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.
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