1、Occasional PaperThe Future of the NATO Corps Jack Watling and Sean MacFarlandRoyal United Services Institutefor Defence and Security StudiesThe Future of the NATO CorpsJack Watling and Sean MacFarlandRUSI Occasional Paper,January 2021Royal United Services Institutefor Defence and Security StudiesiiT
2、he Future of the NATO Corps190 years of independent thinking on defence and securityThe Royal United Services Institute(RUSI)is the worlds oldest and the UKs leading defence and security think tank.Its mission is to inform,influence and enhance public debate on a safer and more stable world.RUSI is
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4、l independence for 190 years.The Association of the United States Army is a private,non-profit educational organisation that supports Americas Army Regular Army,Army National Guard,Army Reserve,retired soldiers,government civilians,wounded warriors,veterans,concerned citizens and family members.Roya
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6、hed in 2021 by the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivatives 4.0 International Licence.For more information,see.RUSI Occasional Paper,January 2021.ISSN 2397-0286(Online);ISSN 2397-0278(Pri
7、nt).Printed in the US by Master Print.ContentsExecutive Summary vIntroduction 1I.Contextualising the Corps in the Future Operating Environment 7II.The Future Corps 15The Corps in Multi-Domain Operations 15The Corps Role in Multi-Domain Battle 18Corps Responsibilities 20III.Implications for NATO 27A
8、Change in Mindset 30Rationalising NATOs Corps Echelon 32Conclusion 35About the Authors 39Executive SummaryFROM NAPOLEON TO Operation Desert Storm,the corps has been a critical military echelon,fighting at the higher-tactical and operational levels of war.While in the decades following the end of the
9、 Cold War,NATOs attention shifted to counterinsurgency and low-intensity operations,the return of great power competition brings the corps back into focus as a key component to warfighting at scale,and in competition across high-threat,politically complex environments.This paper therefore considers
10、the role of the future corps,the capabilities it will need and the implications for NATO.The increased density of sensors and range and lethality of fires on the future battlefield are trending towards frenetic kinetic engagements.The declining size of land forces,and the increasing complexity of en
11、ablers to get them to the close battle,are rendering tactical engagements increasingly decisive.It is therefore critical for units dedicated to the close fight to be committed in the most favourable circumstances possible,necessitating extensive shaping actions.As increasing ranges of weapons push s
12、ustainment and command-and-control capabilities back,the shaping battle is likely to fall on the corps.The future corps will not simply be a command echelon but will need to be actively engaged in the deep battle to enable victory in the close by its subordinate divisions.It is likely to be engaged
13、throughout its operational depth,and will need a full complement of fires,engineering,sustainment,ISR,intelligence,CBRN(chemical,biological,radiological and nuclear)and political components to operate effectively.Furthermore,while indispensable as the echelon shaping the close battle through deep ef
14、fects,corps must retain sufficient cognitive capacity to maintain awareness of,and fight across,the multi-domain battlespace.This is why many multi-domain capabilities should be held at the highest tactical echelons,because it is there that a commander has the greatest time to understand the battle,
15、while retaining direct touch points to the close battle that they are endeavouring to shape.Multi-domain operations pose a challenge for NATO because the scale and complexity of its constituent capabilities are beyond many members capacities,and risk creating a two-speed alliance.Indeed,the newly re
16、-formed V(US)Corps is likely to operate alongside many NATO structures rather than as a part of them,precisely because its capabilities will not easily plug into systems of multinational formations.Ensuring interoperability must be premised on close working relationships between individuals,able to
17、form bonds of trust and overcome the inevitable gaps in national systems.This is critical if the USs higher echelon capabilities are to benefit from the fidelity of targeting that other members intelligence and contextual understanding can provide.It is also vital in multi-domain shaping during comp
18、etition.NATO currently has 10 corps headquarters in Europe.NATO members have,however,insufficiently resourced the corps echelon,and these headquarters do not exercise regularly viThe Future of the NATO Corpsenough with their subordinate divisions to have built cohesive teams of teams that will be ro
19、bust in war.Indeed,the rapid reaction concept that underpins NATO corps headquarters is likely inappropriate for the challenge now posed by hostile state actors.Instead,corps staffs need to be long prepared.NATO has made some progress in shifting its posture through the regional alignment of Multina
20、tional Corps Northeast and the stepping up of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps to be held at readiness.The NATO deterrence strategy is promising.But there must be a wider shift in the Alliance from measuring inputs to outputs,and rationalising capabilities so that there are fewer but better resourced
21、 and better prepared standing corps with clear responsibilities.IntroductionTHROUGHOUT THE MEDIEVAL and early modern period,an army was a largely unitary entity;it marched and fought on a single battlefield.A commanders most important decision was whether to offer or accept battle.Once engaged,they
22、would have little control beyond the timing of when to open fire with artillery,advance with infantry or unleash cavalry.1 The leve en masse of the 18th century and deployment of vast citizen armies required generals to divide their forces between subordinate commanders,creating divisions.2 It was N
23、apoleon who realised the potential of intermediate levels of command.He divided his Grande Arme into corps darme,which could each march and fight as independent forces.3 This allowed Napoleon to advance his forces along several axes,outmanoeuvre his opponents and confront them from multiple directio
24、ns,enabling defeat in detail.The continuation of divisions,meanwhile,allowed each corps commander to hold portions of their force in reserve,and so exercise greater control as to when their forces were committed.This system of fighting cut through Europe until Napoleons adversaries adopted it,and it
25、 remained largely unchanged until the Second World War.The invention of wireless communication and motorised transport transformed the reach and tempo of operations,4 and enabled command to be maintained at a distance.5 In the era of 1.The advance of command and control is neatly demonstrated in the
26、 three key case studies in John Keegan,The Face of Battle:A Study of Agincourt,Waterloo and the Somme(London:Bodley Head,2014).2.Although first envisioned by Maurice De Saxe,Mes Reveries:Ouvrage Posthume de Maurice Comte de Saxe(Amsterdam:Chez Areste et Merkus,1757)and practised in the Seven Years W
27、ar by Victor-Francois de Broglie(see Russell Frank Weigley,The Age of Battles:The Quest for Decisive Warfare from Breitenfeld to Waterloo Bloomington,IN:Indiana University Press,2004,pp.26365),the divisional structure was formalised by the Committee of Public Safety and thence standardised under the
28、 Directorate.See Rafe Blaufarb,The French Army,1750-1820:Careers,Talent,Merit(Manchester:Manchester University Press,2002),pp.13363.3.Gunther E Rothenberg,The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon(Bloomington,IN:Indiana University Press,1980),p.128.4.Recognised first by the Red Army in its developme
29、nt of the Deep Operations concept.See Peoples Commissariat of Defense of the Soviet Union,Vremennyy Polevoy Ustav RKKA 1936 Provisional Field Regulations for the Red Army 1936(Moscow:Peoples Commissariat of Defence of the USSR,1936).5.Although French armour was superior when compared platform to pla
30、tform(see R H S Stolfi,Equipment for Victory in France,1940,History Vol.55,No.18,1970,pp.120),the widespread adoption of radios allowed German commanders to respond to developments in a coordinated manner and orchestrate air strikes with ground manoeuvre,whereas French forces,once dislocated,could n
31、ot.See Julian Jackson,The Fall of France:The Nazi Invasion of 1940(Oxford:Oxford University Press,2003),pp.21525.2The Future of the NATO Corpsmechanised warfare,the capacity for units to keep fighting was dependent on their supplies of ammunition,fuel6 and situational awareness.7 It also required th
32、e management of reserves and when to rotate units into and out of combat.8 Warfare therefore demanded an interface between the operational level,concerned with supply and resource allocation,and the organisation of tactical formations doing the fighting.9 The corps proved to be the echelon at which
33、this interface was situated,being far enough from the front to be able to look ahead and prioritise resources,while having few enough units under command to keep track of their progress on the battlefield.In mechanised warfare,the boundary between divisional,corps and field army responsibilities was
34、 to some extent fixed by the time-lags and bottlenecks in information management imposed by technology.Tactical commanders needed decisions to be made quickly,and there was a limit to how many units a headquarters could simultaneously manage.The corps was an indispensable echelon of the major campai
35、gns in the Second World War.When the British began their counterattack at El Alamein,XXX Corps was the lead tactical formation,fighting alongside X Corps,10 although it was in some respects the weakness of the corps echelon 6.Logistics has always been central to the capacity of armies to fight,but t
36、he volume of constant consumables as a prerequisite for mobility significantly increased the importance of secure lines of communication,and made interdiction an operationally significant mission.See,for example,Alan J Levine,The War Against Rommels Supply Lines,1942-1943(New York,NY:Praeger,1999).L
37、ogistics operations today are often larger than combat arms.See John J McGrath,The Other End of the Spear:The Tooth-to-Tail Ratio(T3R)in Modern Military Operations(Fort Leavenworth,KS:Combat Studies Institute Press,2007).7.A lack of situational awareness is a common cause of paralysis.For a famous e
38、xample,consider Syrian forces during the 1973 Yom Kippur War,who halted after breaking through Israeli forces on the southern Golan Heights because they expected there to be an ambush ahead,though no ambush was in fact prepared.See War with Gwynne Dyer,Part Three:The Profession of Arms(1983),24 June
39、 2013,15:00,accessed 17 August 2020.8.This only really became possible as the division replaced the corps as the level at which arms were combined,which in the US occurred towards the end of the 19th century.See John B Wilson,Maneuver and Firepower:The Evolution of Divisions and Separate Brigades(Wa
40、shington,DC:Center of Military History,US Army,1998),pp.2325.9.The operational level of war is not uniformly defined.Originally a Russian concept,it came to refer to the allocation of resources between theatres.Today,however,it tends to refer to the apportionment of resource to operations,as distinc
41、t from the use of those resources by tactical units to carry out operations.The corps sits simultaneously as a tactical formation,directly fighting the deep battle,and an operational formation,apportioning resources to its divisional lines of effort.In many contexts today,it will also be the highest
42、 echelon in theatre,directly interfacing with the strategic level,though this is not the case in a NATO Article 5 scenario.See Daniel Sukman,The Institutional Level of War,Strategy Bridge,5 May 2016.10.John Sadler,El Alamein:The Story of the Battle in the Words of the Soldiers(Stroud:Amberley,2012),
43、p.74.Watling and MacFarland3at this stage that curtailed the limits of Montgomerys exploitation of Rommels defeat.11 In the invasion of Italy,the US V Army and UK 8th Army punched their corps up either side of the spine of Italy.12 In Operation Market Garden,the two tactical formations comprised I A
44、irborne Corps and XXX Corps,though the former disintegrated as a command echelon after it was dropped into action,with the lack of coordination of parachute forces proving one of the major causes of failure.13 By contrast,the Allied victory during the Battle of the Bulge was achieved in no small par
45、t because of the responsive redeployment of forces by US corps commanders.14 There were,of course,many other examples,but the important point is that in practice,while army commanders set objectives and apportioned resources for operations,the detailed planning and coordination of tactical actions c
46、entred on corps headquarters.15 The corps would remain a central warfighting echelon during the Korean War16 and throughout the Cold War,though it proved less suitable for dispersed counterinsurgency campaigns.Optimised for fighting the Soviet Union,the corps system demonstrated its combat power aga
47、inst Iraq in 1991.17 Since the end of the Cold War,however,armies have shrunk across NATO.18 The need to conduct a wide range of small but persistent operations saw the creation of mission-specific task forces,and eventually the restructuring of armies.In the US,this manifested itself in the Brigade
48、 Combat Team(BCT),which pulled assets from the division,enabling smaller force packages to self sustain.19 In this context,divisional headquarters became the operational echelon,managing the rotation of their BCTs into and 11.Glyn Harper,The Battle for North Africa:El Alamein and the Turning Point f
49、or World War II(Bloomington,IN:Indiana University Press,2017),p.238.12.Richard Doherty,Victory in Italy,15th Army Groups Final Campaign 1945(Barnsley:Pen and Sword,2014);Ian Blackwell,Fifth Army in Italy,1943-1945:A Coalition at War(Barnsley:Pen and Sword,2012);Richard Doherty,Eighth Army in Italy,1
50、943-45:The Long Hard Slog(Barnsley:Pen and Sword,2007).13.Antony Beevor,Arnhem:The Battle for the Bridges,1944(London:Penguin,2018),pp.2364.14.Harold Winton,Corps Commanders of the Bulge:Six American Generals and Victory in the Ardennes(Lawrence,KS:University Press of Kansas,2007).15.Douglas E Delan
