NATO Readies 25,000-Troop Global Strike Force For Action
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Rapid Reaction Corps
October 12, 2012
NATO gives HQ ARRC green light for NRF role in 2013
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An NRF is a coherent, high-readiness, joint, multinational force package of up to 25,000 troops that is technologically advanced, flexible, deployable, interoperable and sustainable. Its role is to act as a stand-alone military force available for rapid deployment as a collective-defense, crisis management or stabilization force, or to act as an initial entry force for a subsequent primary deployment.
“We in the Alliance (NATO) need to be ready to meet the unexpected; we live in an uncertain and dangerous world. The NRF is all about how NATO responds to that by land, air and sea.”
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NATO Response Force inaugurated in Cape Verde, Africa in 2006
NATO announced yesterday that Headquarters, Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (HQ ARRC) is now qualified for duty as part of the NATO Response Force (NRF) in 2013.
The announcement came at the end of a week-long, comprehensive, and often grueling, evaluation completed by a team of NATO military and civilian experts sent to assess the Innsworth-based high-readiness headquarters and determine their readiness to assume their designated role as the Land Component Command, or LCC, within the 2013 NRF.
As an NRF LCC, the ARRC would essentially be in command of all land combat troops on the ground during an NRF deployment.
An NRF is a coherent, high-readiness, joint, multinational force package of up to 25,000 troops that is technologically advanced, flexible, deployable, interoperable and sustainable. Its role is to act as a stand-alone military force available for rapid deployment as a collective-defense, crisis management or stabilization force, or to act as an initial entry force for a subsequent primary deployment.
NATO designates NRFs on a rotating basis, and they traditionally comprise land, air and sea components, volunteered and provided by NATO members.
In the weeks immediately prior to the ARRC’s review by NATO, close to 1000 personnel assigned to the multinational headquarters, as well as their primary two support elements, 1st Signal Brigade and the ARRC Support Battalion, deployed to RAF St. Mawgan, Cornwall, to conduct a training exercise.
Named Exercise Noble Ledger, the two-and-a-half week long training and evaluation event was designed to prepare the ARRC for any potential NRF deployments.
Also participating in the exercise and evaluation was the UK Army’s 16 Air Assault Brigade, a Danish Signal unit, a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CRBN) unit from the Czech Republic, and close to 200 military and civilian personnel from military and civilian organizations around the world.
During the exercise, the ARRC received a visit from NATO’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Sir Richard Shirreff, KCB CBE.
Shirreff is a previous ARRC commander.
“We in the Alliance (NATO) need to be ready to meet the unexpected; we live in an uncertain and dangerous world, “said Shirreff. “The NRF is all about how NATO responds to that by land, air and sea.”
According to Shirreff, the extremely positive evaluation and feedback the ARRC received from the visiting NATO team of experts is critical to the organisation’s future success as the commanding element for any NATO land forces called up as part of the 2013 NRF.
“We know that the ARRC is a ‘premier league’ organisation, ” Shirreff commented. “(This evaluation) means that (the ARRC) has gone through the evaluation process against a pretty demanding set of criteria. We (NATO) now have a command and control capability that is flexible, adaptable, responsive, and can do (any) job we ask of it.”
HQ ARRC is a NATO Rapid Deployment Corps headquarters, founded in 1992 in Germany, and headquartered in Gloucestershire since August 2010.
Although HQ ARRC’s ‘framework nation’ is the United Kingdom, comprising approximately 60% of the overall staff, the ARRC is fully multinational in nature and organization, with 15 Partner Nations contributing the remaining complement of personnel (Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, and the United States).
