NATO Command Structure Considerations for the Future W. Bruce Weinrod and Charles L. Barry Center for Technology and National Security Policy National Defense University September 2010 i The views expressed in this article are the authors’ and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. All information and sources for this paper were drawn from unclassified materials. W. Bruce Weinrod, an attorney, served as the Secretary of Defense Representative Europe and Defense Advisor to the U.S. Mission NATO as an appointee of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Mr. Weinrod was also Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy from 1989 until early 1993. He has been a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In his DOD positions, Mr. Weinrod was responsible for NATO-related and bilateral U.S.-European national security matters. He has a JD from the Georgetown University School of Law and an MA in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania. Charles Barry, a Senior Research Fellow at CTNSP and President of Barry Consulting Inc., is a retired Army officer with extensive experience in joint and multinational operations as well as political-military affairs. His areas of study include transatlantic relations, post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction, and U.S. military strategy. He also researches command and control concepts, joint organization interoperability, and network integration. Dr. Barry is a graduate of Loyola University-Chicago and holds a doctorate in Public Administration from the University of Baltimore. Acknowledgments The authors gratefully acknowledge the advice of General (Ret) Bantz Craddock USA, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe, and Vice Admiral (Ret) William Sullivan USN, former U.S. Military Representative to the NATO Military Committee, in reviewing and commenting on early drafts of this paper. We are also grateful to Admiral Mark Fitzgerald, Commander Joint Force Command Naples and U.S. Sixth Fleet, for his perspectives on the NATO command structure. Thanks also are due to Samuel Greene, who assisted with research, writing, and editing. Defense & Technology Papers are published by the National Defense University Center for Technology and National Security Policy, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC. CTNSP publications are available at <http://www.ndu.edu/ctnsp/publications.html>. ii Contents Executive Summary ............................................................................................................ 1 The Enduring Rationale for a NATO Command Structure “Fit for Purpose” .................... 5 History of NATO Command Structure ............................................................................... 8 The 2003 NATO Command Structure .............................................................................. 10 Command Structure Review 2004–2008 .......................................................................... 13 Future Command Structure Reforms—Beyond a New Strategic Concept ....................... 14 Options for a Future ACO................................................................................................. 22 Reforms of the ACT Structure .......................................................................................... 26 Additional Ways to Achieve Efficiencies ......................................................................... 28 Command Structure Geographic Footprint ....................................................................... 31 Interrelationship of NATO Command Structure and the Strategic Concept .................... 32 Next Steps ......................................................................................................................... 34 iii iv Executive Summary This paper explores potential future reforms of the NATO command structure. The intent is to stimulate thought on the current structure’s fit to oversee the forces and operations of a growing array of NATO missions. From capacity building with partners to peace operations, humanitarian assistance, and combat operations, Alliance forces are continuously engaged in multiple theaters. These challenges demand a command structure with organizational flexibility, an agile and competent international staff, highly integrated information systems, and deployable elements to accompany mobile forces for sustained periods of time. The command structure and the interoperable communications and information systems that support it are the sinews that tie together the national and multinational forces of NATO and its partners. They also serve to link those forces to the political direction and decisions of the North Atlantic Council (NAC). The context of the next reform of the command structure is a combination of its history, including earlier reforms, and its current and anticipated future operations. Equally notably are two other factors. One is the need for continuous examination of the command structures alignment to missions, its “fit for purpose.” The other is its affordability in the context of other NATO requirements and the economic environment in which NATO and its members must maintain a viable Alliance. As Alliances go, NATO is the most enduring and most successful in recorded history. Its uniqueness is its permanent command structure, a visible testimony to members and those who might challenge them, that NATO is ready and capable of quick and meaningful response given a political decision to do so. A viable and effective command structure is therefore a part of the essence of NATO and a fundamental rationale for membership. This paper discusses how to think about command structure reform in all its facets. It is a mission-based analysis that assesses the roles of component and joint commands, of ACO and ACT. It offers illustrative options for the future and indicates which of these might better meet NATO’s future requirement in terms of being minimally viable and capable of carrying out core missions. Numbers are presented only as relative references; they are neither the result of detailed organization development analysis or intended as a proposed outcome in terms of sizing a future command structure. The main findings of this study are these: • The command structure, although reduced by far more than half already since the Cold War, can and should be further reduced for efficiency, even if cost were not a factor. However, in this fifth revision since 1990, there is a point not far below the surface where core missions will be endangered by cuts that are too deep in structure or personnel or the failure to fill the positions eventually agreed with quality staffs. • The enduring core purposes of the command structure are two: provide strategic and operational command for all NATO missions, both Article 5 and non-Article 5; and prepare members and partner militaries for operational employment as interoperable multinational forces. Neither of these roles should be substantially shifted to the NATO Force Structure. This risks weakening interoperability because only the command structure provides such crucial functions as: the link to higher Alliance authorities; integrating multinational commitments beyond any given NFS 1 command’s frame of reference; and guiding member militaries toward Alliance-wide transformation and interoperable networking. • A future command structure should have two strategic commands, a minimum number of operational commands and at least one of each type component command under ACO in order to execute essential operational and peacetime missions. • ACT, as the essential second strategic command should remain in the US. However it is already “one deep” in many staff areas and further reductions should be considered with extra caution. • A deployable capability is desirable within the command structure. However, deployability can entail substantial additional investment in equipment, personnel and readiness exercising. Therefore the deployability profile desired at the NCS (three- and four-star) level should be carefully weighed. Rapid deployment is primarily a requirement of the NFS. Related to this, the attempt to provide for NCS deployability through DJSE’s has not worked and should be replaced by a more useful capability. • The level of ambition that relates to the size of the command structure will have to be confirmed or revised. A fundamental of planning is to be ready to take on a second core challenge whenever called on to deal with a first, in order not to risk being taken advantage of if heavily committed, as in Afghanistan. Thus the command structure should be capable of two simultaneous major operations. However, at least some small operations may be an area to share with nations or outside NATO itself, e.g., with the EU. • The geographic dispersion of command structure headquarters is not the most effective approach and is expensive; it has to be overcome or at least limited as a political obstacle to reform in order to ensure a cost-effective command structure. Nonetheless geography can be expected to pose significant challenges, especially if entire regions are seen as left out. Perhaps the U.S. BRAC process is a model for NATO. This study assesses three options for a smaller future ACO structure: one considered optimum and affordable, and a second we judge to be the minimum required even with a lower level of ambition. The final option presented