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It is becoming increasingly obvious to nations and Alliance leadership that the multinational land force structures created since 1991 are not well-suited to meet Allied strategy. Three major problems predominate. First, most existing multinational land headquarters and forces were created with a view toward Article 5 missions (collective self-defense) and are unsuited for new missions outside of Article 5 (i.e., peace-support operations). Second, practices under which these headquarters operate do not allow commanders to exercise the command authorities required to prepare their forces for their stated missions, let alone deploy them. Third, there are currently insufficient headquarters and forces capable of supporting the force structure benchmarks established in Ministerial Guidance for force planning. Currently, the Alliance is undertaking a review of its force structure requirements. The eponymous review offers nations a unique opportunity to address some the issues that have led to the current situation where force structure and practices do not adequately support the recently released "Alliance's Strategic Concept" and Ministerial Guidance for force planning. However, for the review to help solve the three problems mentioned above, strict parameters need to be established to ensure that the Review produces the results required to realign multinational headquarters and forces declared to the alliance. In this respect, addressing the problems associated uniquely to multinational land headquarters and declared forces needs to predominate. Land forces are the most difficult to command in a multinational setting given the requirement of their commanders to exercise greater command authority over them than is required by coalition naval and air forces. To this end, the Alliance needs, for the first time, to establish new guidelines under which multinational land headquarters and forces are organized, commanded and operated. It is not sufficient to review only "forces and headquarters," because without an examination of current practices, little in the way of real reform can result. The Strategic Studies Institute has undertaken a study to answer some of the pressing issues examined in this review. As currently organized, the draft study assesses the Force Structure Review to answer the following essential questions: 1. What should be the basis of mission requirements of multinational land forces declared to the Alliance? 2. Is there a level at which national contributions to a multinational land force produce diminishing operational returns? 3. Do current national practices for declaring forces to multinational formations result in mismatches between requirements and capabilities? 4. Where should existing multinational headquarters' roles and missions be changed to improve the Alliance's overall capabilities to meet Ministerial Guidance? 5. Should existing structures be rationalized to create a leaner force structure that better supports Alliance strategy and Ministerial Guidance? Provisional answers to these questions follow: Mission Requirements of Multinational Land Forces. The Force Structure Review should establish the baseline requirement that all multinational land formations declared to the Alliance must be capable of conducting Article 5, collective defense missions. Any move away from this standard might encourage nations to refocus their attention and orientation away from the basis of the Alliance. Moreover, a headquarters and subordinated forces capable of conducting collective self-defense operations also are capable of carrying out peace support operations. What is the lowest appropriate level for multinational land formations? The Alliance should establish more strict guidelines and measures that ensure declared forces are capable of making a contribution to the Alliance's common objectives. In this respect, the suitable depth of multinational formations would be determined by a series of influencing factors, as opposed to arbitrary standards nations are likely to oppose. The factors that determine the smallest size of a land force contribution to a multinational land formation are: 1) size of declared unit, and 2) the command authorities granted by nations to the multinational force commander. Multinational practices requiring review. Many long-standing practices (i.e., the lack of declared combat service support units, insufficient command authorities, and the lack of headquarters "standardization") need to be reviewed to make them more supportive of multinational operations. Changing roles and missions of existing headquarters and forces. Multinational corps in the Central Region were established in the early 1990s with the view of providing nations the ability to operate competently within a corps structure, but with smaller force structures. With the obvious exception of the ARRC, all other multinational corps have an Alliance main defense mission. Notwithstanding the fact that some have the ability to engage in peace support operations, the ARRC remains the Alliance's sole reaction corps. One can discern that Ministerial Guidance for force planning establishes the objective that the Alliance should be able to mount, concurrently, two out-of-area corps-size operations capable of being sustained for up to 2 years, while at the same time mounting a small-scale Article 5 operation. The rationale behind the latter requirement is that although a wide array of main defense corps and divisions could be called up, they may still need to be reinforced by a strategically deployable corps due to problems of intra-regional reinforcement. Indeed, the Alliance can currently field three CJTF headquarters, but has only two suitable land component commands: the ARRC and IRF(L). Defense Requirements Review 1999 considered that a CJTF could consist of up to four divisions, in additional to other air and amphibious assets. Clearly, the force structure must come to terms with this major lacuna in the Alliance's force structure requirements. Options for reform: * ARRC. The ARRC is has a proven record as a reaction force headquarters and is the only one with declared corps CSS. That it remains largely British-dominated is a political weakness that can be overcome by an increase in other corps-sized reaction force headquarters. That said, additional reaction force corps, perforce, should draw upon the current unwieldy 11 divisions declared to it. * V US/II GE corps. The army in Europe that is the best equipped and prepared to conduct reaction force missions is the U.S. Army. However, its corps headquarters, being national, would require the most internal reform. Divisions currently declared to the ARRC could be reassigned to the new corps. * I German/Netherlands Corps. This formation was initially designed for main defense missions and, in effect, to merge the two armies. However, the Royal Netherlands Army is undergoing a significant restructuring and reorganization, the better to enable it to engage in power-projection missions. The German Army has also made great progress in creating crisis reaction forces. Both nations should strongly consider reorienting the headquarters to primarily one as a reaction force. The headquarter's strong adherence to NATO standards and the use of English make it a suitable one under which other nations could assign units should the need arise. * EUROCORPS. This formation offers considerable operational advantages to the Alliance. It includes the French Army which has extensive experience in power projection, but remains equally unfamiliar with basic NATO procedures. On the positive side, effective September 1999, it adopted the use of English as the language for operations. Moreover, it will be much more knowledgeable of NATO procedures after it undertakes later this year a 6-month rotation as the headquarters commanding the NATO force in Kosovo (KFOR). On the minus side, the corps is multi-roled, is not combat ready for use as a reaction force and enjoys, at best, an ambiguous relationship with the Alliance. The way ahead: Nations face considerable challenges in reforming the structures and practices regulating the operation and command of multinational land headquarters. The Force Structure Review offers a unique opportunity for nations to reexamine these problems and lacunae in stated Alliance strategy and Ministerial Guidance on the one hand and current structures and capabilities on the other. On the negative side of the task, nations have traditionally been reluctant to offer up land forces to foreign commanders and national laws make a multinational land force commander's influence over such issues as logistics, challenging at best. However, on the positive side, there is little need for nations to create new forces and headquarters, but rather the need is to reexamine the missionss of current existing headquarters. That said, let there be no doubt that without a fresh review of the practices under which multinational land force commanders currently command their forces to grant them greater authorities, a mere redesignation of headquarters' missions will be for naught. The views expressed in this newsletter are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the DoD, or the U.S. Government. This newsletter is cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited. Strategic Outreach Program 122 Forbes Avenue Carlisle Barracks, PA 17013-5244 Phone: (717) 245-3133, FAX: (717) 245-3734, DSN: 242 E-mail: Outreach@awc.carlisle.army.mil Strategic Studies Institute Home Page: http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usassi/welcome.htm Return to Global Beat Home Page Nuclear Watch | Balkan Conflicts | East Asian Security | EU Integration & Enlargement | Middle East | NATO Expansion | Nuclear Weapons and Proliferation | South Asian Security | U.S. Defense Policy | Publications | Events |Experts Directory | Links Directory | Archive | Search | Mailing List | |
