For nations seeking membership in NATO or a way to help shape European security, the Partnership for Peace program provides a chance to exercise with and learn from other navies.
On 25 May 2000, Croatia joined NATO's Partnership for Peace (PfP) program, bringing the number of partner nations to 26. Of these, 17 are maritime nations that have some form of naval or coastal assets, a fact that may surprise some. Indeed, the Stabilization Force (SFor) activities in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo Force (KFor) operations, where NATO and PfP nations are heavily involved, primarily involve land forces.
So what role do naval forces play in Partnership for Peace? Do they have a role at all in future peace-support operations? And who are the main players on the maritime side? In year seven, PfP still faces some shortfalls, but there have been some successes, too.
The aim of Partnership for Peace, launched in 1994, is to enhance security and stability in Europe. On the military side, this means working to have partner forces be able to operate with those of the North Atlantic Alliance. Areas of potential cooperation include peace-support operations, search and rescue, and humanitarian assistance. Through education, combined planning, training, and exercises, disparate forces strive to achieve interoperability for operations—not only in acting but also in thinking. This is a tremendous challenge, especially considering the different approaches taken by NATO and non-NATO nations during the decades of the Cold War: mission tactics and self-initiative versus order tactics and strict obedience.
The best examples of what Partnership for Peace seeks to achieve are today's operations in Bosnia and Kosovo, where 18 partner nations participate with roughly 9,100 personnel. Forces there work under an integrated command structure and operate using the same procedures and a common language, English. These are exactly the challenges the partnership program faces for the future: multiservice, multinational, interoperable, compatible operations.
Seventeen maritime players now are partners in PfP. They are all different in geography and also in maritime traditions and culture. Most important, they are all very different in their capabilities, both maritime and economic. From the northwest to the southeast, there are four major geographical groupings. In the North Sea/Baltic area there are Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and northern Russia. In the Mediterranean there are the three small navies of Slovenia, Croatia, and Albania. Further east, in the Black Sea, are the navies of Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Romania. And finally there are the nations bordering the Caspian Sea: Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan.
All of these partners have specific needs, and they all have different aspirations and expectations with regard to Partnership for Peace and NATO. For some, PfP is a stepping stone to membership in the NATO alliance; for others it is just a way to be involved in shaping European security; and for Russia, it probably is a way to keep an eye on things. Diversity, therefore, is the key when it comes to developing the Partnership Work Program (PWP) and its activities and offerings.
The two main players in maritime PfP on the NATO side are the strategic commands, Allied Command Europe (ACE) and Allied Command Atlantic (ACLant). They organize and host the NATO/PfP maritime exercises and associated building-block seminars, workshops, and conferences. Although there is no strict distribution of responsibilities, and although ACE has considerable maritime assets available, the joint Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLant) Headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, always has considered itself NATO's maritime expert. Indeed, the current SACLant Headquarters flag structure is almost completely "blue," and 72% of the staff are navy (versus 14% navy in Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers, Europe). All three regional commanders in the ACLant area are admirals. The majority of the ACLant contribution to the PWP is maritime. In addition, SACLant has the lead on such NATO issues as European multinational maritime forces, concept of maritime operations, and sea-based combined joint task force headquarters. The most important feature, however, of SACLant's involvement in PfP is that it guarantees the transatlantic dimension to the PfP program, including the United States and Canada.
Other important players in Partnership for Peace and contributors to the Partnership Work Program are the NATO training group and naval subgroup, the NATO Headquarters command, control, and communications staff and maritime working group, the NATO naval armaments group, and the Military Agency for Standardization with its variety of working groups, such as those for maritime tactical, amphibious warfare, and mine warfare. Most of these agencies are located in NATO Headquarters in Brussels, and their working groups are important tools in helping to bring the partners along the road to interoperability. Their advice on maritime issues is vital to education and training and eventually leads to the NATO/PfP maritime exercises carried out by the two strategic commands.
A unique and prominent NATO player in PfP is the Partnership Coordination Cell (PCC) at Mons. The PCC's main task is to coordinate all military NATO/PfP activities between NATO and the partners, to provide NATO documentation and publications to the partners, and to act as advocate for the partners in NATO. Today there are liaison officers from 23 of the 26 partner nations represented in the PCC. This makes the PCC the most multinational military organization in existence, and therefore ideal for making initial contacts. The PCC also is an excellent forum for educating and informing, for face-toface dialogue, as well as for distributing NATO documents.
In addition to the Partnership for Peace events, many activities take place on a bior multilateral regional basis between NATO navies and partner navies. Two excellent examples come from the Baltic: The U.S. Navy sponsors the annual multilateral BALTOPS exercise, which has become probably the best, most fruitful and innovative exercise with partners on the maritime front. There also is the yearly mine countermeasures exercise Open Spirit, hosted by Germany, during which World War I- and II-era mines and torpedoes have been cleared off the shores of the Baltic states. In spring 2000, the PCC helped distribute to all maritime partners in the Baltic the Baltic Sea Ordnance Pilot. Drafted by the German Navy, this comprehensive book documents what is known about explosive ordnance in the Baltic, and it will serve as the basis for future NATO/partner mine countermeasures operations there. This illustrates that maritime PfP can have real and positive effects on and for the people in the area.
Why Maritime PfP?
In the more land-oriented Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers, Europe, in Mons, this question comes up every now and then. It usually is coupled with a reference to the recent events in Bosnia and Kosovo, where operations have proved the need for land and air forces, but where maritime forces did not and do not play a role.
Past real-world operations as well as recent advanced NATO exercises, however, have shown that naval forces are ideal tools to deal with all kind of crises. During the Gulf War the maritime contribution included the threat of an amphibious landing and missile strikes, embargo, and mine countermeasures operations. Operation Sharp Guard (economic sanction and arms embargo enforcement against the former Yugoslavia) is another example of the effective employment of naval forces, in this instance to control merchant shipping.
In Operation Allied Force (air strikes against Kosovo), both of NATO's Immediate Reaction Forces—Standing Naval Force Mediterranean and Standing Naval Force Atlantic—were integrated and employed in a contingency role. In the campaign itself, naval forces carried out air and missile attacks. Marines embarked in amphibious ships were part of the U.N. Kosovo Force's initial entry force. And afterward, NATO's mine countermeasures forces operated in the Adriatic for 73 days (Operation Allied Harvest) to clear ordnance jettisoned during the campaign.
The Crisis South portion of NATO exercise Strong Resolve '98, to which partners were invited, concentrated on peace-support operations, from peace enforcement to noncombatant evacuation. Contributing to the distinctly maritime flavor of this combined joint exercise, the USS Mount Whitney (LCC-20) served as the sea-based combined joint task force headquarters. Eighty-eight ships participated with some 15,000 personnel, including landing forces. Maritime highlights of the exercise included embargo operations by surface forces, mine countermeasures operations, and landing operations. With the participation of the Romanian destroyer Marasesti, the Polish salvage ship Piast, and the Swedish mine countermeasures command ship Carlskrona, this was an important first for PfP, providing useful lessons learned for both the maritime partners and NATO.
The Situation Today
In 1999, 9 partner nations participated in live exercises and command post exercises, down from 14 in 1998. It is difficult to pinpoint why participation has dropped. For some partners, the exercises might be too challenging, or they might have problems providing an operational unit or finding the money to send it. They simply may not have the funds for fuel (NATO exercises are "pay as you go"). For others, the NATO/PfP exercise goals might not be demanding enough, and so they get more value from national exercises.
One also must acknowledge that the decision to participate in a maritime Partnership for Peace exercise depends on national priorities. In some nations with small budgets, military issues might not be at the top of the national agenda. Or the navy may not play as prominent a role as one of the other services and therefore must compete for scarce budgetary resources.
There are two centers of geographical gravity for maritime PfP: the Baltic and the Black Sea. The Baltic is a busy area for PfP, not only because it is bordered by two very capable and advanced partner navies, Finland and Sweden, but also because Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as aspiring NATO members, are firm believers and participants in PfP. Of course, these young navies have only a very limited number of mainly young naval officers, in one case just 41. Taking into consideration that some officers have to keep the ships and staffs afloat, and some are undergoing training, there are not many left to participate in PfP activities. Nevertheless, maritime PfP in the Baltic is a success story.
The other center of gravity is the Black Sea. The main and most active players here are the navies of Bulgaria and Romania, both very keen to join NATO. They not only participate on a regular basis in the traditional Cooperative Partner exercise, but also host workshops and are faithful participants in other maritime PfP events.
So far, Russia has participated in only one maritime live exercise, BALTOPS '97. NATO, and particularly SACLant, has tried to establish a special relationship with this important navy, which is the only PfP navy capable of carrying out blue-water operations, but results have been poor. The reasons may be part political and part economic. The final blow came with the commencement of the Kosovo operations, when Russia froze its participation in PfP.
With Ukraine it is a slightly different story. Although the nation's financial situation probably is as gloomy as Russia's, there is the clear political will to participate in maritime PfP. That has led, for example, to the personal involvement of President Leonid Kuchma in clearing the way for Cooperative Support '99, a big maritime logistic exercise run by SACLant and hosted in Odessa. The involvement of the president shows an interesting aspect of PfP-in a number of partner nations, the level of decision making is incredibly high, and therefore incredibly slow.
Six Years of Achievements
In the first years of the Partnership for Peace program, NATO planners usually designed an exercise and then offered it to the partner nations for participation. This has changed. Today, partners are involved early in the planning stages, and they also assume important roles during the exercises. For example, the Swedish commander-in-chief fleet was the maritime component commander in the joint PfP exercise Cooperative Jaguar '98, and Bulgaria provided the task group commander for the Turkish and Bulgarian mine countermeasures task group in the Partnership for Peace exercise Cooperative Partner '99.
Lessons also have been learned by NATO regarding exercise structures. A comprehensive preparation phase in harbor should be followed by phases at sea that are not too long and will allow for sufficient time for debriefing, either at anchor or in harbor-so first lessons can be applied immediately and actions corrected during the exercise. Considerable progress was made in BALTOPS. Although this is not a NATO/PfP exercise, over the years BALTOPS has become the most advanced, progressive, and comprehensive exercise for the maritime PfP community. Application of modern automatic data processing technology, use of the Internet for distribution of documents and operation orders, early partner involvement in planning, extensive coverage of maritime warfare areas, and other features make this event a great success.
In 1998, SACLant, with the help of the U.S. Navy Surface Warfare Officers School in Newport, Rhode Island, and the Defense Language Institute, began development of a maritime operational language course. This course is another maritime PfP success, because it not only promotes the English-language maritime knowledge of the participating partner naval officers, but also teaches basic tactical procedures.
Of course, there also are shortfalls in maritime PfP. Even in year seven of PfP, English language remains the main obstacle for interoperability. In a maritime environment this also is a safety issue. Partners need to realize that no English means no interoperability—it is as simple as that. NATO should encourage the partners to do more in this area. During one of the 1999 live exercises, one of the participating PfP units sent a radio signal to the officer in tactical command stating that the English-speaking operator needed some sleep and therefore the ship was leaving the exercise for a couple of hours. There are insufficient communication sets available (PC-to-PC net for hard-copy message transfer; ultra-high frequency devices; LINK 11 systems; crypto and security devices). NATO has a contingency pool of such assets, and sometimes nations make more systems available on a lease basis, but the numbers are never enough. On the other hand, for most partners, it is much too expensive to buy compatible Western-style communications systems for their units.
Other shortfall areas are military information (intelligence) and electronic warfare, NATO/PfP exercises are supposed to pave the ground for real-world peace-support operations with real-world interoperability. Intelligence and electronic warfare are integral elements of operations, and indispensable when it comes to force protection. There is no NATO/PfP intelligence architecture—no procedures, no structures, no formats, no secure communications, no cooperation, and consequently, no interoperability.
On the NATO side, there is a lack in exercise reporting. Sometimes the reports are not forwarded in time, or they are not in the required format and of the right quality, or they are not provided at all, or they are sent to the wrong addressees. Without proper exercise reports it will be difficult to develop proper lessons learned. This points to a general shortfall on the NATO side that is reprehensible: the PfP message has not reached all, and sometimes there is alarming ignorance or noninterest when it comes to PfP facts and issues.
But generally, maritime PfP is on the right track. NATO has started to implement useful lessons learned from the first years that will bear fruit in the future. Equally, partners have had their first experiences and these are being analyzed. Honest, straightforward critiques will help keep us on the right track.
If partner navies are serious about becoming interoperable, they should use as their national documents the publications and procedures from the NATO PfP EXTAC series. This series is a PfPadapted set of the main NATO maritime publications. Communicating in the NATO operational language (English) when at sea also would improve the level of sophistication in maritime PfP. Of course, considering all the recent Washington summit initiatives aimed at "increasing and enhancing" almost everything in PfP, one can only sympathize with the partners, who are overburdened and overchallenged in terms of budgets and personnel. They cannot absorb everything that is offered to them.
NATO took many years to achieve maritime interoperability—and defense budgets were high in those days. Interoperability with our maritime PfP partners will take much longer. What is needed is solid military professional work and time, patience, and dedication.
Captain Vormann was chief of SACLant staff element in the Partnership Coordination Cell in Mons and served in SACLant Headquarters, Norfolk, as a strategic intelligence officer. Since October 2000, he serves as deputy director of the Bundeswehr Office for Studies and Exercises in Waldbroel.