Interoperability has been a requirement in NATO ever since the Alliance came into being - an obvious requirement when 16 independent Nations agree to allocate national resources for the achievement of a common goal: to maintain peace. With the appearance of data processing in the command and control pro- cess of the armed forces, the requirement for interoperability expanded into the data processing field. Although problems of procedural and operational interoperability had been constantly resolved to some extent as they arose over the years, the introduction of data proces- sing increased...