technical Services. For some standards it is indicated that an appropriate mapping to the C3 Taxonomy could not yet be made.

C3 Taxonomy
Figure 7.1. C3 Taxonomy

62. In principle, NISP only contains or references standards or related documents, which are generally available for NATO/NATO member nations/CCEB.

63. However, a subset of documents may only be available for those nations or organizations, which are joining a specific mission or are members of a special working group. The membership in these activities is outside the scope of NISP.



[5] In case of conflict between any adopted non-NATO standard and relevant NATO standard, the definition of the latter prevails.

[6] References: NATO Letter AC/322(SC/5)L/144 of 18 October 2000, CCEB Letter D/CCEB/WS/1/16 of 9 November 2000, NATO Letter AC/322(SC/5)L/157 of 13 February 2001