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<TITLE>Dep. SACEUR General Sir Jeremy Mackenzie ...Enabling Operation Joint
Endeavour: An Overview</TITLE>
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<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+4">Enabling Operation Joint Endeavour:</FONT></CENTER>
<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+4">An Overview</FONT></CENTER>
<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+3">Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Sir
Jeremy Mackenzie</FONT></CENTER>
<P>I would like to describe some of the work that enabled SACEUR to say "Let's
go!" with some certainty to the North Atlantic Council at the end of
last year, and that enabled the forces to actually go. </P>
<P>I will touch on four issues. The first <I>tight timelines</I>--the fact
that politicians may spend a long time making up their minds, but once
they do, they expect you to be there tomorrow. The second point is <I>force
enabling</I>--a concept of logistics and command-and-control arrangements
that was needed to permit us to flow forces into Bosnia-Herzegovina. My
third point is <I>force generation</I>--how we actually generated a force
of 52,000 people from 34 nations and moved them into Bosnia-Herzegovina
within a very tight timeline. My final point is <I>force balancing</I>--how
we balanced such a force and made sure its members got to the places we
wanted them to go. </P>
<CENTER><B><FONT SIZE="+1">TIGHT TIMELINES</FONT></B></CENTER>
<P>The North Atlantic Council allowed us to start formal planning for the
Bosnia operation on the 11th of October, and we deployed the force on the
20th of December. Therefore, we had two months in which to get organized,
generate the force, make sure it would go to the right places, and
actually get it there. </P>
<P>The process involved some good luck. First, there was an ongoing U.N.
operation, and many of the forces that we needed were already in place.
Second, we had already put a great deal of hard work, particularly in the
North Atlantic Council, into a plan for the withdrawal of United Nations
forces--Plan 40104. Many of the details (the rules of engagement, the
command-and-control structure) had been hammered out. Thus we were able to
roll those details over to the new plan, called 10405, Joint Endeavour.
Much time was saved by capturing the work that had already been done in
the Council and merely applying it to the new plan, even though the new
plan was completely different--it was not to extract people but to put a
large force in. So despite the tight timelines, and with strong running
instructions from the Supreme Commander that included "I want it
there in 60 days;" "Leave on the 20th of December;" and "By
the 18th of February, we want the whole force in," we were able to do
it--even in winter, in a country with no usable ports of any scale, no
road structure worth talking about, airports that could not be used, and
the need to cross a river that was reconnoitered as 300 meters wide but
was actually a kilometer and a half wide. These were the challenges we had
to overcome. </P>
<CENTER><B><FONT SIZE="+1">FORCE ENABLING AND FORCE GENERATION</FONT></B></CENTER>
<P>How did we do it? First, we began by asking, "What do we need?"
After speaking to the commanders on the ground and using a broad rule of
thumb, we determined that we needed three sectors. Each would be commanded
by a two-star commander, and would have approximately three brigades.
There would be a four-star headquarters, and a commander for support--a
logistics guru who we decided would go at an early stage to Zagreb. On
that basis, and with support from the major nations who were clearly going
to participate (the United States, Britain, and France), we began to
develop a framework around a lead nation in each of the three sectors.
Then we bolted additional information onto our framework using a statement
of requirements (SOR). This SOR, which was generated by Admiral Smith's
IFOR Headquarters, spelled out precisely what he needed in order to
accomplish the task. The process of arranging for this material was
handled by a large committee, which I chaired, with a representative from
each nation that thought it might take part in the Bosnia operation. In
order to participate in our meetings, the nations had first made an offer
to the Secretary General by letter. Their letters were then given to the
Supreme Commander, and their representatives then took part in the
meetings at which we hashed out what the contributions would be. We sat
around a table and horse traded: Who would like to provide one MP platoon?
Hands up. As simple as that. Most representatives hedged: "We <I>might
</I>produce this. I will let you know." The generating process was
completed over a period of about two weeks. </P>
<P>After the conference, all the representatives went back to the Chiefs of
Defense in their countries and subsequently wrote formal statements to us
saying just what they proposed. Then we began the process of certification
of non-NATO forces, which was a unique approach. The Alliance had decided
that before any non-NATO country joined this IFOR operation, we needed to
take a look at their forces to make sure that we understood what they were
bringing. So we sent NATO teams as far away as Morocco and Egypt to
certify the contributions of the non-NATO nations. This was an important
first for us, because, in the past, when we had worked only with NATO
nations, we had simply climbed the Article V ladder and followed
procedures we understood. The IFOR certification was developed as we went
along, but it worked extremely well. </P>
<P>When the certification teams came back from their sites, they reported
what they found: "They're absolutely first-rate," or, "They
need this or that." Then we began to deal with the actual force
creation. The problems for most nations were funding and logistics. The
costs of keeping a force in Bosnia are enormous; it costs about $7 million
for one battalion. Knowing those costs made countries think hard about
what their contributions would actually be. </P>
<P>Logistics were difficult, since it was the responsibility of each
country to sustain its force in an inhospitable place. Many of the smaller
nations struck deals with one of the three major players in each
sector--France was particularly good at this--and that certainly helped
our process of integration. Today we have 18 non-NATO nations in IFOR, out
of a total of 34, with Albania, Bulgaria, and Saudi Arabia still in the
process of coming in. This is a very large coalition, but one that is very
tightly bound together, with lead nations running each sector. I think it
has been a very successful process. </P>
<CENTER><B><FONT SIZE="+1">FORCE BALANCING</FONT></B></CENTER>
<P>Balancing the force was actually much more difficult than we thought it
would be. We thought that we would get a large pool of contributions and
be able to share them as we would like from SHAPE. In fact, nearly every
contribution came with a string: "I would like to send a battalion,
and oh, by the way, I want it to operate in that place, not there."
Such offers presented quite a challenge. Consequently, the force is
slightly out of balance today, but it certainly works perfectly well. </P>
<P><A HREF="Mackenzie.htm">Go to top of page</A> <BR><A HREF="Workshop96.htm">Return to Warsaw '96</A> <BR><A HREF="../index.html">Return to Home Page</A> </P>
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