The NATO Response Force: Facilitating Coalition Warfare through Technology Transfer and Information Sharing

At the Prague Summit in 2002, NATO Heads of State announced the creation of the NATO Response Force NRF, a relatively small expeditionary force for spearhead operations in out-of-area conflicts. The central concept was to create, over time, an advanced, primarily European force for high-intensity conflicts that would catalyze force transformation and capability acquisition in Europe, promote Transatlantic force interoperability, and provide Europe with out-of-area capabilities and reorient NATO toward out-of-area expeditionary operations. The hope was and is that this type of operational force would help to revitalize the NATO alliance and improve Transatlantic security relations. The NRF is intended to be a transformational force that will serve as an agent of change whereby all the member nations of NATO will be able to bring new technology, capabilities, and concepts of operations into their national forces. The NRF is intended to be fully integrated, i.e., units will be able to fight within the same battle space without regard to national origins. Significantly, this coalition warfighting construct implies the need to fully share information within the Force, something that can only be done if there is a significant level of technical, tactical, and operational inter-operability. The history of recent Transatlantic armaments initiatives suggests that the complex problems associated with such technology and information sharing with the United States could be a significant limiting factor in standing up the NRF, and that new or special approaches should be considered to address these issues. If the NRF is to succeed, then information-sharing and technology transfer issues must be identified, addressed and resolved expeditiously. Hence, this study is primarily an examination of the issues associated with transferring U.S. technology and information needed for standing up such an advanced force for early entry into high-intensity conflicts.