NATO Expeditionary Operations: Impacts Upon New Members and Partners - Southeastern Europe, Southwest Asia, Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Poland, Hungary, Kosovo

Professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction, this study examines the involvement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in military operations beyond the territories of its members. beginning with the deployments in the Balkans in the mid-1990s. They have posed both challenges and opportunities for the increasingly numerous post-Cold War Alliance partners, a number of whom have since acceded to full membership.

Introduction * Southeastern Europe: NATO's First Steps * Southwest Asia: NATO's New Frontier * Iraq: Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Way Ahead * Implications for NATO Force Planning * Notes * NATO Expeditionary Operations: Impacts Upon New Members and Partners

Broadly, what kinds of lessons have new NATO members and partners drawn from these expeditionary operations? And how have these experiences influenced ongoing efforts aimed at transforming their defense postures?

NATO operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina concluded only at the end of 2004. While building their forces either from Warsaw Pact legacy capabilities or from scratch, NATO aspirants and partners learned that conscript-based forces that had utility for territorial defense had serious limitations for expeditionary operations. These Central and East European governments recognized that they needed rapidly deployable forces with independent logistics and a sufficient cadre of well-trained English-speaking military personnel for effective involvement in peacekeeping and related operations. The Bosnia experience thus became the catalyst for more realistic defense reform among then-NATO aspirants.

Among lessons learned from Kosovo operations (1999-present) by Alliance aspirants was the difficulty of shifting from territorial defense to expeditionary operations, as well as the necessity to make adequate resources available for such operations and to realize their plans to restructure and/or build their forces.