Izmir, Turkey. 7
March. 2014 is a strategic tipping point
for NATO. The December end of major
combat operations in Afghanistan is being foreshadowed by the Russian invasion
of Ukraine-Crimea. Ideally, at this
pivotal moment NATO’s September 2014 Wales summit should consider the strategic
and operational future of the Alliance into the 2020s. To that end, I am attending high-level
conferences in Washington, Britain and Paris to consider those issues and will
act as rapporteur for one of those meetings.
It is against that backdrop I have just attended and addressed the Corps
Commanders’ Meeting at Allied Land Command in Izmir, Turkey in support of Lt.
General Hodges and his team. Are NATO corps
ready for the coming challenges?
The basics; NATO has
nine so-called Graduated Readiness Force (Land) (GRF-L) corps. Along with maritime and air forces they are
the beating operational heart of the fighting Alliance – NATO’s hard corps. As such these forces are and will be the
litmus test as to whether the world’s most successful politico-military
alliance is fit for twenty-first century purpose.
They will need to be
fit as the balance of military power is fast shifting east. This week it was announced that China would
increase its defence budget this year by a further 12.2% to $131.57bn, which is
probably some 15-20% below the actual figure.
The ‘fruits’ of Russia’s massive military modernisation programme can be
seen in Ukraine-Crimea in the body armour and equipment being displayed by the
Special and Specialised Forces under General Anatoly Sidorov’s command.
In other words, once
the Afghan dust has cleared NATO leaders will finally have to face a painful
fact; this is the beginning of a new and dangerous strategic age. No longer can the certification and
effectiveness of Alliance forces be measured purely in terms of
counter-terrorism or security force assistance.
The key test will be
the ability of NATO forces to deter, mitigate and if needs be fight at the high-end
of conflict. President Putin invaded
Ukraine-Crimea because he could. In all
likelihood China will re-take Taiwan at some point by force if it can. Soft power and economic sanctions whilst
important will not in and of themselves deter such military adventurism. Indeed, the only way for such military
adventurism to be deterred will be for the Alliance to re-invent itself as a
high-end force that is also effective across a broad conflict spectrum – both fighting
force and partnership force.
And reinvent itself the
Alliance must. First, this is one of
those moments when NATO is looking at what is as close to a strategic blank
sheet as it is possible to get. The end
of major combat operations in Afghanistan will also mark the effective end of
NATO’s almost exclusive focus on stabilisation and reconstruction since
1991. If the West together is to provide
STRATEGIC stabilisation then the Alliance will once again have to become a hard
alliance.
Second, for that to
happen and given the economic backdrop in Europe the way NATO forces are
generated and organised will need to be radically re-thought. The Alliance will need to be at the very
forefront of a new way of armies, air forces and navies working together across
five strategic domains – air, sea, land, cyber and space. Connectivity and interoperability (both actual and intellectual) will be the critical component
of forces that will not so much operate together but operate as one.
So, what is my
assessment of NATO’s corps? There
were two NATOs on show in Izmir - hard corps and soft corps NATO. Some
NATO nations get this and understand the need to re-generate Alliance
deterrent credibility via a high-end force built on deployable strategic headquarters of which the corps
are a key part. Other NATO nations reject this and
continue to emphasise low-level peace support operations and security force
assistance – a kind of strategic Telly Tubbies land. The trouble is that too many of Europe’s political
leaders are also attracted to this fool’s paradise and all too keen to make the false economy of endless defence cuts. It is a kind of
strategic appeasement.
Therefore, NATO leaders must consider two options
urgently. The
preferred option would be a reformed force re-established on corps that are themselves firmly established
on a high-end warfighting capability. To
that end a reform, experimentation, exercising and education development
programme should ideally be put in place now to harmonise force concepts,
structures, capabilities and doctrines. Another option is in effect what exists today – corps that are similar in name only, operating at very different levels of ambition and capability. At present several NATO nations seem profoundly opposed to the idea of high-end reform.
The high-end option
would be defined purely in terms of twenty-first century military strategy with
the focus on achieving a new balance between efficiency and effectiveness. This would see the number of corps reduced
from the current nine to six with all corps able to provide deployed theatre
command and thus rotate seamlessly through crises and conflicts.
if not hard corps NATO will be
comprised of those Allied forces able and capable of taking on high-end
military tasks. Soft corps NATO will be
those forces only able to undertake the less challenging military tasks. Frankly, if that is to be NATO’s reality then
the Alliance should be structured thus and the dangerous pretence ended hat unity of
purpose and effort is anything but a fantasy.
However, there is
another challenge that NATO commanders from SACEUR down need to grip quickly. Experience of the past twelve years of operations
has severely undermined the credibility of European multinational formations in
general and the corps concept in particular. Multinational formations have been
disaggregated to support nationally-led provincial reconstruction teams in
Afghanistan, been broken up to support US headquarters, or remained by and large political fantasy (EU
Battlegroups).
Therefore, for Allied Land Command
or indeed any other NATO command to generate all-important reform momentum the
very case of such formations needs to be remade to political leaders – in terms
of effectiveness AND efficiency.
My sense of the
conference was of good people grappling with big issues and trying to back
engineer grand strategic solutions via the military-strategic backdoor. They will only get so far. What they need is clear
political guidance allied to a renewed requisite level of ambition that properly
prepares NATO forces for the undoubted challenges ahead. Surely that is one lesson of President Putin’s
adventurism – if that is our politicians have the courage to see that.
NATO: hard or
soft corps?
Julian Lindley-French
