NATO

NATO revised its strategic concept in 1991 to reflect the reduced threat of a large east-west military confrontation. The revision called for major changes in NATO's integrated military forces, including reductions in size and readiness; improvements in mobility and deployability for such contingencies as crisis management, search and rescue, and peacekeeping; and greater use of multinational formations. Because of instability in and around the Euro-Atlantic area and the possibility of crises at the periphery of the alliance, the strategic concept was revised again in 1999 to remphasize the need for greater mobility and deployability of forces to meet these potential crises. The United States is able to send troops and equipment over large distances. Many U.S.-European allies, however, do not see the need for this kind of capability because during the Cold War they were planning to fight in place with logistical support provided by fixed facilities and their civilian economies. This report discusses (1) how NATO determines its force requirements and each member's contribution to meeting those requirements and (2) how NATO allies have responded to the need for greater mobility and deployability in their military forces.

GAO noted that: (1) NATO establishes its force goals through an iterative 2-year defense planning process that starts with an analysis of the threat and other NATO missions, such as search and rescue; incorporates political and affordability considerations through multiple negotiations with each country; and ends with the members' defense ministers' adoption of force goals; (2) through this process, NATO commanders and planners identify the forces needed and seek commitments from member countries to develop the forces necessary for the broad range of potential NATO missions; (3) the force planning process differs from the process for generating forces for specific operational missions such as those in Bosnia; (4) although U.S. and NATO officials believe that the planning process is a fair method for distributing the burden of providing for NATO's common defense, the process does not quantify the costs associated with what each country is asked to contribute; (5) as NATO members' forces have become smaller in size and the composition of those forces has changed, NATO allies have become more mobile and deployable as envisioned by the strategic concept; (6) GAO's analysis of 10 indicators for the 13 countries' military forces indicates that each country has acquired specific equipment to increase mobility, and some have reorganized and restructured forces to make them more deployable; and (7) however, the alliance still faces challenges to continue to improve mobility and deployability capabilities.