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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been called the most successful military alliance in modern history. Achievements in forestalling Soviet expansion in Europe and in conducting the peace and stability operations in the Balkans demonstrate future utility for the organization. However, NATO is at a crossroads. Terror attacks on Western interests during the last decade were punctuated by the events of September 11, 2001. The former collective defense posture of the Alliance is now challenged both politically and militarily to engage in broader world policy. As a result, NATO politicians and strategic planners are confronted by operational considerations well beyond the bounds of Europe but with serious implications at home.
The transformation into this new era is highlighted by creation of the NATO Response Force (NRF) and the deployment of Allied forces to Afghanistan to command the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The NATO Training Mission-Iraq (NTM-I) represents the most recent test of the organization's resolve and future direction. Still in its infancy, NTM-I provides insight into the Alliance decision process while highlighting implications for future NATO-led, out-of-area operations.
NATO Transforms
The transformation of NATO has progressed rapidly in the 21st century. Beginning in 1999 with the expansion from 16 to the current 26 nations, the Alliance has embarked on ambitious ventures that have tested the resolve of old and new members. In the midst of the expansion (consisting of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic in 1999 and Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia in 2004), members outlined future objectives at the Prague Summit in 2002. There, then-Secretary General Lord George Robertson stated, "NATO must change radically if it is to be effective.... It must modernize or be marginalized." Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), General James Jones, USMC, emphasized the need to move NATO beyond its Cold War thinking of static defense, while capitalizing on its capabilities to shape and influence the 21stcentury security environment: "We have too much capability for the past and not enough capacity for the future."1
To meet the challenge, NATO realigned its command structure from a static, defensive posture embodied in two strategic-level commands, two regional operational-level commands, and several joint subregional commands, to a more streamlined functional structure. The new structure is based in...