Marine General James Mattis has just taken command of U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFC) and NATO's Allied Command Transformation (ACT). For someone who led the Marines into Afghanistan six years ago, fought his way to Baghdad commanding the 1st Marine Division in 2003, and just left command of I Marine Expeditionary Force overseeing Marines from the east coast of Africa to the west coast of America, his new job in Norfolk would seem a walk in the park. But it is not.
In his JFC hat, Mattis is responsible for providing highly trained, capable U.S. forces to the other combatant commanders. His job is also to develop new concepts for combined, joint operations and for experimentation to test new operational concepts; to conduct joint training; and to determine future capabilities for U.S. forces.
As one of NATO's two strategic commanders, Mattis oversees the strategy for transforming NATO's military structure, forces, capability, and doctrine to increase military effectiveness. This entails moving operational concepts from theory to reality; determining the future capabilities that NATO needs; and then persuading the alliance to implement them.
On paper, all of this sounds straightforward. But in practice, Mattis has his work cut out for him. And the IEDs and EFPs he faces are bureaucratically, politically, and operationally as dangerous to success as were the real ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For the United States, the budget-strategy-requirements-force structure imbalances are gargantuan. At some point, the huge increases in funding necessary to sustain a force already overstretched will cease. The built-in pressure for more money to support not only the current force but also the additional 92,000 troops approved by Congress will be explosive.
Choices over balancing capabilities needed to fight both "big" and "small" wars have no easy solution. One reason JFC was created was to move the conceptual and intellectual center of gravity out of Washington in hopes of minimizing bureaucratic and political infighting. Critics can debate how successful that has proven to be. But now Mattis and his command are in the center of the storm that ultimately will determine the future size and shape of our military.
Having shouldered a portion of those responsibilities when he commanded the Marine Corps Combat Development Center and given his extraordinary operational background, Mattis is no stranger to these hazards. But even greater challenges lie in his role as head of Allied Command Transformation.
It can be argued NATO has always been at a crucial crossroads. However, today is especially daunting. NATO was and is a military alliance. When there was a real military threat—the Soviet Union—the need for the alliance was self-evident. Today, while the danger may be as great, it is no longer entirely military in nature. Despite major efforts in 1991 and 1999 to develop a new strategic concept, NATO has never reconciled the dilemma of sustaining a military alliance absent an overt military threat. A new strategic concept is urgently needed. But since all 26 NATO members must approve it, the challenge is severe. Helping to craft this concept will be one of Mattis' most important tasks.
Transformation of the alliance's military capabilities is very much a work in progress. Lip service has not been matched by action, and most member states see little reason to change course if it involves spending more money on defense. And overshadowing NATO is Afghanistan; the alliance has bet its future on its ability to stabilize and secure that country.
Finally, NATO's organizational structure has become sclerotic and a further obstacle to making the alliance more relevant to an environment that requires focus on the broader issue of security than that of military threat.
In what now may seem the halcyon days, when Mattis' predecessors were called Commander-in-Chief Atlantic and Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic, there were always alliance crises and people rightly worried about the Soviet Union. But that world is long gone. Fortunately, Mattis is not only a gifted military commander. He is possibly the most well-read person in uniform—a warrior scholar in the finest sense. In this new job, he will need every one of those assets to counter the metaphorical IEDs and EFPs that lie ahead.