The Transformation of the System of NATO’s Conventional Forces Groupings

Introduction. The deterrence by Western democracies of key opponents, first of all Russia, includes the rapid and scaled increase of NATO’s power. The basis of the Alliance’s potential consists of a modernized and strengthened system of military groupings. Methods and materials. In some scientific papers, there was a perception of NATO as more inertial than the EU. But the contemporary evolution of the Alliance is rather dynamic. The goal of the article is to explore the transformation of conventional NATO’s groupings using the theory of armed forces building. The author explores the conceptual level of NATO’s development, but key attention is paid to the practical one. Analysis and results. The elder system of NATO’s military groupings during the former Cold War had as the key element the 1st strategic echelon of troops with its, in fact, unadvanced multilateralism of forces. Since the 2000s, a new system of military groupings has been established. It consists of the Forward Presence Force as the vanguards of the more powerful NATO Response Force (NRF), which was the 2nd strategic echelon of troops. The article explores qualitative and quantitative changes in the military groupings in 2014–2023 in the context of confrontation with the Russian Federation, and the creation of the New NATO Force Model on the basis of NRF (since 2022). The system of NATO’s military groupings of the 21st century is organizationally an example of already advanced multilateralism. Conclusion. The evolution of NATO’s groupings has confirmed the role of the Alliance as an actor in the development of confrontations. The new system of military groupings, developed in 2014–2023, should be more powerful than the one during the former Cold War. The author stresses the regularity of the modernization of the conventional groupings of NATO.