U.S. Air and Ground Conventional Forces for NATO: Overview
U.S. Air and Ground Conventional Forces for NATO: Overview

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Published: 1978

Total Pages: 57

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As the Congress makes decisions on targets for the First Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 1979, the appropriate size of the defense budget will be one of the most important issues. The principal role of a large part of the U.S. air and ground forces is to participate with U.S. allies in a defense of NATO Europe. Therefore, judgments about the requirements for that defense and the appropriate role of the United States in it will underlie Congressional budget decisions. The series of papers on U.S. forces for NATO of which this is a part is intended to lay out the current U.S. role in NATO's defense, to relate the U.S. role to the contributions of the various NATO allies, and to present a set of alternative defense programs corresponding to different conceptions of appropriate changes in the U.S. role. The other papers in this series deal at greater length with issues in the areas of firepower, air defense, and logistics. A companion piece, "Assessing the NATO/Warsaw Pact Military Balance," was published in December 1977. The series was undertaken at the request of the Senate Budget Committee.

U.S. Air and Ground Conventional Forces for NATO
U.S. Air and Ground Conventional Forces for NATO

Author: Sheila Kean Fifer

Publisher:

Published: 1978

Total Pages: 43

ISBN-13:

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As the Congress makes decisions on targets for the First Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 1979, the appropriate size of the defense budget will be one of the most important issues. The principal role of a large part of the U.S. air and ground forces is to participate with U.S. allies in a defense of NATO Europe. Therefore, judgments about the requirements for that defense and the appropriate role of the United States in it will underlie Congressional budget decisions. The series of papers on U.S. forces for NATO of which this is a part is intended to lay out the current U.S. role in NATO's defense, to relate the U.S. role to the contributions of the various NATO allies, and to present a set of alternative defense programs corresponding to different conceptions of appropriate changes in the U.S. role. The other papers in this series deal at greater length with issues in the areas of firepower, air defense, and logistics. A companion piece, "Assessing the NATO/Warsaw Pact Military Balance," was published in December 1977. The series was undertaken at the request of the Senate Budget Committee.

U.S. Air and Ground Conventional Forces for NATO: Mobility and Logistics Issues
U.S. Air and Ground Conventional Forces for NATO: Mobility and Logistics Issues

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Publisher:

Published: 1978

Total Pages: 47

ISBN-13:

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The defense budget that the Congress will be considering in fiscal year 1979 places a strong emphasis on improving U.S. conventional forces for NATO. U.S. decisions concerning air and ground conventional forces for NATO are, however, tied closely to, and must be assessed in terms of, the capabilities of our NATO allies. This paper outlines the increasing importance of mobility and logistics in NATO defense. It compares U.S. and allied capabilities in those areas and presents options regarding U.S. decisions on logistics and mobility. The paper is part of a CBO series on the U.S. military role in NATO. Other papers in this series are U.S. Air and Ground Conventional Forces for NATO: Overview (January 1978), Assessing the NATO/Warsaw Pact Military Balance (December 1977), and two forthcoming background papers, Air Defense Issues and Firepower Issues. This series was under taken at the request of the Senate Budget Committee. In accordance with CBO's mandate to provide objective analysis, the study offers no recommendations.

Conventional Forces for NATO
Conventional Forces for NATO

Author: Benjamin S. Lambeth

Publisher:

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 44

ISBN-13:

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"This paper reviews the status of U.S. conventional forces committed to NATO. It highlights recent developments in the Soviet threat; examines the main trends in general purpose force deployment and combat capability; considers the intra-alliance political backdrop against which these trends must be evaluated; and indicates some of the key questions for future debate. The author suggests that unless NATO is content to retain a strategy that would assure either nuclear war or military defeat if deterrence fails, it will have to link its emerging conventional capabilities to an explicitly counteroffensive doctrine so as to raise the nuclear threshold to a more tolerable level without making a conventional war more likely in the process."--Rand abstracts.

U.S. Air and Ground Conventional Forces for NATO: Firepower Issues
U.S. Air and Ground Conventional Forces for NATO: Firepower Issues

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Published: 1978

Total Pages: 57

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U.S. air and ground conventional firepower assets are procured mainly for the defense of NATO. Decisions concerning these weapons over the next five years will help shape the roles that U.S. forces play in NATO defenses. "Firepower," as used here, refers to the capability of conventional air and ground forces to deliver heavy ordnance and explosives against enemy forces near the forward edge of the battle area (the front). The primary function of U.S. conventional ground and tactical air forces in NATO is to defend West Germany. In this context, U.S. forces play three roles: * The equivalent of five U.S. divisions and their support, based in Europe, defend two of the nine sectors of the NATO Central Front in West Germany (see Figure 1 in Chapter III). * U.S. forces can assist the allies in defending other sectors of the front. As a practical matter, European based U.S. tactical aircraft can respond most rapidly to Pact attacks against allied ground forces. * U.S. forces based outside Western Europe can reinforce U.S. and allied forces in Europe. These reinforcements enable the alliance to respond to an attack too large to be stopped by the forces available in Europe and to sustain combat there until completion of a full NATO mobilization for war. How effective the United States would be in these roles depends critically on the capabilities of the NATO allies as well as on those of the Warsaw Pact. Significant differences in firepower may remain between the United States and two major allied forces in NATO's Central Region, West Germany and Great Britain. These differences could be important in the event of conflict. The purpose of this paper is to illuminate choices facing the Congress in the fiscal years 1979-1983 defense program by examining a range of U.S. firepower procurement decisions in light of available information on NATO's current firepower assets and planned allied force improvements.