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New quick-reaction NATO force to stand up next year | Military Times | militarytimes.com
NATO is pushing forward with a new quick-reaction force that will combine the armies of multiple member nations and is intended to serve as a deterrent to Russian aggression.
“None of us is going to do anything by ourselves,” said U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Frederick “Ben” Hodges, who on Thursday relinquished command of NATO Land Command in Izmir, Turkey. “Think about Ukraine. Think about ISIL. Our president spent months trying to build a coalition. We’ve learned that politically, as well as operationally, it makes more sense to do that. You just get so much more capability.”
The force, which officials are calling the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, or VJTF, will likely have 4,000 to 5,000 troops. It’s unclear how many of the U.S. branches will be represented or how many NATO nations will contribute troops.
The goal is for the task force to reach initial operational capability in the fall of 2015 and full operational capability in early 2016, Hodges said.
NATO nations have fought together for the last 13 years in Afghanistan, and as that war comes to a close, the alliance must continue to build on those partnerships and retain the lessons learned from the battlefield, said Hodges and his successor, Lt. Gen. John Nicholson.
“We’re always going to be part of a coalition, if not an alliance,” Hodges said. “That means you’ve got to train and be prepared and do on short notice contingency operations that are going to be multi-national in nature. That’s why interoperability is so important.”
The VJTF is a product of the September NATO summit in Wales.
“The first thing to know about this force is it’s got the unanimous support of all 28 nations, to enable NATO to be even more responsive to any emerging crisis,” Nicholson said.
Allied Command Operations will lead the effort to stand up the force, while Land Command will be a “principle contributor,” he said.
Five service members from Land Command will spend the next two months in Belgium at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, the headquarters of Allied Command Operations, as the alliance develops the task force, Hodges said.
It’s too early to say what capabilities the force will have, Hodges said.
“We’re not talking necessarily an armored brigade or an airborne brigade, although you may need elements of those units,” he said.
The VJTF should have a combination of combat capability but also specialties such as human intelligence collection, information operations and logistics, he said.
“You may have to open up an airfield or airhead,” Hodges said. “If you’re going into a situation where the little green men start to show up, you’ll need [human intelligence]. We’re working to find the right mix of capabilities that you would need for this sort of force.”
It’s also too soon to know where the force will be stationed, or if troops in the force will remain at their home stations but in a ready-to-deploy status.
Those issues are being deliberated at the highest levels of NATO military, and Land Command will provide analysis as to the capabilities and requirements needed to make the VJTF an effective land unit, said Lt. Col. Kone Faulkner, a spokesman for Land Command, in an e-mail to Army Times. NATO’s air and maritime commands are providing similar inputs to the deliberations, he said.
“Once we all provide this input, the [North Atlantic Council] will be briefed, then nations will decide, and finally we will begin training that force,” Faulkner said.
He expected the process to play out “within the coming months.”
In the meantime, Hodges said he expects NATO will task the existing NATO Response Force with some type of interim quick-reaction force “to make sure the alliance has a very high readiness capability.”
When the VJTF is stood up, Hodges said it’s likely that it will become a subset of the NATO Response Force, which is a large, multi-echelon force with air, land and sea components. The NATO Response Force, announced in 2002, can respond to anything from disaster response and humanitarian relief, to stabilization operations and combat operations. Last year, the Army for the first time committed a brigade combat team to the response force.
“Think of the VJTF as the lead element, the spearhead, if you will, of the NATO Response Force,” Hodges said.
The key to the VJTF’s long-term success will be the ability for the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, to exercise and call on the task force, he said.
“To be a very high readiness organization, you have to practice the assembly and departure and go do something,” Hodges said. “This is about deterrence as well as assurance.”
In addition to helping create the VJTF, NATO Land Command continues to build partnerships between NATO land forces.
The command was stood up in 2012, and Hodges was its first commander. Nicholson, who most recently was commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division, will succeed Hodges.
Hodges is slated to take command of U.S. Army Europe.
When Hodges arrived at Land Command in August 2012, there were only about 50 people in the headquarters. Today, it’s grown to almost 350, the number it is authorized. Of those positions, 48 are filled by American troops, 45 of them from the Army. There are two airmen and a Marine serving at Land Command, Hodges said.
Plug and play
Interoperability will remain the command’s top priority, especially as NATO’s International Security Assistance Force transitions from the war in Afghanistan, Hodges and Nicholson said.
“You knew for a year or two out where you were going in Afghanistan,” Hodges said. “You knew you were going to fall in on existing [command and control] structures and communication. It was all set. With the end of ISAF and the shift of the alliance to contingency operations, that means you’ve got to have a much more capable plug-and-play ability.”
He cited as an example soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in Vicenza, Italy. They had less than two weeks’ notice that they were going to be sent to support Operation Atlantic Resolve in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, Hodges said.
In the coming weeks, Nicholson will lead Land Command as it prepares for its final evaluation before it reaches full operational capability.
“That milestone will enable us, then, to command major joint operations, to serve as a land component command over multiple NATO corps,” Nicholson said.
The evaluation exercise, called Trident Lance, will take place in December, and Land Command headquarters will operate with three NATO corps under Joint Force Command-Naples, a four-star command that’s one of two such organizations ready to conduct major joint operations if needed.
Land Command also will continue to work with land forces across the alliance to increase their operational capability, Nicholson said.
This includes evaluating different forces, helping them find and coordinate training events and opportunities, and sending observer/controllers to support training.
The command will serve primarily as the “connective tissue between the nations” as they work toward better interoperability, Nicholson said.
“We’re coming off our nation’s longest war, 13 years, in which we worked very closely with our allies,” he said. “Now as we come out of counter-insurgency operations, as we look to the future, we have to widen our aperture and deal with a variety of different threats out there.”
This could include some capabilities the U.S. and its allies hadn’t faced in Afghanistan, to include integrated air defense systems, heavy mechanized forces, long-range fires capability, and chemical weapons, Nicholson said.
“The alliance is adapting to the challenges of the post-Afghanistan environment,” Nicholson said. “The work on things like the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force is indicative of the fact that we’re leaning into the challenges of the current environment and the future environment and adapting to be able to deal with it.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
US armor back in Europe!
NATO is pushing forward with a new quick-reaction force that will combine the armies of multiple member nations and is intended to serve as a deterrent to Russian aggression.
“None of us is going to do anything by ourselves,” said U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Frederick “Ben” Hodges, who on Thursday relinquished command of NATO Land Command in Izmir, Turkey. “Think about Ukraine. Think about ISIL. Our president spent months trying to build a coalition. We’ve learned that politically, as well as operationally, it makes more sense to do that. You just get so much more capability.”
The force, which officials are calling the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, or VJTF, will likely have 4,000 to 5,000 troops. It’s unclear how many of the U.S. branches will be represented or how many NATO nations will contribute troops.
The goal is for the task force to reach initial operational capability in the fall of 2015 and full operational capability in early 2016, Hodges said.
NATO nations have fought together for the last 13 years in Afghanistan, and as that war comes to a close, the alliance must continue to build on those partnerships and retain the lessons learned from the battlefield, said Hodges and his successor, Lt. Gen. John Nicholson.
“We’re always going to be part of a coalition, if not an alliance,” Hodges said. “That means you’ve got to train and be prepared and do on short notice contingency operations that are going to be multi-national in nature. That’s why interoperability is so important.”
The VJTF is a product of the September NATO summit in Wales.
“The first thing to know about this force is it’s got the unanimous support of all 28 nations, to enable NATO to be even more responsive to any emerging crisis,” Nicholson said.
Allied Command Operations will lead the effort to stand up the force, while Land Command will be a “principle contributor,” he said.
Five service members from Land Command will spend the next two months in Belgium at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, the headquarters of Allied Command Operations, as the alliance develops the task force, Hodges said.
It’s too early to say what capabilities the force will have, Hodges said.
“We’re not talking necessarily an armored brigade or an airborne brigade, although you may need elements of those units,” he said.
The VJTF should have a combination of combat capability but also specialties such as human intelligence collection, information operations and logistics, he said.
“You may have to open up an airfield or airhead,” Hodges said. “If you’re going into a situation where the little green men start to show up, you’ll need [human intelligence]. We’re working to find the right mix of capabilities that you would need for this sort of force.”
It’s also too soon to know where the force will be stationed, or if troops in the force will remain at their home stations but in a ready-to-deploy status.
Those issues are being deliberated at the highest levels of NATO military, and Land Command will provide analysis as to the capabilities and requirements needed to make the VJTF an effective land unit, said Lt. Col. Kone Faulkner, a spokesman for Land Command, in an e-mail to Army Times. NATO’s air and maritime commands are providing similar inputs to the deliberations, he said.
“Once we all provide this input, the [North Atlantic Council] will be briefed, then nations will decide, and finally we will begin training that force,” Faulkner said.
He expected the process to play out “within the coming months.”
In the meantime, Hodges said he expects NATO will task the existing NATO Response Force with some type of interim quick-reaction force “to make sure the alliance has a very high readiness capability.”
When the VJTF is stood up, Hodges said it’s likely that it will become a subset of the NATO Response Force, which is a large, multi-echelon force with air, land and sea components. The NATO Response Force, announced in 2002, can respond to anything from disaster response and humanitarian relief, to stabilization operations and combat operations. Last year, the Army for the first time committed a brigade combat team to the response force.
“Think of the VJTF as the lead element, the spearhead, if you will, of the NATO Response Force,” Hodges said.
The key to the VJTF’s long-term success will be the ability for the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, to exercise and call on the task force, he said.
“To be a very high readiness organization, you have to practice the assembly and departure and go do something,” Hodges said. “This is about deterrence as well as assurance.”
In addition to helping create the VJTF, NATO Land Command continues to build partnerships between NATO land forces.
The command was stood up in 2012, and Hodges was its first commander. Nicholson, who most recently was commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division, will succeed Hodges.
Hodges is slated to take command of U.S. Army Europe.
When Hodges arrived at Land Command in August 2012, there were only about 50 people in the headquarters. Today, it’s grown to almost 350, the number it is authorized. Of those positions, 48 are filled by American troops, 45 of them from the Army. There are two airmen and a Marine serving at Land Command, Hodges said.
Plug and play
Interoperability will remain the command’s top priority, especially as NATO’s International Security Assistance Force transitions from the war in Afghanistan, Hodges and Nicholson said.
“You knew for a year or two out where you were going in Afghanistan,” Hodges said. “You knew you were going to fall in on existing [command and control] structures and communication. It was all set. With the end of ISAF and the shift of the alliance to contingency operations, that means you’ve got to have a much more capable plug-and-play ability.”
He cited as an example soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in Vicenza, Italy. They had less than two weeks’ notice that they were going to be sent to support Operation Atlantic Resolve in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, Hodges said.
In the coming weeks, Nicholson will lead Land Command as it prepares for its final evaluation before it reaches full operational capability.
“That milestone will enable us, then, to command major joint operations, to serve as a land component command over multiple NATO corps,” Nicholson said.
The evaluation exercise, called Trident Lance, will take place in December, and Land Command headquarters will operate with three NATO corps under Joint Force Command-Naples, a four-star command that’s one of two such organizations ready to conduct major joint operations if needed.
Land Command also will continue to work with land forces across the alliance to increase their operational capability, Nicholson said.
This includes evaluating different forces, helping them find and coordinate training events and opportunities, and sending observer/controllers to support training.
The command will serve primarily as the “connective tissue between the nations” as they work toward better interoperability, Nicholson said.
“We’re coming off our nation’s longest war, 13 years, in which we worked very closely with our allies,” he said. “Now as we come out of counter-insurgency operations, as we look to the future, we have to widen our aperture and deal with a variety of different threats out there.”
This could include some capabilities the U.S. and its allies hadn’t faced in Afghanistan, to include integrated air defense systems, heavy mechanized forces, long-range fires capability, and chemical weapons, Nicholson said.
“The alliance is adapting to the challenges of the post-Afghanistan environment,” Nicholson said. “The work on things like the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force is indicative of the fact that we’re leaning into the challenges of the current environment and the future environment and adapting to be able to deal with it.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
US armor back in Europe!
