North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Command Operations
October 30, 2013
LAND FORCES – CONNECTING THE ALLIANCE AND OUR PARTNERS
“From the Cockpit”
Phil Breedlove
General, USAF
Supreme Allied Commander, Europe
Commander, U.S. European Command
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”
- Spanish philosopher George Santayana, circa 1905
I’ve used the quote above before and it bears repeating as we again enter a time of transition for our forces and mission. Military historians have cited many examples of great powers adapting too slowly, or not at all, to changes in military affairs. This is why I am adamant that the Alliance must overcome obstacles, including the current economic and political conditions, to ensure we successfully complete the ISAF mission in Afghanistan and transition to the Resolute Support Mission.
We also have an obligation to heed the hard-earned lessons from our past 12-years of operating together and continue to improve the cohesiveness we have created as a coalition. Our land forces – in particular – must maintain the ability to work together in a multinational joint environment as we evolve from a deployed, expeditionary Alliance to a ready and robust contingency Alliance.
In early October I met and spoke with land force commanders and deputies from 35 Allied and partner European nations and we agreed we need to keep collaborating and broadening our cooperative security. We also agreed exercising our capabilities in NATO is the best vehicle by which our armies can maintain their tactical and technical proficiency and edge.
At this conference I charged Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the commander of the new Allied Land Command (LANDCOM) Headquarters in Izmir, Turkey, with the responsibility of ensuring land force readiness and improving land force interoperability among Alliance members and partners. I have every confidence that he will lead effectively to make this happen.
With Steadfast Jazz 2013 beginning this week in Latvia and Poland, we will reach a culmination point for the NATO Response Force exercises that will certify the land force components and commanders from Joint Force Command Brunssum and the Rapid Reaction Corps-France.
Steadfast Jazz is NATO’s largest live fire exercise this year and as we move forward we will increase the scale and complexity of these training efforts to keep our skills sharp as more operational forces currently committed to other theaters become available.
The core of our strength is our ability to jointly conduct operations in any domain – land, sea, air and cyber. To be successful in each of these areas, every individual within our Alliance must be imbued with a teamwork ethos and mindful of the adage that we are only as strong as our weakest member.
Therefore we will exercise as we would deploy for any contingency using a joint, multinational, multi-echelon framework. And just as NATO is approaching defense in a “smart” way by sharing capabilities, we will approach exercises in a cost-effective, common sense manner by designing exercise scenarios and sequences to challenge all of our forces in order to achieve maximum effect.
We cannot depend on a single nation, a single service or a single capability to secure our future. We must all contribute what we can so NATO forces arrive for an operation ready to win in any domain. We have a very proud history in NATO. Our success lies not in our past but rather in our present and future as we find new ways to ensure our collective defense is able to secure our interests at home or abroad.
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