In early 2012, the NATO’s Secretary-General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, unveiled what he terms the Connected Forces Initiative (CFI), an effort designed to increase allied interoperability. Through three lines of effort – training and education, exercises, and better use of technology – the CFI should help the alliance maintain the tremendous level of operational and tactical interoperability it has recently developed. As defense austerity continues, it is unclear whether NATO allies will have the ability or willingness to maintain interoperability, even if the alliance bureaucracy pursues this objective to its utmost. Rasmussen’s effort to emphasize and implement the CFI therefore provides a useful case study for the claims of some neo-institutionalist scholars that there is evidence of a shift in the locus of governance from member states to NATO. This paper will shed light on the debate over whether and to what degree NATO retains a state-centric decision-making structure.
