NATO's High Readiness Force, the NATO Response force, Facing Declaration of Full Operational Capability 2006

At NATO´s summit in Prague 2002 the Alliance decided to develop a high readiness force that would include land, sea and air elements and be able to deploy quickly to wherever needed in the world. The aim of the NATO Response Force (NRF) is two-fold. Apart from being an operational force of high readiness, the force should also be a catalyst for military transformation within the Alliance and the member states. The report gives a description of the force´s tasks and structure and also analyses to what extent the NRF fulfils the aims the Alliance has set for the force. NATO:s ambition is to declare ful operational capability for the NRF during 2006. This study concludes that the NRF, in the foreseeable future, only can be considered to have full operational capability for a limited set of tasks due to the shortcomings in force generation. Another conclusion is that the process through which the NRF should test new doctrine, concepts and techniques hasn´t been made clear. An explicit link between the Allied Command Transformation and the NRF is yet lacking which reduces the force´s contribution to the transformation of the Alliance´s armed forces. An analysis is made in the report of the reasons behind the shortfalls of the NRF and discusses the future development of the force.