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Sten Rynning, Associate Professor
University of Southern Denmark
## email not listed ##
January 2005
Paper for 45th Annual ISA Convention, March 1-5, 2005
First draft: do not cite or quote
NATO’s Response Force:
Origins, Design, and Durability
NATO’s new Response Force represents not only a cutting-edge projection force but the
reinvigoration of the Alliance’s commitment to force planning. This is new because the
commitment had withered in the post-Cold War era. We detect this change in two notable respects.
First, the NRF is indicative of a general willingness to support the idea of force projection into
zones of (potential) hostility, and it thus represents NATO’s move beyond hitherto reigning
disputes concerning war fighting capabilities in out-of-area missions and the specialization of high
and low intensity units along national lines. Today, the allies agree that they must all possess a rapid
reaction and projectable high intensity force, however small or big, and that NATO is the best
vehicle for realizing it. Moreover, the NRF is a tailored and small force intended to transform
operational concepts – making allied forces better at joint warfare. This stands in marked contrast to
Cold War-type force planning focused on the entire force structure of the allies: then, force planning
was unwieldy and reformative at best (non-transformative); today, it is focused and transformative.
We have reason to be puzzled if we judge by the standards of the literature on NATO. NATO is an
outdated organization unsuited to do anything of real consequence in a diffuse strategic
environment – marked by the absence of a clear strategic threat – according to neo-realists.
1
One
neo-realist does concede a rationale in terms of US grand strategy: NATO survives because it is an
effective instrument in the US design for European security affairs.
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In light of the NRF is of course
nonsensical to argue that NATO is effectively dead if the allies collectively invest in a new planning
regime that by design will involve considerable costs. But is the NRF then the outcome of US
designs for Europe? The US plays a key role behind the NRF but the argument fails to consider the
fact that the European allies in 1999 created a force planning mechanism in the European Union and
in 2000 rejected the US proposal for a planning regime encompassing NATO and the EU: if the
European allies were willing and able to challenge US policy in 1999-2000, why do they support
US policy in 2002 and beyond? An answer requires a more sophisticated analysis than a mere
reference to US power.
Other scholars concede a different rationale related to institutional dynamics: NATO lost a strategic
purpose in the early 1990s but contained sufficient secondary interests in the shape of
1
John J. Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War,” International Security 15/1
(Summer 1990), pp. 5-56; Kenneth N. Waltz, “The Emerging Structure of International Politics,” International Security
18/2 (Fall 1993).
2
Kenneth N. Waltz, “Structural Realism after the Cold War,” International Security 25/1 (Summer 2000).
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