WEU Colloquy "European Defence and Security Identity" Madrid, 5 May 1998

Multinational Forces and their relations with NATO and WEU by General Manuel OLIVER, First Deputy to the Commander, European Corps, Strasbourg Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. During the next few minutes I will present my views on "multinational forces as well as their relations with NATO and WEU" in order to provoke a the debate on the subject. First of all, I would like to say some words about the important geo-political changes that have taken place in Europe during the nineties, as they had a great influence on today's defence and security policies. Afterwards, I will briefly present some information about the seven European multinational formations, and before coming to a final conclusion, I will comment some special features of those formations and their relations with NATO and WEU. 1. Introduction After the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, the break-down of the former Soviet Union, which dominated the communist bloc, and the appearance of different regional conflicts, the European nations had to reconsider their defence and security policies in order to face the new situation and their new responsibilities, specially on crisis management. To be able to accomplish the new missions, every national as well as the European defence policies, should take into account the new geo-strategic environment, threats and challenges appeared at the end of this century and those foreseen for the coming years. All these geo-political changes had great influence on the role of the two major defence organisations in Europe, WEU and NATO. In relation to NATO, we have to remind that the Alliance Strategic Concept adopted in 1991, is being reviewed and adapted, and most probably during the NATO's 50th anniversary in April 1999, a new strategic concept will be approved. This new concept will present to the organisation the basis to perform the whole range of roles and missions for the next future. The recently agreed military command structure of the NATO, and notably the "Combined Joint Task Force" concept, appeared in 1994, have improved the principles of forces employment by admitting the building up or creation of mobile and flexible multinational formations to fulfil the new missions, and to complete, or even substitute, the former main defence forces oriented to the Allies's common defence. In relation to the WEU, we have to agree that during the last couple of years this organisation has considerably developed its military structure. The already existing Planning Cell, which provides advice to the Permanent Council, is going to be restructured. Following the decision taken by the Ministers in May 97, a military committee, similar to NATO's will be established. It will consist of the Chiefs of Defence Staff who will be represented, in permanent session, by the Military Delegates. The permanent Chairman, a 3-Star General/Flag Officer, will also be the Director of the WEU Military Staff, comprising: the supporting staff; the Planning Cell with a 1-Star Officer as Director and the Situation Center. The military committee will become the senior military authority, and will be responsible to the WEU Council for the general conduct of WEU,s military affairs. We can state that the military aspects of WEU,s operational capability are well on track. WEU does has several different characteristics from NATO thus making it an interesting alternative for crisis management missions. Its close relationship with the European Union opens the prospect of WEU's military actions being integrated with the diplomatic, the political and the economic instruments of the Union for a true multi-dimensional crisis strategy. 2. Multinational Forces All the previously mentioned changes, the well accepted need of a common defence and security policies, and the reductions on defence budgets in our nations, have developed to the creation of different bi- or multinational formations capable of accomplishing the new missions. At the moment, seven of these formations exist in Europe. All of them have been declared as forces answerable to WEU, and by the means of other different arrangements, could also be engaged under NATO command or control. The first multinational formation I will speak about is the European Corps, to which five nations have assigned military units. Belgium contributes with its 1st Mechanised Division, France with the 1er Division Blinde, Germany with the 10th Panzerdivision, Luxembourg with a reconnaissance company, and Spain with its 1st Mechanised Division. In addition, the French-German Brigade and the 42nd French Signal Regiment are, even in peacetime, subordinated under OPCOM of the Eurocorps Commander. The Operational Command of the Divisions will always remain under each national authority, whilst the Operational Control for a specific mission will be given to the General Commander of the Eurocorps after the transfer of authority. With its headquarters located in Strasbourg, the Eurocorps has been declared operational in November 1995. In addition to its staff, with a personnel strength of 370, an airforce representation and a navy liaison team are attached to allow the Corps to plan and to conduct joint operations. Although its priority missions will be accomplished in the benefit of WEU, the European Corps has also an agreement to be employed with NATO. Another multinational formation is the United Kingdom/Netherlands Amphibious Force, with a strength of about 6.000 men, this force is available for military tasks under WEU and NATO auspices. It has the entity of a reinforced Infantry Brigade, and consists of the 3rd British Cdo Bde stationed in PLYMOUTH and the 1st Netherlands Marine Corps Bn located in DOORN. This landing force is a rapidly deployable unit, which could operate autonomously, being its primary missions of the amphibious warfare type. The Multinational Division Centre with its headquarters in MONCHENGLADBACH (Germany) consists of four Brigades, which are the Belgian Para Commando Brigade in LEUVEN, the German 315th Luftlande Brigade in OLDENBURG, the 11th Netherlands Airmobile Brigade in ARNHEIM and the 24th UK Airmobile Brigade in COLCHESTER. The two first-mentioned brigades are airborne whereas the two latter ones are both airmobile. This light Division has a greater mobility than other heavier formations. It is primarily a NATO assigned formation. The Operational Command is under SACEUR, through the ARRC, but the MNDC could be subordinated under Operational Control of a WEU Operations Headquarters. The Headquarters of EUROFOR was declared operational in November 1997. The Rapid Deployment Euroforce (EUROFOR) is a division-level multinational force comprising units from France, Italy, Portugal and Spain, and operates under the control of an interministerial committee (CIMIN). The EUROFOR has its headquarters in FLORENCE (Italy), and is equipped with easily deployable light forces characterised by a high degree of availability. A modular system is established to assembly the units as well as to tailor the size of the force to be engaged depending on the mission. EUROFOR will achieve full operational capability next June when the headquarters will deploy, with some of its subordinate units to take part in exercise "EOLO 98" in the Southwest of France. France, Spain, Portugal and Italy also have set up the European Maritime Force (EUROMARFOR). In May 1995, EUROMARFOR was declared a force answerable to WEU and would be used in priority in this framework. It is a non-standing, preconfigured and multinational maritime force which have both maritime and amphibious capabilities. Each nation will identify its units periodically, in order to allow the commander to plan and to carry out the tasks he may be assigned. The Force Commander is nominated for a one-year mandate on a rotational basis between the Navies of the four countries. The 1st German/Netherlands Corps was created on the basis of the 1st German Armoured Division in HANNOVER, the 1st Mechanised Netherlands Division in SCHAARBERGEN and the binational Brigade Support Group in EIBERGEN (NETHERLANDS). The Corps HQ is located in MUNSTER (GERMANY) and since October 97 may be employed by WEU to accomplish Petersberg tasks. It provides support in the planning and preparation for WEU operations, including the deployment of the appropriate command and control assets. Finally, there exists a Spanish-Italian Amphibious Force. This formation was announced in 1997, and does not imply the building up of a new force, but rather the merging of pre-existing national forces. It is a pre-structured, non-permanent force, whose national amphibious components will retain their operational and organic chains of command. Operations conducted by this formation will be related to Main Defence and Petersberg Missions within the European and NATO framework and as a specialised component of the already existing European and Allied multinational forces. The only permanent element will be a small nucleus of officers, which will be a part of the General Staff of the force of the other country. All those formations serve as an example of what multinationality could perform in a world context in which the conflicts of medium and low intensity are more and more widespread. That shows the necessity to implement in Europe an instrument that could allow her to give an appropriate answer to these conflicts and to carry out the missions stated in Petersberg. 3. Presence within NATO and WEU 3.1- WEU As you know WEU has developed and is already testing the necessary procedures and mechanisms to prepare, to plan and to conduct operations as well as to ensure their political control. Since WEU has neither its own forces nor its own permanent command structures, the member nations have designated the military units as well as the headquarters that could be available to WEU on a case-by-case basis for some specific operations. These "Forces answerable to WEU" (FAWEU) and the above mentioned multinational formations, could be employed to accomplish Petersberg missions. In this context and in order to explain how the different measures are implemented, I would like to mention, as an example, the work done within the Eurocorps. A Memorandum of Understanding develops the general rules and the procedural guidelines applicable to the Eurocorps as a multinational Force Answerable to WEU. It also defines the required close liaisons between the Eurocorps and the WEU Planning Cell, specially on those aspects related to operational plans. Finally it establishes the permanent relations between both Organisations and confirms the fact that the Eurocorps staff planning capability will support the Planning Cell, specially when these Cell has been tasked by the Permanent Council to develop some contingency plans which might involve the Eurocorps. Once the WEU Permanent Council has decided to take action, based on the advice provided by the Military Committee, it also would take the decision on the force mission and composition, on the selection of the Operational Headquarters as well as the Commander and on the nation to nominate the Force Commander. The Council would also designate a Point of Contact to serve as the Operations Commander permanent corespondent at WEU Headquarters. It subsequently would agree the Operations Plan formulated by the Operation Commander, thus exercising in every moment the politico-military control of the operation. Since 1995 the Eurocorps HQ has been and still is developing crises management concepts with two main aspects: the command structure and the generic force structures First a look at the command structure: Within the framework of peace support operation and/or humanitarian missions under a UN or OSCE mandate, the operation command could be assured by either a NATO command or an ad-hoc WEU HQ. In the latter case, the commander EUROCORPS could be appointed as Force Commander. Within the framework of peace enforcement missions, in a medium to high intensity context and conducted as a joint campaign, the Force Commander will in the future most likely be provided by a regional or subregional NATO COMMAND, while the Commanding General EUROCORPS might act as LAND COMPONENT COMMANDER. The Eurocorps command post system is flexible and adapted to the broad variety of our potential missions. The current concept corresponding to the classic partition of the Corps CP in a Main and Rear configuration fully depending on the availability of adequate infrastructure, does no longer satisfy our needs. Therefore, the corps has submitted to the nations a requirement for the shelterisation of parts of its CPs in order to achieve: higher mobility, increased protection, and greater independence of infrastructure. Based on the requirement to be ready for Peace Support Operations and/or humanitarian missions at short notice, the corps has a forward command post called HARPON on the basis of tents. This CP can be ready for deployment by tactical airlift within 72 hours. It has a sustainability of seven days. And now let's take a look at the force structure. As the result of the evaluation of the broad spectrum of crisis management operations and of lessons learned from those operations conducted in and outside Europe, we have developed two generic concepts for the employment of task forces: for crises reaction under Article 5 and for peace support operations in accordance with the chapters VI and/or VII of the United nations Charter, In accordance with the threat environment and the expected intensity of operations they are called: a concept of the Immediate Mechanised Force - Eurocorps acronym "FIM" - for crisis reaction and peace support operations to include peace enforcement missions under chapter VII of the UN Charter and; a concept of the Immediate Light Force - Eurocorps acronym "FIL" - for peace support operations at the lower end of the spectrum or humanitarian operations. Both concepts are agreed upon by the nations. They are living documents tested during and adapted after exercise experiences, such as: CRISEX 96 of WEU for the FIL concept; COBRA 97 for the employment of a FIM in a medium-to-high intensity context. The Immediate Mechanised Force The Commanding General EC is responsible for the FIM and might assume the function of the Land Component Commander. The Force can be build up gradually within 20 to 60 days based upon a nucleus of 5 brigades including the German-French Brigade. If an Immediate Mechanised Force would be employed in mobile operations and within a complex environment the use of divisional Headquarters as an intermediate level of command is provided. Its necessity became evident during our exercise COBRA in Spain. In a dimensioning case, each of the three levels of that Mechanised Force should dispose of their own supporting units which are combat support and combat service support elements. In any such environment joint and combined operations, i.e. air/land battle, have to be prepared. Therefore, the mission driven support by air and sea forces is indispensable far beyond any strategic deployment tasks. The Immediate Light Force Our Immediate Light Force - generically defined based on the requirements of the MC 237 and especially related to the Petersberg missions - could be "ready to move in garrisons" within a few weeks. It is focused on peace support operations in a lower intensity environment. However, a force deployed in or outside Europe must also be able to protect itself and ensure the mission accomplishment if the situation deteriorates. The basic FIL composition is: a nucleus of four combat battalions tailored to the specific mission; the intermediate command between the Land Component Commander and the force deployed will be assured by a brigade HQ - with preference the French/German Brigade, whose staff will then be multinationalized with respect to the participating nations. reinforcing combat, combat support and combat service support units might be appointed during the force generation process as required by the situation. 3.2- NATO NATO, works in a slightly different way. The politico-military guidance and direction for strategic planning to the major NATO Commands will come from the political level at Brussels through the IMS Capabilities Co-ordination Cell. On the other hand, the strategic military level has the responsibility of the Major NATO Commanders and their directives are passed through the Combined Joint Planning Staff to the operational level which awarded to the Combined Joint Task Force or to the deployed WEU headquarters. NATO has recently adopted a new command structure and has elaborated multinational European command arrangements to plan, support , command and conduct WEU-led operations. In this context, the responsibilities of the Deputy SACEUR have been clarified. He has been identified as the principal point of contact between the strategic commands and the WEU, and at the same time, as responsible for co-ordination of NATO planning for the WEU utilising the Combined Joint Planning Staff. He will be a key figure in preparing the transfer of NATO assets and capabilities and he has to be prepared to act as Operations Commander for a WEU led operation. In this case he would receive guidance and orders from the WEU Council and the Military Committee, and he would transmit those to his subordinate Force Commander. As an example, the Eurocorps participating nations signed with NATO, the so-called "SACEUR AGREEMENT" in January 93, which defines the conditions for using the Eurocorps within the Alliance structures. This agreement clearly precises the planification projects, command and control modalities as well as the general guidelines to follow. I would like to highlight the roles and missions of the Eurocorps in the framework of NATO either under direct or indirect command of SACEUR. Within the framework of Main Defence Forces under Article 5 The Eurocorps will be made available to SACEUR for defence operations primarily in the Central Region, specially for an early employment close to the threatened borders. Within the framework of Reaction Forces The Eurocorps is available to SACEUR as a reaction force for any kind of operations throughout his AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY to prevent war or to defend a threatened territory of NATO. In both cases, SACEUR will have the authority to assign the EUROCORPS under OPERATIONAL CONTROL to one of his Subordinated Commanders. In operations NOT covered by Article 5 of the Treaty of Washington, the EUROCORPS can be employed - on a case by case basis - for peace keeping and peace enforcement operations as well as for humanitarian actions in support of other organisations. SACEUR or the Nations can take the initiative to ask for/or to offer the employment of the Corps. In this case, based on political decisions, the operations will be planned and conducted case by case on an "ad-hoc" basis in accordance with some procedures obtained by adaptation of those applied in Art. 5 operations and previously agreed by the Nations. However, the decisions to engage the Corps will always remain under the responsibility of the five member nations. The Eurocorps is indeed a tool at the disposal of our national governments that can only be committed by a consensual, uniform decision after deliberation in the Joint Committee. That is the case of our predominant challenge which is and will be the participation at the new composite SFOR HQ in Sarajevo beginning in June. The initiative for this engagement was taken by the Secretaries of defence and the CHODS of the member nations in January. Early February, we were tasked to study different options to involve the corps in the then Post-SFOR mission. At the end of the study and consultations with the nations the Joint Committee gave the final mandate which could be summarised as follows: First: to ensure a visible and credible participation, Second: to sustain the participation until the end of the mission or for two years, Third: to be involved in the planning process at equal level with other NATO HQ's, Fourth: to reach the maximum contribution of our staff and our HQ Battalion, Fifth: to group our staff personnel with priority within the operation and CIMIC functions. After the manning conference celebrated in Heidelberg the 23rd of April the Eurocorps is going to provide to the SFOR HQ the first contingent which will be sustained trough subsequent rotations: 33 (26 + 7) Officers 43 (20 + 23) NCO's 71 (8 + 63) Soldiers 147 (54 + 93) Total This adds up to 147 personnel of HQ Eurocorps. With this we contribute 37% of NATO HQ and over 16% of the total strength of SFOR HQ. Our preparation is in full swing. The individual training, both national and multinational, has already begun. Special arrangements have been taken to improve the language capabilities. The medical preparation of all personnel is under way and will be finished in time. We are co-ordinating the movements for the coming rotation closely with LANDCENT and the nations. Above all of this, we remain committed, to participate in major exercises in 1999 and we will continue to the greatest possible extent our training program with our divisions and brigades. 4. Advantages/Disadvantages For a multinational formation, the respect to the national subordination of the different units through its normal chain of command, in most of the cases, and the fact to have a double commitment with NATO and WEU, implies not only advantages but also disadvantages. The interoperabiltiy is a key point when speaking about formations consisting of units coming from different armies and nations. The operational procedures, the tactical concepts and even the equipment are very similar, but not exactly the same. That means that an additional effort shall be made in order to carry out the missions successfully. Another difficulty appeared recently concerns to the legal status of the forces and multinational formations. Depending on the mission imposed to them, the negotiations between the international organisation giving the mandate and the national authorities, has to define the legal situation of the units on a case-by-case basis. This process requires every time a great of flexibility and mutual comprehension. Nevertheless, the multinational formations have quite a lot of advantages. Today's world situation demand well trained, and equipped forces disposing of a high degree of mobility and these forces, as everyone knows, are very expensive. The contribution of every member nation to a multinational formation with their elite units and with national funds to the operational budget to face the common costs, reduces considerably the economical burden on each individual nation. Another important fact is the European common defence culture that is being created and implemented through the mutual knowledge and shared responsibilities among the members of armies coming from different nations. This multinational co-operation serves as a catalyst for stability and security. 5. Future The presence of so many different multinational formations doesn't imply a lack of co-ordination among the nations and the international organisations. Every multinational unit has a justified reason to exist and their structure, composition, location, equipment, etc. are focused on the special characteristics of the mission it could receive. The Alliance's offer to place its military forces under the political control and strategic direction of WEU clearly shows the initial steps of an European Security and Defence Identity within NATO that will reinforce the European pillar of the Alliance. In the future, the NATO defence planning process will also consider the capacities needed for European-led operations, through the WEU involvement in the successive phases of the NATO defence planning cycle. All those points, make me personally believe that multinational formations within the framework of NATO and WEU are not just a reality, but, undoubtedly, the right way to facilitate a promising future. Thank you very much for your attention.