NATO Response Force – History in Brief

The NATO Response Force (NRF) is a force that can be tailored to meet the needs of a specific mission and is able to move quickly whenever and wherever it is needed. NATO Heads of State and Government approved the establishment of the NRF at the 2002 Prague Summit. The NRF was inaugurated at HQ JFC Brunssum, 15 October 2003.

The NRF provides a mechanism to generate a high readiness and technologically advanced force package made up of land, air, sea and special force components that can be deployed quickly on operations wherever needed.

Any decision to use the NRF is a consensual political decision, taken on a case by case basis, by all 28 Allies in the North Atlantic Council (NAC).

Objectives

The NRF has to prepare itself for a wide range of tasks. These tasks could include:

Contributing to the preservation of territorial integrity;
A demonstration of force;
Peace support operations;
Disaster relief;
Protection of critical infrastructure;
Security operations;
Embargo operations;
As part of a larger force, initial entry operations.

Organisation

The leadership of the NRF is rotated between NATO's Joint Force Commands - Brunssum and Naples. Joint Force Command Brunssum is in the Standby Command for NRF 2014.

The very high readiness element, known as the Immediate Response Force (IRF) consists of approximately 13,000 personnel; however, there are no limits to the numbers that nations can contribute. Forces held in a Response Forces Pool (RFP) are used depending upon operational commitments at the time. The IRF has:

A brigade-sized land component based on three Battle Groups and their supporting elements;
A maritime component based on NATO's Standing Naval Maritime Groups and Standing Naval Mine Counter Measures Groups;
A combat air and air support component;
Special forces;
Joint Logistic Support Group (JLSG)
A CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear) defence task force.

JFC Brunssum's role

For every rotation, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) will give his specific guidance to the nominated JFC to train, prepare and certify the IRF and the elements designated in the RFP.

The revised NRF construct is built on an operational command and control mechanism that includes: a deployable Joint Task Force HQ (JTF HQ), the IRF with pre-designated forces and the RFP that provides forces, as required.

The JTF HQ was introduced in 2012, aiming to improve the NATO Command Structure by increasing flexibility and deployability.

Some blocks of the JTF HQ (Operational Liaison and Reconnaissance Team (OLRT), Forward Command Element (FCE) and Initial Command Element (ICE)) are required to be ready to move on 48 hours to 30 days notice, and sustain themselves for operations lasting 30 days or longer, if resupplied. In taking forward preparations for NRF 2014 JFC Brunssum will be the first to run the JTF HQ concept, in 2013.

Participation in the NRF is preceded by a six-month NATO exercise programme in order to integrate and standardise the various national contingents.

Generally, nations carry out a pre-training period in preparation for NRF commitments of between 6 - 18 months. Once the overall preparation period has been completed, certified forces are held on stand-by to deploy on operations for 12 months.