Reforming NATO Force Generation: Progress, Problems and Outstanding Challenges

In June 2004, NATO’s Istanbul Summit Communiqué called for a review of Alliance procedures for mobilizing and deploying national forces for Alliance operations.

‘Force generation’, as this process is known, was widely perceived to have floundered during the early stages of NATO’s command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

In October 2004, RUSI was commissioned to conduct a year-long study and analysis of NATO’s processes and principles of operational force generation. This report is the culmination of that study. Its release has been timed to coincide with NATO’s second annual Global Force Generation Conference (GFGC), and it is designed in part as an interim assessment of the reforms initiated since the first GFGC in November 2004. The report’s recommendations will help shape intra-Alliance discussions on force generation and operational funding as NATO prepares its agenda for the next heads of government summit, provisionally scheduled for November 2006.