Ladies and Gentlemen,
We are here to say goodbye to General Joseph
Ralston, to recognize his excellent service to our Alliance, and to
welcome General James Jones as the new Supreme
Allied Commander Europe.
General Ralston, Joe,
....Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, you have
demonstrated real leadership in helping NATO and Allied militaries transform to meet
the needs of the modern security environment. By playing critical roles in
defining a ground-breaking military concept for the defense against
terrorism, to focusing SHAPE on the
threats from weapons of mass destruction or cyber attack, your tenure has
helped retool the Alliance.
The same applies to reform of the Alliance’s
command structure. Thanks in no small part to your strong
commitment, and your wise counsel, we have done more in six months than
the previous reform process did in six years.
As we have adapted our structures, you have also helped lead a major
effort to transform our
military capabilities. You have really stuck your neck out
on this issue, and I want to thank you for this personal engagement.
Without it, we would not have achieved such a worthwhile capabilities
package at Prague.
You have demonstrated similar strong leadership in preparing NATO for
another round of enlargement and in helping to turn the concept of a
Euro-Atlantic community into reality. Your determination to bring the
Partners as close as possible to the Alliance, at SHAPE and in
the field, has helped them make ever-stronger contributions to our common
security.
Finally, let me mention Russia, because you have worked particularly
hard to bring this key country closer to the Alliance. By engaging
personally, you sent a strong signal of our commitment to working with
Russia. You can take great credit for the way in which we have been able
to deepen and broaden our cooperation with Russia over the past year.
The Alliance has transformed dramatically and continues to do so. When
you took up your post three years ago, who could have thought that SHAPE would host the force generation conference
for the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul and that the
Alliance would assume a role in supporting military operations in
Afghanistan? Yet that is what we have been preparing
for, benefiting from your experience during the last few months
when you were in charge. And now that the Alliance should confront threats to
our security from wherever they may come, who knows what else the future
holds?
http://www.nato.int/docu/speech/2003/s030117a.htm
Unified Command Plan (UCP) http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/unifiedcommand/
Supreme Headquarters
Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE)
NATO Response Force (NRF) The NRF is
designed to be a robust, high readiness, fully trained and certified force
that is prepared to tackle the full spectrum of missions, including
force.
- The
force will have an initial operational capability by 15 October 2003.
When final operating capability is reached by the fall of 2006, its troop size will be set at 21,000
NATO chiefs in secret WMD exercise
The Australian
NATO defense chiefs took part in an unusual secret
exercise in Colorado yesterday to test the alliance's military responses
in a fictional fast-moving crisis involving terrorists and weapons of mass
destruction
NATO Conducts Rapid-Reaction War
Game
Washington Post
NATO has decided to mount a new "NATO Response Force,"
composed of about 20,000 personnel, that can respond instantly to
"asymmetric" threats -- in which the enemy is not a national army but a
small, loosely organized guerrilla or terrorist
force.
The transformation of Donald
Rumsfeld
Asia Times
The man who is arguably the father of the notion of military
transformation, United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,
appears to be undergoing his own sort of personal metamorphosis in
response to the changing realities of global events involving the United
States. In fact, he is undergoing this transformation unabashedly, even
with
gusto.
"We cannot transform our
military using old weapons and old plans. Nor can we do it with an old
mindset that frustrates the creativity and entrepreneurship that a 21st
Century military will need."
- G.W. Bush,
May 25, 2001, during commencement exercises at the Naval
Academy
"As we
transform our military, we can discard Cold War relics and reduce our own
nuclear forces to reflect today's needs."
- G.W.
Bush, February 27,
2001
"Coming on the heels of
our victory in Afghanistan, Operation Iraqi Freedom is proof positive of
the success of our efforts to transform our military to meet the
challenges of the 21st century."
- Vice President Dick
Cheney, May 1, 2003, remarks to the Heritage Foundation
"We must ensure that the
United States military has the training, the equipment, and the facilities
they require to remain the greatest fighting force the world has ever
known, both in times of war and peace...And we must use these valuable
assets to maintain our status as the world’s lone superpower, as we
transform our military to face the challenges of the
future."
- Senator
John Cornyn (R. Tex.), May 1, 2003, Senate
floor statement
"The longer we
wait to transform our military for the new world of high-tech,
unconventional, asymmetrical warfare, the more it will cost us down the
road, in both dollars and dangers."
- Senator Joe
Lieberman, March 7, 2002
"What's required in the
long term – as we spend whatever is necessary on quick fixes, like airport
security – is to transform our military's Cold War
strategy."
- Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
(USN, ret.), September 20, 2001, former commander of the US second
fleet
"We also share a sense
of urgency for the need to transform our military forces to meet the
challenges of the 21st Century."
- Sen. Mary
L. Landrieu (D-La.), February 21, 2001, in a
letter to G.W. Bush
"As we move into the
21st Century and face the unique security context of the post-Cold War
era, our challenge is to continually transform our military force so that
it can effectively respond to an ever-evolving variety of
threats."
- Senator Tom Daschle (D. S.Dakota)
"We will
transform our military into a more agile, more versatile, more jointly
integrated force that will take full advantage of technological
gains."
- Former Vice President Al Gore, Sept.
12, 2000
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Quotes_of_the_Imperium/message/178
Office of Force Transformation
"U.S. Joint Forces
Command will transfer its geographic area of responsibility to the
Northern and European commands. Joint Forces Command will then change from
being a combatant command with geographic and functional responsibilities
to a functional combatant command to carry out, as the secretary said, the
critical missions of transformation, joint experimentation, and joint
training."
- Gen.
Richard Myers, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Wednesday, April 17, 2002, United States Department of Defense News
Briefing
Remarks by NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson
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