- Military units and formations of NATO
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The military units and formations of NATO are the operational side of the organization, as determined by treaty. Strategically, NATO is run by three bodies. The decision-making body is the Council of national NATO Permanent Representatives, and the decision-making and legislative process of which is converted into policy by the civilian International Staff that is divided into administrative divisions, offices and other organizations. These policies are produced on advice from the standing committees, of which only five are specifically military in nature.
The executive and operational process is overseen by the Military Committee which commands the forces and also oversees their integration, training and research support. The coordination role between the two is carried out by the Defence Planning Committee which directs its output to the Division of Defence Policy and Planning, a nominally civilian department that works closely with the Military Committee's International Military Staff.[1]
All agencies & organizations are immediately subordinate to the NATO headquarters, but are nominally integrated into either the civilian administrative or military executive roles. For the most part they perform roles and functions that directly or indirectly support the security role of the alliance as a whole.
Contents
Civilian structure
NATO has an extensive civilian structure, including:
- Public Diplomacy Division
- NATO Office of Security (NOS)
- Executive Management
- Division of Political Affairs and Security Policy
- Division of Operations
- Division of Defence Policy and Planning
- Division of Defence Investment
- NATO Office of Resources (NOR)
- NATO Headquarters Consultation, Command and Control Staff (NHQC3S)
- Office of the Financial Controller (FinCon)
- Office of the Chairman of the Senior Resource Board (SRB)
- Office of the Chairman of the Civil and Military Budget Committees (CBC/MBC))
- International Board of Auditors for NATO (IBAN)
- NATO Production and Logistics Organizations (NPLO)
Defence Planning Committee
The Defence Planning Committee (DPC) is normally composed of Permanent Representatives, but meets at the level of Defence Ministers at least twice a year. It deals with most defence matters and subjects related to collective defence planning. In this it serves as a coordinating body between the Civilian and Military organizational bureaucracies of NATO.
Military structures
The second pivotal member of each country's delegation is the Military Representative, a senior officer from each country's armed forces, supported by the International Military Staff. Together the Military Representatives form the Military Committee (MC), a body responsible for recommending to NATO’s political authorities those measures considered necessary for the common defence of the NATO area. Its principal role is to provide direction and advice on military policy and strategy. It provides guidance on military matters to the NATO Strategic Commanders, whose representatives attend its meetings, and is responsible for the overall conduct of the military affairs of the Alliance under the authority of the Council. The current Chairman of the NATO Military Committee is Giampaolo Di Paola of Italy (since 2008).
Like the Council, from time to time the Military Committee also meets at a higher level, namely at the level of Chiefs of Defence, the most senior military officer in each nation's armed forces. Until 2008 the Military Committee excluded France, due to that country's 1966 decision to remove itself from NATO's integrated military structure, which it rejoined in 1995. Until France rejoined NATO, it was not represented on the Defence Planning Committee, and this led to conflicts between it and NATO members. Such was the case in the lead up to Operation Iraqi Freedom.[2] The operational work of the Committee is supported by the International Military Staff.
NATO's military operations are directed by the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, and split into two Strategic Commands both commanded by a senior US officer assisted by a staff drawn from across NATO. The Strategic Commanders are responsible to the Military Committee for the overall direction and conduct of all Alliance military matters within their areas of command.
The Military Committee in turn directs two principal NATO organizations: the Allied Command Operations (ACO) responsible for the strategic, operational and tactical management of combat and combat support forces of the NATO members, and the Allied Command Transformation (ACT) organization responsible for the induction of the new member states' forces into NATO, and NATO forces' research and training capability.[3]
Allied Command Operations
Before 2003 the Strategic Commanders were the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT) but the current arrangement is to separate command responsibility between Allied Command Transformation (ACT), responsible for transformation and training of NATO forces, and Allied Command Operations (ACO), responsible for NATO operations world wide. As a result of post–Cold War restructuring of national forces, intervention in the Balkan conflicts, and subsequent participation in Afghanistan, starting in late 2003 NATO has restructured how it commands and deploys its troops by creating several NATO Rapid Deployable Corps and naval High Readiness Forces (HRFs), which all report to Allied Command Operations.
The commander of Allied Command Operations retained the title "Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR)", and is based in the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) located at Casteau, north of the Belgian city of Mons. This is about 80 km (50 mi) south of NATO’s political headquarters in Brussels. ACO is headed by SACEUR, a US four-star general or admiral with the dual-hatted role of heading US European Command, which is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. SHAPE was in Rocquencourt, west of Paris, until 1966, when French president Charles de Gaulle withdrew French forces from the Atlantic Alliance. NATO's headquarters were then forced to move to Belgium, while many military units had to move.
ACO includes Joint Force Command Brunssum in the Netherlands, Joint Force Command Naples in Italy, and Joint Command Lisbon in Portugal, all multi-national headquarters with many nations represented. JFC Brunssum has its land component, Allied Land Component Command Headquarters Heidelberg at Heidelberg, Germany, its air component at Ramstein in Germany, and its naval component at the Northwood Headquarters in the northwest suburbs of London. JFC Naples has its land component in Madrid, air component at İzmir, Turkey, and naval component in Naples, Italy. It also directs KFOR in Kosovo. JC Lisbon is a smaller HQ with no subordinate commands. Lajes Field, in the Portuguese Azores, is an important transatlantic staging post. A number of NATO Force Structure formations, such as the NATO Rapid Deployable Corps are answerable ultimately to SACEUR either directly or through the component commands. Directly responsible to SACEUR is the NATO Airborne Early Warning Force at NATO Air Base Geilenkirchen in Germany where a jointly funded fleet of E-3 Sentry AWACS airborne radar aircraft is located. The C-17s of the NATO Strategic Airlift Capability, which became fully operational in July 2009, is based at Pápa airfield in Hungary.
Allied Command Transformation
Allied Command Transformation (ACT) is based in the former Allied Command Atlantic headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, United States. Allied Command Atlantic, usually known as Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT), after its commander, became ACT in 2003. It is headed by the Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT), a US four-star general or admiral with the dual-hatted role as commander US Joint Forces Command (COMUSJFCOM). There is also an ACT command element located at SHAPE in Mons, Belgium.
Subordinate ACT organizations include the Joint Warfare Centre (JWC) located in Stavanger, Norway (in the same site as the Norwegian NJHQ); the Joint Force Training Centre (JFTC) in Bydgoszcz, Poland; the Joint Analysis and Lessons Learned Centre (JALLC) in Monsanto, Portugal; and the NATO Undersea Research Centre (NURC),[4] La Spezia, Italy. NURC was the former SACLANT ASW Research Centre.
In June 2009 Le Figaro named the two French officers who will, following France's return to the military command structure, take command of Allied Command Transformation and Joint Command Lisbon.[5]
Canada-US Regional Planning Group
The Canada-US Regional Planning Group (CUSRPG) is the only survivor of the originally five regional planning groups of the late 1940s and early 1950s. All the others were subsumed into Allied Command Europe and Allied Command Atlantic. The NATO Handbook stated in 1990s editions that it was responsible for the defence of the US-Canada area and meets alternatively in Washington and Ottawa. (As such it appears to duplicate, in part, the work of the Permanent Joint Board on Defence.)
Organizations and Agencies
New structure for Agencies
A major reorganization of the NATO Agencies was agreed at a meeting of the defence ministers from NATO's 28 member states on 8 June 2011. The new Agencies' structure will build upon the existing one:[6]
- Headquarters for the NATO Support Agency will be in Capellen Luxembourg (site of the current NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency – NAMSA).
- The NATO Communications and Information Agency Headquarters will be in Brussels, as will the very small staff which will design the new NATO Procurement Agency.
- A new NATO Science and Technology (S&T) Organization will be created before July 2012, consisting of Chief Scientist, a Programme Office for Collaborative S&T, and the NATO Undersea Research Centre (NURC).
- The current NATO Standardization Agency will continue and be subject to review by Spring 2014.
Former structure
Prior to the reorganization, the NATO website listed 43 different agencies and organizations and five project committees/offices as of 15 May 2008.[7] They included:
- Logistics committees, organisations and agencies, including:
- NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency
- Central Europe Pipeline System
- NATO Pipeline System
- Production Logistics organisations, agencies and offices including the NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Agency
- Standardisation organisation, committee, office and agency including the NATO Standardization Agency which also plays an important role in the global arena of standards determination.
- Civil Emergency Planning committees and centre
- Air Traffic Management and Air Defence committees, working groups organisation and centre including the:
- NATO ACCS Management Agency (NACMA), based in Brussels, manages around a hundred persons in charge of the Air Control and Command System (ACCS) due for 2009.
- NATO Programming Centre
- The NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control Programme Management Organisation (NAPMO)
- NATO Consultation, Command and Control Organisation (NC3O)
- NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A),[8] reporting to the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Organization (NC3O). This agency was formed when the SHAPE Technical Centre (STC) in The Hague (Netherlands) merged in 1996 with the NATO Communications and Information Systems Operating and Support Agency (NACISA) based in Brussels (Belgium). The agency comprises around 650 staff, of which around 400 are located in The Hague and 250 in Brussels.
- NATO Communications and Information Systems Services Agency (NCSA), based in Mons (BEL), was established in August 2004 from the former NATO Communications and Information Systems Operating and Support Agency (NACISA).[9]
- NATO Headquarters C3 Staff (NHQC3S), which supports the North Atlantic Council, Military Committee, International Staff, and the International Military Staff.
- NATO Electronic Warfare Advisory Committee (NEWAC)
- Military Committee Meteorological Group (MCMG)
- The Military Oceanography Group (MILOC)
- NATO Research and Technology Organisation (RTO),[10]
- Education and Training college, schools and group
- Project Steering Committees and Project Offices, including:
- Alliance Ground Surveillance Capability Provisional Project Office (AGS/PPO)
- Battlefield Information Collection and Exploitation System (BICES)
- NATO Continuous Acquisition and Life Cycle Support Office (CALS)
- NATO FORACS Office
- Munitions Safety Information Analysis Center (MSIAC)
References
- ^ NATO's Military Committee: focused on operations, capabilities and cooperation [1]
- ^ Fuller, Thomas (18 February 2003). "Reaching accord, EU warns Saddam of his 'last chance'". International Herald Tribune. Archived from the original on 12 October 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20071012115843/http://iht.com/articles/2003/02/18/eu_ed3__1.php. Retrieved 15 July 2007.
- ^ Espen Barth, Eide; Frédéric Bozo (Spring 2005). "Should NATO play a more political role?". Nato Review. NATO. http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2005/issue1/english/debate.html. Retrieved 15 July 2007.
- ^ NURC Home
- ^ (French) LeFigaro.fr, accessed June 2009
- ^ Jorge Benitez, "Details of NATO's new agency structure", NATO Source, 9 June 2011. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
- ^ NATO, Organizations and Agencies, accessed May 2008
- ^ NATO C3 Agency
- ^ NATO Communication and Information Systems Agency
- ^ NATO Research & Technology Organization
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