COPA Capabilities (COPA CAPA) addresses the Nordic nation’s development plans as well as processes with the aim of identifying areas for capability cooperation.
Based on common needs, COPA CAPA identifies areas of mutual benefit, with the intent of exploring the possibilities of reducing total costs and promoting operational effectiveness.
Within COPA CAPA, a number of high-priority capability areas are subject to deeper studies and common projects. This list over prioritized activities contains those capabilities perceived as giving the greatest potential for cooperation. At the moment the following areas are in focus:
-
Nordic Enhanced Cooperation on Air Surveillance (NORECAS) - Common Nordic Air Situational Picture system.
-
Counter-UAS - A project seeking for effective solutions to counter the increasing threat from Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS).
-
Cyber Defence - A permanent working group with the aim to enhance Nordic cooperation on cyber defence.
-
Swarming Technologies - A study group to identify increased operational effect or potential cost savings through coordination and/or sharing information as well as combined procurement or manufacturing within networking of autonomous systems.
-
Ground Anti Access Area Denial (GA2AD) - A project looking into systems which can deny free use of areas and affect an attacker with minimum risk for own soldiers.
-
Artificial Intelligence - The working group focusing on finding possibilities for Nordic co-operation in AI.
-
Space activities: A project to explore how space aspects could be incorporated into NORDEFCO activities, also taking into consideration the potential for cost-sharing and common utilization of space services.
Activities within COPA CAPA are normally the result of comparison of study or development plans between the countries. The activities may span over several years. To achieve substantial economic gains, the key is to cooperate from the first steps in the process, including harmonizing capability requirements. There is a close link between COPA CAPA and other cooperation areas, since commonly developed capabilities provide a basis for combining education, training, exercises, armaments, logistics and, if decided, for combined contributions to operations.