NATO's Command Structure Prepares for Shakeup

As NATO allies ponder future missions and the likelihood of new members, a reorganization of the alliance’s long-standing military force structure in now beginning.  In the wake of the U.S. reorganization of its own military command structure to better fight terrorism, U.S. and European officials are now discussing the future of the alliance’s Atlantic commander, Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT).

Although the allies have stated their intent to re-orient their militaries to meet the terrorist threat, there remains some question of how far any reorganization of NATO force structure and command structures will go. 

NATO’s changed requirements, following the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, are fairly obvious.  “Out-of-area” missions, beyond the borders of NATO members, will predominate.  Post-Sept. 11, a large amount of effort will have to be devoted to both antiterrorism efforts within NATO countries and more active antiterrorist operations in far-flung countries. 

This new reality dictates a change in NATO’s command structure to give the alliance more flexibility and the capability to plan and direct missions outside of the alliance’s traditional purview.  The current NATO command structure, with a profusion of joint sub-regional commands based on national headquarters, is not well suited for this new role, despite the fact that NATO has created three Combined Joint Task Force staffs optimized for out-of-area operations.  While area and country-specific sub-regional commands can be eliminated, additional headquarters devoted to planning and leading longer-range operations are now required. 

Already, as a result of the recent U.S. global command structure reshuffle, the commander of the Norfolk-based U.S. Joint Forces Command lost his additional responsibility as SACLANT.  This is because the Joint Forces Command is now to be refocused upon joint training, experimentation, and transformation issues.  However, there is strong U.S. and European support for keeping the SACLANT post with a U.S. four-star (full admiral level) commander in the continental United States.  While no full details of the SACLANT reassignment have been publicized, it appears that the commander of Joint Forces Command is likely to keep a NATO identity as commander of the alliance’s force development and transformation command.  The previous SACLANT maritime defense responsibilities are likely to be shifted under the control of the NATO European commander, based at Casteau, near Mons, Belgium.  A July 2 Defense Department news release gave partial official confirmation of this change.  The press release stated that the United States is prepared to “establish a definitive link between NATO and Joint Forces Command for transformation.”

In addition to the changes underway for SACLANT, it appears that the newly apparent threat of terrorism has prompted re-examination of the rest of NATO’s command structure as well.  This is long overdue, as the structure has not been reassessed since before the three new NATO members, Poland, Hungry, and the Czech Republic, joined the alliance in 1999.

The last review, undertaken while the new members were going through pre-accession procedures, did not take any specific steps to cater for the new needs they would bring. 

Instead, the result was to remove NATO headquarters status from a large number of lowest-level, essentially national, headquarters staffs.  At the same time it increased the number of staffs eligible for NATO common funding.

The review was also affected by the continuing efforts of all members to secure the greatest number of senior staff officer posts for their own nationals, which resulted in over-manned headquarters with surplus posts.  Unfortunately, the desire by allies to keep national posts open is likely to play a role in the new restructuring now starting.

The current reorganization study will start with a clean sheet of paper, and as indicated above, is very likely to abolish the two existing Atlantic and European commands.  All reports say that the new structure will be more functionally than regionally oriented.

In an ideal world this would lead to the slimming of the headquarters structure down to a few staffs focused on rapid deployment.  Such a lean structure would serve NATO’s best interests for the foreseeable future.  However, national political aims will almost certainly lead to a greater headquarters infrastructure than is actually needed.  The question will be how far allies are willing to cut into their own number of posts to create a more efficient NATO structure.

 

By Colin Robinson CDI Research Analyst crobinson@cdi.org

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