NATO response force withering/EU "Battle Groups"

[MarkOttawa]

Not quite what it was supposed to be, with Afstan as a factor:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL2517373120071025

NOORDWIJK, Netherlands (Reuters) - NATO defense ministers agreed on Thursday to scale down the alliance's ambition to keep a 25,000-strong rapid reaction force on standby, ready to intervene in crises around the world.

The brainchild of former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the NATO Response Force (NRF), was conceived to field troops from a pool of up to 25,000 at five days' notice and was a key part of efforts to revamp the alliance after the Cold War.

The project was a victim of the pressure on NATO members to maintain a 40,000-strong force in Afghanistan [emphsis added], a mission some argue is proof that NATO is in any case revamping its armies to meet far-flung military challenges.

"The number of forces we will have on permanent stand-by will decrease," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told a news conference after talks in the Dutch coastal resort of Noordwijk.

Alliance sources said last month the future of the NRF was in question after allies, including the United States, withdrew earlier pledges of troops or equipment, saying they were needed for operations such as Afghanistan or Kosovo.

NATO military chiefs subsequently suggested a "graduated approach" under which only a much-reduced core of the NRF would survive, with the understanding that national contingents could be quickly added as needed.

De Hoop Scheffer said military chiefs would study how such a core NRF might look, but stressed the move would still allow it to take on the seven original missions -- from evacuations to counter-terrorism -- for which it was originally conceived...

Earlier, in September:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/20/europe/force.php

...analysts said, the future of the Response Force could send a signal to the European Union, which is establishing its own "battle groups" - units of about 1,500 troops that could be sent to a conflict zone within 10 days...

Tomas Valasek, a defense expert at the Center for European Reform, a research institute in London, said: "NATO has a problem that affects the EU as well. There are simply not enough troops. NATO is asking member states to sign up to the Response Force at a time when more troops are needed for Afghanistan. NATO has hit a ceiling. The Response Force is a luxury member states cannot afford."

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has sent 40,000 soldiers to Afghanistan and 17,000 are still in Kosovo [emphasis added], nine years after the alliance deployed troops to the Serbian province. (NATO air forces bombed Serbia to stop Slobodan Milosevic's ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo.)..

When the EU battle groups were launched three years ago, EU and NATO officials denied that the organizations were competing with each other [emphasis added] and said both were affordable.

"The reality is that NATO and the EU are chasing after the same highly skilled soldier and of course the same euro to finance these missions," said Peter Schmidt, a defense analyst at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. "There is now immense strain on the defense plans of NATO and the EU."..

From 2004:

EU backs elite battle group plan
EU defence ministers have agreed plans to create up to nine rapid-reaction battle groups which could be sent to international trouble spots from 2007 [emphasis added].
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3722655.stm

Only two supposedly ready this year:
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/esdp/91624.pdf

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Falange]

Oh man, I published an article on this topic not long ago. But just to keep it short, as I mentioned in other post before the EU is trying to develop its own defence identity, and in order to do that it has to improve its capabilities for force projection. Obviously the European Quick Reaction Force battle groups and the Eurocorps are an important element in this. The problem is how the necessity for troops by both Nato and the EU is seen as a zero sum game. What policy makers have to realize is that these battle groups can be shared by these institutions, specially with all the efforts that are being made to make all the national forces interoperable. Robert E. Hunter makes a strong argument regarding this in hist book ESDP: NATO Companion or Competitor? Unfortunetly he wrote the book right before Iraq and he could not analyze the effect that this variable would have in the Euro-Atlantic relationship. Nevertheless the role that NATO is playing nowdays in the Post cold war era and the ESDP mandate under the Saint Petersberg tasks cleary elucidate that both institutions need to create a organizational synergy in order to expand the defence capabilities of the Euro-Atlantic zone.

 

[Greymatters]

I dont see a problem with reducing the NRF, some of the missions they were given are no longer practical, and others that they could have responded to they didnt due to political foot-dragging.  What role do they play other than a balance for Russia's increased aggression?