NATO's Combined Joint Task Force Concept--Viable Tiger or a Paper Dragon

摘要

Today, a new strategic environment confronts the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its member nations. In order to address the challenges posed by this new environment, NATO developed a new strategy emphasizing political and military means to achieve Alliance objectives. While Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty remains the cornerstone of the Alliance, a new emphasis was placed on maintaining stability throughout Europe and, if necessary, conducting 'out-of-area' operations aimed at enhancing European security. In order to accomplish this broad goal of European security, NATO developed several new external and internal programs. One of these new concepts is the Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF). Proposed in October 1994, the CJTF concept was viewed as a means of establishing NATO contingency capability while also providing a genuine European military capability that was 'separable, but not separate' from NATO's existing military structure. In theory, this hybrid would combine the best of both coalition and alliance forces into a trained multinational force capable of rapid flexible crisis response. This monograph assesses whether the 'theoretical' CJTF matches reality and can serve as a viable operational command and control (C2) structure for the achievement of NATO's political and operational goals. In order to address this question, the monograph first considers the evolving strategic and operational environment in which NATO now finds itself. This analysis highlights the change in the strategic environment that has forced NATO to focus on 'out-of-area' operations and the need for the capabilities embodied within the CJTF. Subsequently, an analysis of the CJTF concept, along with U.S. joint doctrine as it pertains to combined operations, provides evaluation criteria necessary for examining the viability of the CJTF concept at the strategic and operational levels.