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NATO Response Force

The NATO Response Force (NRF) is a highly ready and technologically advanced force made up of land, air, sea and special forces components that the Alliance can deploy quickly wherever needed. It is capable of performing missions worldwide across the whole spectrum of operations. These include evacuations, disaster management, counterterrorism, and acting as ‘an initial entry force' for larger, follow-on forces. Ever since the first Gulf War, the United States has sought to transform NATO's military forces into high-technology conventional forces with as many interoperable elements as possible. At the same time, NATO has sought to develop additional out-of-area and power-projection capabilities - many again modeled on US capabilities. The NATO Response Force is the symbol of such intention. More broadly, both efforts have reflected the feeling that NATO must find a new, post-Cold War rationale based on new missions and new capabilities to match.

As of present, the NRF has only been used 5 separate times (2004 Athens Olympic Games, elections in Iraq, humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, humanitarian assistance following Hurricane Katrina, and humanitarian relief following the earthquake in Pakistan in 2006). However, as NATO seeks to reform itself and adapt to a mission that is more suited to both asymmetrical warfare and humanitarian outreach, the NRF is, according to Gen. John Craddock ( former Supreme Allied Commander Europe), an “agile and flexible force which ... is crucial to the health and success of our alliance in the coming years. As a key element of our NATO military culture, the NRF can enable the alliance to better meet threats to security and stability in the 21st century.”

Read more about NATO Response Force on NATO's website here.

Here is a very useful Q&A from NATO concerning the "nuts and bolts" of NRF.

Colonel G.J. Kanis (Royal Netherlands Army) and Commander M.R. van Ettinger (Royal Netherlands Navy) wrote an assessment of NRF's operational capabilities.

In the RUSI Journal, Mark Joyce wrote about NRF in the context of larger NATO transformation and transatlantic discourse.

NRF JOINT EXERCISES:

Loyal Jewel 09 -- Allied Command Operations sponsored NATO Response Force (NRF) exercise, designed to serve as a major step in the training and evaluation of NRF-14 within its certification process.

Noble Midas 08 -- provided training focused on NATO Response Force (NRF) missions to maritime forces that will be allocated to the NRF in 2009 for its 12th rotation, as well as to other NATO maritime forces. The exercise will be the primary tool for the Deputy Commander Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO (DCOMSTRIKFORNATO), Rear Admiral Chris A. Snow, UK Royal Navy  as designated Commander of the Maritime Component of NRF 12, to validate its Task Groups and Task Units staffs as fully interoperable and capable of participating in operations within the full scope of the NRF missions.

Noble Mariner, Noble Award, and Kindred Sword 07 -- was designed to prepare NATO Forces for the real thing, whether it is a humanitarian relief operation, providing a security or assistance force to stabilise a situation, or a crisis response operation requiring the full spectrum of military force. The three exercises took place simultaneously in the North Sea, Kattegat, Danish Straits and in the Southern Baltic Sea including adjacent Danish, German, Swedish and Polish waters, airspace and land.

Steady Jaguar 06 --designed to demonstrate the capability of the NATO Response Force and prove its viability, outside the normal geographic area of influence of alliance countries.

Essential Documents & Analyses