C2 for the European Theatre

NATO allies have relied on US concepts of command and control – as well as US military commanders – for decades. Prior to 1939, European military forces each had largely identifiable, individual command and control philosophies, processes and systems that could be traced to unique blends of experiences, lessons, and national cultures. From 1944, approaches to European C2 began to coalesce: largely driven by experiences in combined warfighting, the need to harmonize command processes and procedures was evident at both tactical to higher strategic levels of warfighting.

After World War II and throughout the Cold War, European militaries became increasingly enamored by US C2 doctrine: individual national approaches to command (and control) faded over time and eventually disappeared by the 1990s. Facing a known threat actor (the USSR), NATO forces standardized as much as possible in the drive for effectiveness and efficiency. Yet this was a European perspective. For those European forces that operated with Pacific facing US forces, C2 was very different. In the Persian Gulf, for example, the US Fifth Fleet exercised command and control in very different ways to those experienced in the Atlantic or Mediterranean. For many, this was a shock to experience but also a stark reminder of the scale and differentiation across the US military force structure.

The US has an impressive history of establishing C2 mechanisms appropriate for the context of the fight (the mission, the adversary, the ground/terrain, the spectrum, the deployed force, which Allies, and the personalities involved, are key considerations but with differing levels of importance between theatres of operation). In Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Kuwait, the Balkans, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan (amongst others), bespoke C2 arrangements were evident. But these were not standardized, fixed or rigid. Each campaign that the US has entered into as leader has been characterised (in C2 terms) by an agility and flexibility of approach to command and control. The emergence since 2020 of a singular doctrine of Multi Domain Operations (MDO) – a homogenous C2 concept for all theatres and all wars – has been an aberration from this flexibility and agility: the ability to invent, innovate and adapt for the context-specific war is increasingly being written out of their doctrine.*

As European militaries (and their political leaders) struggle to (finally) adjust to the shift in US priorities and commitments, there is a danger that C2 falls by the wayside. Establishing the right C2 philosophy and mechanisms for a European theatre against a specifically Russian enemy will require a departure from slavish adherence to new US models of C2, which are being constructed with a mind on the Pacific theatre and the PLA forces of the CCP in particular.

The Pacific is characterised by huge geographic distances, a series of bilateral military relationships with key allies (rather than a co-operative coalition), a lack of sovereign basing and permissions, a requirement to fight from the sea, an adversary who has overmatch in terms of people, hulls, weapons, and mass, and whose influence on key regional actors is considerable in economic, informational and diplomatic terms. Even during campaigns against the Imperial Japanese enemy of WW2, command and control approaches in the Pacific were remarkably different to those in Europe.

The European theatre could be characterised as a land dominated fight: air power not simply superimposed over the top, but having become the critical element for NATO forces to deliver equalising force in combat.

Differences between Pacific and European theatres are evident in the need to fight in different ways, with a different balance of forces. Differences also exist in resupplying options and opportunities, resilience levels, weather and climate demands, EM spectrum organisation, and the differing importance of long-range strike, recce, power, logistics, medical, CIMIC, riverine and engineering skills. People play a critical role in both theatres, just as manufacturing capabilities, resources and distance are most significant in each theatre, but they have varying importance. These differences dictate a requirement for different C2 structures and philosophies. There is ample evidence of what works in Europe – both historically and in a contemporary context – the question is whether Europeans are smart enough to recognise this and adapt accordingly.

The slavish adherence to US military C2 models is not going to be good enough over the coming decade: command and control in the Pacific for US forces will be marked different to that needed in Europe. Continuing to blindly follow US doctrine would not only be intellectually lazy, it will endanger national, regional and global security. A failure to recognise and break with US thinking on C2 to build structures and systems specifically aligned to Europe and a fight against Russian forces will mean the needless death of our soldiers and the destruction of military forces, but will also have an enormous impact on our societies, freedoms, and way of life.

It is a travesty that few European military leaders – or their political masters – appear to be fit-for-task in meeting this challenge.

* It is worth noting that there continue to be various interpretations of and mechanisms for MDO across the US military, both by service, by domain, and by component and combatant commands. The USMC is particularly cynical about MDO: as the service that has historically led in thinking about C2, this is significant.