Coalition interoperability: ABCA's new focus

Military Review, Nov-Dec, 2006 by Richard A. Cody, Robert L. Maginnis

THE U.S. ARMY is simultaneously transforming and fighting the Global War on Terrorism alongside foreign partners who are also transforming and aggressively working to advance battlefield interoperability. One of the best venues for that important work is the re-energized 60-year-old umbrella organization known as the ABCA Armies' Program--America, Britain, Canada, Australia, and most recently New Zealand, which became a member in 2006. Although not a formal alliance, ABCA has become an interoperability standard-bearer focused on the challenges associated with our current operating environment.

Professional Army leaders need to understand ABCA, its rich history, its transformation, and what it is doing to enhance global coalition readiness.

History

ABCA evolved from a World War II coalition, a security relationship between the United States and her Anglo-Saxon allies based on a common culture, historical experience, and language. (1) The ABCA Armies' Program was seeded in 1946 when British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery recommended to U.S. Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower that America, Britain, and Canada should "cooperate closely in all defense matters." Added Montgomery, "Discussions should deal not only with standardization, but should cover the whole field of cooperation and combined action in the event of war." (2) Later that year, the British Government concluded that these three countries should consider the feasibility of standardizing the weapons, tactics, and training of their armed forces. (3)

The 1947 "Plan to Effect Standardization" agreement led to ABCA's standardization program among the American, British, and Canadian armies. Its aim was to remove doctrinal and materiel obstacles to complete cooperation. (4)

The 1954 and 1964 Basic Standardization Agreements replaced the 1947 Plan. The 1964 Agreement remains in effect today; however, a new memorandum of understanding to improve cooperation and program effectiveness is expected to be finalized by 2007.

The 1964 Agreement states that the program's aim is to "ensure the fullest cooperation and collaboration" and "to achieve the highest possible degree of interoperability among the signatory armies through materiel and non-materiel standardization." (5)

Not surprisingly, given the peculiar nature of multinational arrangements, standardization and interoperability have been hit-and-miss among the ABCA armies. Historically, the program's success was measured by the production of cold war-era tactical standards and pamphlets and hosted seminars or exercises.

ABCA Transforms

In June 2002, the ABCA Executive Council--composed of four-star-level generals---concluded that the new conditions and circumstances of our rapidly changing strategic and operational environments had outstripped the program's culture, structure, procedures, and practices. It was time to revitalize the organization and respond to new global security requirements.

A special working party identified four distinct phases of work: strategic assessment; vision, mission, and enduring goals; prioritization of efforts; and business practices. The group examined the international security environment and concluded that "the extensive range of threats requires ABCA armies to address those areas where it can achieve significant advances in interoperability ... rather than allocating scarce resources to an expansive range of areas that may only achieve minimal outcomes." (6)

Focusing the program's limited resources on a smaller universe of advances in interoperability gave direction to the team's work on a new vision, mission, and goals. The new vision statement is much shorter than the old one. It focuses like a laser on the effective integration of the armies' capabilities in a joint environment. The new mission seeks to optimize interoperability through collaboration and standardization. The goals are ambitious: relevance and responsiveness; standardization, integration and interoperability; mutual understanding; sharing knowledge; and efficiency and effectiveness.

ABCA's new goal to be relevant and responsive was tested in late 2002, when the organization became an integral and critical part of coalition war planning. ABCA assembled a cadre of urban operations experts to draft coalition procedures before the coalition's armies entered combat in Iraq. These procedures became a chapter in ABCA's Coalition Operations Handbook. (7) The handbook has proven to be a valuable document. In addition to urban operations, it addresses such topics as forming effective coalitions, logistics, communications, and full-spectrum operations. In 2004, NATO used the handbook as the base document to produce the NATO Handbook for Coalition Operations. (8) The U.S. Army's Battle Command Training Program has used the ABCA handbook for mission-rehearsal exercises to prepare units for deployments to Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

The special working party took its cue from the narrowed mission and vision to define the program's new priority efforts as well. The new priorities include the contemporary operating environment and emerging threats, transformation and modernization, joint interagency multinational operations, capability integration, knowledge exploitation, and ABCA products. These priorities support the U.S. Army's transformation strategy, focus on the war on terrorism, and recognize that closing capability gaps among coalition members will provide armies needed punch.