Title: Strengthening Transatlantic Security. A U.S. Strategy for the 21st Century - Chapter V: The Role of U.S. Military Forces in Europe

CHAPTER V: THE ROLE OF U.S. MILITARY FORCES IN EUROPE

U.S. military forces continue to play critical roles in Europe. They are one of the essential instruments by which the United States makes manifest its continued commitment to the security of Europe. They underwrite America's national strategy of engagement and protect vital interests and lines of communication in Europe and beyond. These stationed forces-combined with frequent temporary deployments of U.S.-based personnel for exercise, training, and crisis response purposes- ensure that the United States will always have the means to meet its treaty commitments to NATO. They also underscore our national will to deter or defeat aggression and prevail in crisis management operations, since we will not place our service members in harm's way without giving them the means and authorities necessary to defend themselves and accomplish their assigned mission.

In addition to their role as security guarantors within Europe, U.S. military units based in Europe are often the first to react to emerging crises in Africa, the Middle East, and the Persian Gulf. In their day-to-day non-crisis operations, our stationed forces play a key role in sustaining and improving bilateral security ties with, and the military capabilities of, both Allies and Partners.


Shaping the Security Environment



USEUCOM plays a vital role in shaping the international security environment. Through thousands of multilateral and bilateral engagement activities every year (ranging from field exercises and training missions to military education courses at the Marshall Center), USEUCOM helps Allies and Partners improve their military skills and capabilities. In conjunction with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, USEUCOM has worked closely with several Partners in the region to conduct in-depth Defense Assessments and Defense Planning Exchanges. These assessments and exchanges assist the Partners in developing: a coherent national defense strategy compatible with those of NATO members; the force structure, personnel, and infrastructure systems necessary to support that strategy; and a realistic time-phased plan to accomplish priority objectives within an affordable defense budget. Through the Foreign Military Financing, International Military Education and Training, and Foreign Military Sales programs managed by DoD, USEUCOM assists nations to meet critical shortfalls in training and equipment, and to focus on and improve the quality of life of their military personnel. Through its administration of Warsaw Initiative Funds, USEUCOM provides needed support to Partner countries that otherwise would not be able to participate in certain PfP activities and exercises. USEUCOM's engagement activities remain an important element of our long-term strategy to strengthen transatlantic security through building cooperative relationships between the United States and European militaries (13). They produce impressive dividends for a relatively modest investment in resources, and contribute directly to our ability to work effectively with Allies and Partners in military missions ranging from humanitarian relief to crisis response operations such as Kosovo. The precise nature of these engagement activities, however, must be sufficiently flexible to accommodate a diverse and evolving set of requirements and opportunities. For example, by virtue of their greater capabilities and continuing political, economic, or security ties to former overseas possessions, certain Allies might be more willing than others to cooperate with USEUCOM on Small Scale Contingency operations within the USEUCOM Area of Responsibility outside Europe. Joint training exercises will serve to improve our capability to work together in such instances. They also will improve our Allies' capabilities to act without U.S. combat or combat-support assistance, but in ways that still serve our common security interests. Similarly, some Partners will progress faster than others in accomplishing needed military reforms and restructuring. Our future engagement plans must be flexible enough to allow us to redirect resources, when necessary, to those who need them the most and have demonstrated an ability to use them most effectively.

United States European Command in brief The U.S. military presence in Europe is organized under the unified combatant command known as the U.S. European Command (USEUCOM). Under the Commander in Chief, U.S. European Command (USCINCEUR), USEUCOM is responsible for planning and conducting all military operations and military engagement activities within an "Area of Responsibility" (AOR) that stretches from the North Cape of Norway to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa-an expanse of nearly 14 million square miles that includes 91 countries and territories and more than one billion people. Another 9 countries and territories fall within USEUCOM's "area of interest," because of possible USEUCOM participation in operations, including engagement exercises, involving those countries. Since 1995, roughly 100,000 military personnel have been assigned to USEUCOM. This total necessarily has fluctuated as a result of operational requirements, including naval deployments. USEUCOM's current forces include: 65,000 U.S. Army personnel. Headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany, U.S. Army Europe (USAREUR) commands the Army's major heavy combatant force in Europe, which includes 6 tank and 6 mechanized infantry battalions, 2 aviation brigades, artillery and other support units. In addition, USEUCOM maintains a quick reaction force, comprised of a light infantry battalion and aviation assets, as part of the Southern European Task Force headquartered in Vicenza, Italy. 34,000 U.S. Air Force personnel. Headquartered in Ramstein, Germany, U.S. Air Forces Europe (USAFE) has operational control over air assets based principally in Germany, the UK, Italy, and Turkey. These include combat aircraft for the full range of air-to-air and air-to-ground missions, and "force multiplier" aircraft for air-to-air refueling, transport, and command, control, and surveillance. 22,000 U.S. Navy personnel. Headquartered in London, U.S. Naval Forces Europe (NAVEUR) commands more than 8,000 personnel stationed throughout the EUCOM AOR, and an additional 14,000 personnel who are forward deployed on more than 30 ships in the Mediterranean. 3900 U.S. Marine Corps personnel. Headquartered in Boeblingen, Germany, U.S. Marine Forces Europe (MARFOREUR) provides forces to various joint task forces in the EUCOM AOR, including a Fleet Antiterrorism Support Team in Naples, Italy. 1400 U.S. Special Operations Forces. Headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, U.S. Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR) commands units based in Germany, Spain, and the UK, and provides USEUCOM with the capability to insert appropriate forces for any level of conflict/operation.


[See Figure 1]


Crisis Response and Smaller-Scale Contingency (SSC) Operations

While maintaining its capability to fight and win a major conflict, USEUCOM must simultaneously adapt its forces to respond to the evolving security environment. In this regard, the future spectrum of USEUCOM operations likely will be just as wide-ranging as that of the past several years. For example, in its most significant combat operation to date, USEUCOM provided over 25,000 U.S. military personnel to support NATO's Operation Allied Force (and related humanitarian efforts in Albania and Macedonia) during the 1999 conflict with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia over Kosovo. As of July 2000, USEUCOM provided some 5,700 of the 6,200 U.S. military personnel in KFOR and another 155 of the 4,600 U.S. military personnel in the ongoing SFOR mission in Bosnia. USEUCOM personnel also have played a key role in Operation Northern Watch, which enforces (with the cooperation of the UK and Turkey) the Northern No-Fly Zone over Iraq and monitors Iraqi compliance with applicable UN Security Council resolutions. Lastly, in Africa and the Middle East, USEUCOM personnel have been committed to a wide range of demanding and time-sensitive SSCs, including Noncombatant Evacuation Operations and humanitarian relief missions (14).

The number of USEUCOM operations has increased by a factor of 20 over the past decade. An important goal of U.S. national security strategy is to reduce the number and scope of such operational commitments through a combination of crisis prevention tools and long-term diplomatic, economic, and humanitarian efforts. Hard experience and prudence dictate, however, that USEUCOM remain prepared to respond to such operational challenges when they do occur.

At the same time, the anticipated continued demand for USEUCOM involvement in a range of crisis response and SSC operations does not mean that USEUCOM should develop two sets of forces-one to deal with collective defense and another to deal other contingencies. Many capabilities required for crisis response and SSC operations are similar or identical to those required for fighting and winning major theater wars. Moreover, because of the range and unpredictability of crisis response and SSC operations, U.S. forces must be multi-mission capable. This capability can be maintained only if our forces are equipped, trained, and led with multiple mission responsibilities in mind. Finally, given its unique and vital role in ensuring European defense and supporting U.S. force projection in the Middle East and Persian Gulf region, USEUCOM must be capable of withdrawing from crisis response and SSC operations, reconstituting its forces, and then deploying to a major theater war within required timelines.


Deterrence and Collective Defense

USEUCOM's readiness and capabilities will allow it to respond more quickly than U.S.-based conventional forces to any threat to, or from within, the region-thereby demonstrating America's commitment to deter and, if necessary, defeat adversaries without ceding the loss of any NATO territory. Through its sustained peacetime engagement and regular exercises with Allied militaries, USEUCOM also will reinforce deterrence by warning any potential aggressor to expect to be confronted not just by the United States, but by the formidable additional capabilities of a large and effective Allied coalition.

U.S. conventional capabilities to deter and, if necessary, fight and win a major conflict in the European region do not depend solely on USEUCOM's combat ready forces and their ability to fight in coalition with our Allies. USEUCOM's command, control, communications, intelligence, and logistics infrastructure-including pre-positioned equipment and stocks on land and ships-can be and have been used to receive and deploy reinforcements rapidly from the United States. Our strategy calls for preserving and enhancing, where necessary, our ability to anticipate any crisis and to quickly reinforce and sustain additional forces in Europe. USEUCOM's infrastructure also provides significant support to U.S. capabilities to fight and win a major theater war in Southwest Asia-as demonstrated during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990-91.

In addition to its formidable conventional capabilities to respond to any aggression directed against NATO, the United States maintains non-strategic nuclear weapons, under highly secure conditions, at storage sites in several NATO countries. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States, in consultation with its Allies, has dramatically reduced the numbers and types of U.S. non-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe. For example, all nuclear artillery and ground-launched short-range nuclear missiles have been eliminated. Together with Allies, we also have modified the readiness criteria for forces with a nuclear role and terminated standing peacetime nuclear contingency plans (15).

The fundamental purpose of U.S. nuclear forces based in Europe is-and will remain-to preserve peace and prevent coercion. They provide an essential political and military link between the European and North American members of the Alliance, as well as linkage to U.S. strategic nuclear systems. They make the risks of aggression against NATO incalculable and unacceptable in a way that conventional forces alone cannot. The participation of non-nuclear Allies in NATO's nuclear posture demonstrates Alliance solidarity, determination, and willingness to share the risks and responsibilities of collective defense. The circumstances in which any use of nuclear weapons might have to be contemplated by NATO are extremely remote, but prudent security planning dictates that we maintain an appropriate mix of conventional and nuclear capabilities for the foreseeable future.




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13. USEUCOM's engagement activities can significantly affect countries outside its AOR. For example, USEUCOM, working in coordination with Turkey (a NATO Ally), supports U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) engagement programs with states in the Central Asia region. For other examples of U.S. involvement in multilateral engagement efforts, see chapter V.
14. For specific examples, see Sub-Saharan Africa section.
15. The UK and France maintain independent nuclear forces. Like the United States, they have reduced the size of their respective nuclear forces since the end of the Cold War.