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The NATO Response
Force 2002–2006
Innovation by the Atlantic Alliance



Case Studies in National Security Transformation
Number 1
Richard Kugler
December 2006











Sponsored by the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
Forces Transformation and Resources

Prepared by the Center for Technology and National Security Policy
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official
policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the
. Government. All information and sources for this paper were drawn from
unclassified materials.

Dr. Richard L. Kugler is a consultant to the Center for Technology and National
Security Policy. His specialty is . defense strategy, global security affairs, and NATO.
He advises senior echelons of the Office of Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, and the
munity. An operations research analyst and political scientist, he holds a
. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Introduction

Is the North Atlantic anization (NATO) capable of transforming so that it can
be an effective military alliance in the early 21st century? Critics often deride the Atlantic
Alliance as incapable of transformational innovations because of its political, military,
technological, and budgetary constraints. Yet NATO’s often cumbersome track record
contains at least one recent departure that, most critics would concede, is an important
innovation because it promises to strengthen the Alliance’s capacity to perform new
missions outside Europe. This departure is the creation of the NATO Response Force
(NRF), a wholly new NATO force for expeditionary operations that was proposed in late
2002 and came into being in the relatively short span of four years; it is scheduled to
reach full operational capability (FOC) in late 2006.

The NRF is planned to be a