Ce qu’a été cette campagne
Agreed at Madrid in June 2022 and completed on 1 July 2024, the Force Model replaced rotational force generation with a larger pool of high-readiness forces that can be pre-assigned to specific plans. The Allied Reaction Force, agreed at Vilnius, launched the same day as its agile complement.
Pre-assignment to plans is the change that reorganised everything downstream of it. Forces earmarked for a specific regional plan have to be able to reach it, which is why military mobility, host-nation support and sustainment became this module's binding constraints in the same period — and why the module treats reinforcement depth as an arena in its own right.
Confiance : élevée Au 2026-09Revu le 2026-09-21
Synthèse
At the Madrid Summit in June 2022 Allies agreed a new NATO Force Model including more troops at high readiness and further measures to improve the Alliance's ability to reinforce Allies in the east. NATO describes the model as providing a larger pool of high-readiness forces which can be pre-assigned to specific plans for the defence of Allies. At Vilnius in July 2023 Leaders approved a new generation of regional defence plans and agreed to establish a new high-readiness, multinational and multi-domain Allied Reaction Force as part of the model. The transition was completed on 1 July 2024, fully replacing the NATO Response Force, and the Allied Reaction Force launched on the same date. NATO's own framing of why both are needed is that the security environment requires large, massed units prepared for territorial deterrence and defence as well as a smaller, agile force for crisis management.
Objectifs déclarés
Ce que disent les participants. Chaque entrée cite où la position a été exprimée ; Vigil consigne qu’elle a été exprimée, non qu’elle est vraie.
To provide a larger pool of high-readiness forces which can be pre-assigned to specific plans for the defence of Allies, alongside a smaller agile force for crisis management and out-of-area operations.
NATO's own description, on the topic page recording the NRF's replacement.
Objectifs évalués
La lecture de Vigil, assortie d’un degré de confiance. Tenue structurellement à l’écart des positions déclarées, afin qu’une évaluation ne puisse jamais être publiée comme l’objectif déclaré de quelqu’un.
The model's effect on this module is indirect but decisive: it moves the question from force generation, which the Alliance can decide, to force movement and sustainment, which depend on infrastructure and host-state capacity that no summit decision can create quickly.
Forces principales
- Allied Command Operations Force principale · Confiance : élevée · au 2025-04-03
NATO states that the Vilnius plans ensure SACEUR has the necessary forces to defend NATO territory in crisis or conflict.
Soutiens et acteurs extérieurs
- Allied Joint Support and Enabling Command Supporting force · Confidence: Moderate · as of 2026-09-21
The enabling command sits in this module's Force Atlas because reinforcement is what the model assumes; no source assigns it a defined role within the model itself, and none is asserted.
Agreed at Madrid
Allies agree a new force model with more troops at high readiness and measures to improve reinforcement of Allies in the east.
Plans and the reaction force
Vilnius approves a new generation of regional defence plans and agrees to establish the Allied Reaction Force as part of the model.
En vigueur
The transition completes, the NATO Response Force is fully replaced and the Allied Reaction Force launches.
Issue et situation actuelle
In force since 1 July 2024 and the readiness architecture the module's current phase runs on. What it has produced in this theatre is not visible as new formations but as a changed requirement: forces assigned to plans that assume movement across the reinforcement depth this module maps.
Adaptations observées
The Alliance kept both halves of the old concept rather than choosing: the massed, plan-assigned pool answers territorial defence and the Allied Reaction Force answers crisis response, which is the same division of labour NATO articulated when the NRF was created in 2002.
Implications politiques
The Hague commitment to five per cent of GDP by 2035, in two components, is the resourcing side of the same decision: the second component is what allows infrastructure and resilience spending to count.
Implications militaires
Pre-assignment converts a force-generation problem into a movement and sustainment problem, and moves the risk from whether forces exist to whether they arrive.
Implications économiques
Sustaining pre-assigned forces implies munitions and equipment stocks that the module's industrial layer is not yet built to describe; that work belongs to a later phase and is not anticipated here.
Événements liés
Lieux
Lieux que ce module publie déjà comme repères cartographiques, listés parce que la campagne les concerne. Pas une zone d’opérations.
Ce qui reste inconnu
- Tier sizes, force totals, readiness figures and unit assignments are not published and are not carried here in any form.
- Which forces are pre-assigned to which regional plan is not published, and NATO publishes no mapping of commands to plans either.
- No implementation milestone after 1 July 2024 was established by this pass.
Lectures que les éléments permettent aussi
- The model can be read as a genuine structural change in how NATO holds forces ready, or as a relabelling of national readiness commitments that already existed. The public record establishes the framework and the dates; it does not establish which reading is right, and this module does not choose between them.
Figure ici parce que l’évaluation propre à la fiche n’est pas la seule que ses sources permettent — et non comme une réserve sur l’évaluation ci-dessus.
Si des jalons de mise en œuvre sont publiés
NATO has published the transition dates and the concept. It has not published what proportion of the pool is assigned, or to what, and no milestone series exists to follow.
Si la mobilité suit le rythme des affectations
The model's assumption is that assigned forces can move. The infrastructure that would carry them is the subject of this module's logistics records and is not yet complete.
Questions Watch que cette campagne concerne
Questions analytiques permanentes dont les éléments passent par cette campagne, chacune avec sa dernière revue. Dérivées de l’objet Watch, jamais reformulées ici.
Voir dans Explorer la force qui conduit cette campagne Interactif : sélectionnez cette fiche et suivez ce qui s’y rattache.
Évalué au — 2026-09 Dernière revue — 2026-09-21